That’s all I seem to be doing lately. Waiting for the next round of chemo. Waiting for Honey to come home and play with me. Waiting for my energy level to return in 20 minutes or so in order to get something else done. Waiting for someone to call or email or comment or just let me know they’re out there, waiting, like me.

I’m so freaking bored. I got out yesterday. I drove my sorry butt to Sister’s house to pick up something and then I drove to FedEx to send it out. That was very exciting. A whole four mile trip all by my lonesome. The shitty part was that by the time I got home (in fact, even before I left) I was in quite a bit of pain. When I got back, I ate some junk food for lunch, took a pain pill and then cross-stitched the rest of the afternoon. That doesn’t feel very productive. Hell, I don’t feel very productive.

I’ve run out of shows to watch on TV. My fingers started hurting from my furious bracelet-making endeavors last week so I’m taking a break from that. I also spent a whole day last week frantically shopping the internet for whatever tickled my fancy: a clock for our living room, new shoelaces for my Chucks, a replacement remote for my Bose-iPod speakers. That can get real expensive real quick, ya know? I probably shouldn’t be doing that too much. It’s nice enough outside today, I think I’ll take the dogs for a walk this afternoon.

Sooooooo…how bout a medical update for ya’ll?

I FedEx’ed my most recent CT scan to Dr. Curley at MD Anderson. He’s not really in charge of my care but he’s still an expert and I guess still invested and therefore should be in the loop (or so I am told). So I overnighted it to him and told him that my oncologist is presenting my case to her tumor board today in order to come up with a Next Step, New Strategy, Another Direction, since the tumor has neither shrunk nor grown in the past three months. I don’t expect anything new from Curley but he seemed interested in his email back to me and Honey.

In the meantime, I am dealing with night sweats. Ha ha. It’s all very funny that I am going through what has recently been called “Chemopause.” It’s menopause (supposedly not permanent) as a result of the chemotherapy drugs in my system. No period. No sex drive. Night sweats. Hot flashes. Moodiness. All the joys of menopause that we’ve either heard about or experienced. And I’m only 32. Joy.

Anyway, I asked Dr. Kane about it last week with regards to my lack-o-sex-drive and she said she she could put me on hormone replacement therapy, much like the birth control pill. Yuck. I don’t want to go back to the Pill. I asked her if that might make my cancer worse. She said she would test my tumor for blahblahblah….that’s when I zoned out.

So then I asked my message board of Young Empowered Survivors about the night sweats that are disturbing my sleep on a regular basis and they started spouting off all kinds of lingo like ER/PR HER yadda yadda. I asked for clarification and here’s what I have learned:

ER is Estrogen Receptor, PR is Progesterone Receptor, these two are your hormones, HER is Her2Neu Receptor, this has to do with what kind of cells your tumor is made up of, if your positive they are very aggressive, has something to do with protein amplification and overexpression. For example, I am ER/PR-, HER+, you probably already have your markers, just ask your Onc what you are. If they’ve ever mentioned Herceptin you’re HER+, if they talk a lot about hormones you’re one or both ER/PR+. There is also a thing called triple negative which means you don’t have any +.

Now, some of this my onc is already testing this week on the tissue samples she has from my tumor from November. The rest she has to test in my blood come next Friday when I return to her for more chemo. (MORE FREAKING WAITING!!!!!)

Last night I slept in my summer nightie, Honey turned down the temp on the thermostat before we went to bed and I cracked the window even though it was only 32 degrees outside. FINALLY, I was able to sleep through the night (not including potty breaks) without soaking my pillow! It felt great!

So that’s that.

Maybe I’ll drive myself to Target to buy toilet paper and more hair color (still trying to find that perfect shade of brown!). That would be very exciting for me! It sure as hell beats waiting around here for something to happen!