Its treatment #3 this week for me. I’m in Vancouver today (Monday) undergoing my regular blood work this month. If my blood work is good then I will be doing chemo at 10:30am on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday (time to be determined). My mom will be joining me for the 3 days in the city.

I am a little nervous about this round. The reason being that we will be reintroducing the drug Bendamustine to my cocktail of drugs. The first round of chemo I was part of a clinical trial and I I took 3 drugs: Rituximab and Bendamustine along with the clinical trial drug. I had a major reaction – burning from the inside out. I stopped taking the clinical trial drug until my system was back to normal. They thought I had the reaction to Bendamustine, thus the reason they started me up on the clinical trial drug again last round. After taking one pill of the clinical trial I was back in the hospital with the same reaction. So, for round #2 my doctor only gave me Rituximab allowing my body to heal. For round #3 I will be taking Rituximab (again) and reintroducing Bendamustine on Tuesday and then on Wednesday another round of Bendamustine. I am praying that the drugs are easier on my system than they have been. I also hope that the anti-nausea pills are helpful and don’t make me as jittery & anxious as I was in July for round #1.

August was alot better for me than July. I actually don’t remember a lot of the month of July as I was in bed most of it and the anti-nausea medication made me jittery. In August I was able to get out of the house more and enjoy some of the lakes and visit with friends. My mom has been here visiting for a month and we have been able to enjoy the time together. I even went to Sunset in West Vancouver to to enjoy the ocean with my family and my sister’s family.

Thank you to everyone so much for your support. It really helps knowing I have so many people behind me cheering me on.