Karen’s completed two of the three treatments of her fifth round of chemo. The month break between cycle three and four allowed her to heal from some complications, but also seemed to reset her tolerance for the chemo, so she’s just now getting acclimated again.
Fortunately, things seem to have settled down a bit now in the fifth round, and the side effects are a bit more manageable. The first week of the cycle was still bad, but now that she’s in the second week, the after-chemo treatment sickness wore off in about two days. Some of the side effects of the chemo and the cancer don’t really go away, and it’s more of a baseline that we consider a good day. It’s never easy, but at least she has a few days this week without the worst of it.
One interesting thing that we’re watching is her hair. During her pause in chemo it started to grow back a little. We thought it would fall out again, but it still seems to be growing, if slowly. Karen refers to it as her “baby duck hair” because it is short and super soft. Only time will tell if it will continue to grow, but we’ll be sure to keep everybody posted, and maybe she’ll feel up to taking a picture for the blog.
I know we’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. We’re very grateful for all our great friends and family, and feel very fortunate for all the support and positive thoughts. Thank you!