We said goodbye to Chloe this morning

I mentioned that she had chronic kidney disease and high blood pressure. She did pretty well the first week after she was diagnosed, although a lot of that probably had to do with the IV fluids they gave her. And initially she was all about eating the new special kidney food.

But that didn't last and by Wednesday this week, I could see that she'd dropped more weight. Since she really had nothing to lose, she looked like a bag of bones. And also on Wednesday she stopped eating her new wet food.

Now if you knew Chloe, then you'd know what a departure that was for her. That girl loved her canned food, it was the highlight of her day and she made sure we knew it was time to feed her, usually a couple of hours before it actually was time to feed her.

Then yesterday I realized she wasn't drinking either. Chloe has always loved going into the shower after I'm done and licking up the water on the floor. Only yesterday she just perched there, not drinking. And she would always come watch me fill up the cat water fountain every day and then drink up. Only she was watching but not drinking.

Honestly she was so lethargic last night that I wasn't sure she would make it through the night. Since we leave tomorrow for a family reunion, I knew we needed to do the right thing by her. I've always promised her that when it was time to go, I would be there with her and I would love her enough to make that decision.

Kent and I were with her. She was on my lap on the bright pink crocheted blanket that was always her favorite. The vet completely agreed with our assessment of where she was. In fact when he gave her the sedative to relax her before the second final injection and she didn't complain at all or even twitch, he said this was absolutely the right time and the right decision.

So she had that peaceful, painless death. We said our goodbyes, paid the bill and now we're seeing our old girl out of the corners of our eyes. I know it will be that way for a while.

Rest in peace, Chloe Kitty Cat (1999--2019).

Counting down

To the Plaza 10K race in September. This will be the first race since I fractured my pelvis last year. Thanks to my son, I've got a great training plan mapped out and I intend to follow every step of it.

I close my eyes

Wednesday I realized that I always close my eyes during my radiation treatments. So that day, I kept my eyes open.

I realized that closing my eyes was an almost instinctive thing, as though I were protecting my eyes. Which is silly for two reasons—first, the radiation isn’t aimed at my face. Second, even if it were, my eye lids wouldn’t keep it out anyway.

And yet I closed my eyes again yesterday and probably will for the remaining treatments.

I use the relative dark to feel my heartbeat and wait for the voice to tell me to “take a deep breath in and hold it.” I inhale through my nose (that’s the correct way for this deep inspirational breath) and expand my belly and rib cage up and out.

Then I count my heart beats as the machine makes a slight buzzing sound. I think that sound is on purpose, an auditory cue that yes, I’m getting radiated. I usually count to about 23 to 25, depending on my heart rate. The buzzing noise stops, the voice says “breath” and then the machine makes whirly noises as it’s moved to the second position. My eyes are still shut as I hear “take a deep breath and hold it” again, again I count my heart beats, listen to the buzzy noise until it stops, and I hear “breathe.” I exhale and open my eyes and that’s another day closer to being done with this part of my breast cancer treatment.

And my old girl has chronic kidney disease plus high blood pressure

Chloe’s been screaming for a few weeks now—I wouldn’t call it yowling, and it’s definitely not her normal, very insistent and highly annoying meows for the canned food at night. She will stop wherever she is and just start wailing. But she’s been eating, the canned food at least, and drinking and according to Kent the litter boxes remain full at their normal levels.

Friday, I worked from home and her screaming sessions had definitely increased. We’ll be going on vacation in a couple of weeks and I thought we better get her in to the vet sooner rather than later. So I called and they were able to see her right away, although I knew I wouldn’t be able to stick around until they were finished since I had to beat it to my radiation treatment. Fortunately, Kent works near the vet so he got her on his way home and I made it to radiation easy peasy.

Anyway, they took her blood pressure (first time I’ve seen that done, it was pretty neat), weighed her and oh my goodness, she’s lost three pounds. She’s down to five and a half pounds now; at her heaviest, she weighed 10 pounds. The vet said she suspected kidney disease and high blood pressure, and the blood work supported that.

So now Chloe’s got special (expensive) food—we’re going through the different flavor varieties to figure out which kind she likes the best. She’ll be the only one getting the special canned food, we can separate the boys from her for that. But all three will be on the special kibble, alas (for our wallets). And she’s on a drug for the high blood pressure.

She also had an irregular heart rhythm and the vet offered to have her go see a specialist, but I declined. She’s 20 now, I want to keep her comfortable and enjoying life, but we won’t be going to heroic levels to keep her alive at any cost. We did that with our poor kitty Sammie, and never again.

Nearly halfway through

I’ll have my 10th radiation treatment today. I learned earlier this week that the last five treatments are what’s called boosts. I’m not sure if I’m getting what’s described near the end of this page, or if it’s more like what’s described here. All I know for sure is that it will be once a day, and in a different room with a different machine and a different tech.

Speaking of techs, my current crew are great. They’re always upbeat and we end up laughing a lot as they get me all set up. Every day, I have to tell them my full name, my birthday and what's getting radiation. So I mix up the order, yesterday I used my full name (which sparked a discussion about maiden names as middle names), one time I told them my birthday and added in that it's still the day after Groundhog's Day, silly stuff like that. And every day I tell them that I did my darndest to wash off the Sharpie marks they draw on the tattoos (it’s true, I really do try) and every day they just laugh and draw them on again.

They told me after my second or third treatment that they really like having me at the end of the day because I’m upbeat. They get a lot of patients who are angry, and that’s hard for them. Personally, I’m cheering on the radiation because the whole point of these treatments is to kill any stray cancer cells in my breast.

Of course, the radiation is also killing good cells. That’s the downside for sure, well that and any damage to my heart, lungs or ribs that may occur. My skin is pinker now, no surprise there, and my nipple is sore. I tried to go without a bra one night last week (I have worn a bra 24x7 since the biopsy because it’s been too uncomfortable otherwise and I'm getting really tired of that). After an hour, I gave up because the chafing from my soft cotton t shirt was too much.

I’m getting slightly pink on my back. That also doesn’t surprise me. I’m pretty thin, especially on my torso, so I’m guessing the radiation is just passing on through. It’s not horrible, just stings like the most mild of sunburns.

And my left pectoral is getting tight. That too is pretty normal. When I saw the occupational specialist earlier this week for a lymphedema check, I mentioned it to her. She pointed out that all the cells are getting damaged which is why the pectoral gets tight.

Yesterday the fatigue hit pretty hard. I did a good challenging run yesterday morning, so I’d have been tired anyway. But this was different, it’s more like I ran out of gas. For someone like me who’s an energizer bunny, this is disconcerting even if it’s expected. I’m working from home today but not putting in my best work, that’s for sure.

I’ve also got compression sleeves on order. There’s a good chance I’ll need to go to the Philippines later this year and for flights over four hours, compression sleeves are recommended. They weren’t cheap (I went for patterns, not granny-style beige), but hopefully I’m easy on them and they last a long time.

Stress is

Seeing this in my email today.

This claim is for the biopsy on April 5. For whatever reason, St. Luke's forgot to get this pre-authorized or approved or whatever hoops they need to jump through. The bill is for over $16K.

I'm mostly confident this will be resolved in my favor but boy, talk about a gut clench. 

Much to my surprise

The skin on my left breast is a little flushed, and my breast is a little swollen and tender. Also that fourth tattoo stung for hours which I totally did not expect.

While none of this is tremendously uncomfortable (think annoying instead of PAIN), I figured I'd have days, maybe weeks before I noticed anything.

Edited to add that I get two zaps. The first day had a lot of practice zaps.

One down, 19 to go

This is from one of my dearest
lifelong friends. I took her
with me today.

Since today was the first radiation treatment, it was also the longest. The tech spent some time getting me acquainted with the order of operations so to speak. Going forward, most appointments will take far less time, although I will always see the radiology oncologist on Mondays.

But for today, I got the drill on what to do and what to expect. I got changed into a hospital gown; while I had to take off everything from the waist up, I kept my lower half clothed and my shoes on. I did take off my Garmin watch. I’m pretty sure radiation wouldn’t be beneficial to my watch.

I had three techs in the radiation room with me getting me and the machine ready.

First, we practiced that deep inspiration breathing, then they dragged the sheet I was lying on a tiny bit each way to get me just so on the table, then marked me up a bit more with markers and left the room. I think they do the extra marking because the tattoos are so very tiny—the marks they made are very easy to see. Then they did the radiation treatment. I think there were a total of six zaps. I had to hold my breath, and on a couple of them they told me to let out just a bit of air. Oh and at the end (yes, after that first radiation treatment), I got a fourth tattoo on my breast. The tech who gave it to me said it’s a centering measurement which cracked me up because it’s definitely not centered on anything.

After that, I had my blood pressure and pulse checked—I suspect those get checked after the treatment so if you were nervous about the radiation, you’d be over that part and wouldn't have artificially high blood pressure. That's also when I met with Dr. H, my radiology oncologist, and she had some interesting information for me.

Remember that pleural effusion I mentioned in my last blog post? Well she tracked down every film, CT and MRI of me, including one I’d forgotten about from 2005 and it turns out that I had two pleural effusions then! She suspects this is just what my body does. I wondered if that’s what’s behind the symptoms of reactive airway disorder I’ve had for years.

I’m curious to see what if any side effects I experience. I’m really hoping my skin does well, and that I don’t end up with the soul sucking fatigue so many experience.