The last almost six weeks have been all about recovering from LAR (Lower Anterior Resection) surgery and sneaking in whatever I can do to “pre-hab” and prep for chemo 2.0.

I’m not happy about doing more chemo. I’m cranky and I’m scared. More below.

 

Gym

I think I shared in a previous post that 13 days post-op I was walking on the treadmill at the gym. I was bored. I wanted to get out of the house. I figured walking on a treadmill where there were other people around, access to a bathroom, and somewhere to put my water would be safer than walking outside. I didn’t need the people or the bathroom—for an emergency—which was a big win. I kept going to the gym to walk on the treadmill and stretch until I was cleared to “do whatever movement feels good.”

Once that happened I started doing some strength training again—mostly lower body as my upper body got a little whack. (More on that in the PT section below.) Nothing crazy. Still kinda re-conditioning focused. It’s been awesome and I missed it so much. 

I did run into my trainer from the fall which was the BEST. So fun to be like, “Surprise! I’m here! I’ll be laying on the floor on a mat for the next 20 minutes if you wanna catch up!” which we did. We also did a quick InBody scan to see what changed since the last one—which was the day before my mastectomy, approximately 105 years ago.

I’ve included a photo of the results in this post. Seeing where I was before I knew any of this was about to happen, as I trained through the winter, logged where I ended (the day before my mastectomy), and where I am now is definitely, like, the weirdest journal entry ever. 

It’s also cool a.f.

Bottom line is: I lost a lot of muscle mass but still have more than the standard amount of lean mass in every area of my body that’s measured. This is insanity. And this time, it’s the kind of insanity I like.

You never know what you’re training for, folks.

 

PT

About two weeks post-op I started noticing some tingling in my hands and fingers when I extend my wrists and in my feet when I flex my ankles. I figured it was just nerve compression, so I did a bit more stretching, added some gentle foam rolling (is that a thing…?), and a little Theragun. But after about a week it hadn’t changed, so I called my PT.

I got in the next day and we—she—confirmed it’s likely just nerve compression. It doesn’t present as neuropathy, thank goodness, which can have a delayed onset after FOLFOX. So I got some clarification on stretches and was re-taught nerve glides—which I used to do in my old PT days for my neck and shoulder.

Speaking of my shoulder.

For the last couple months, my right shoulder has been bothering me again. It’s an old injury. This time the pain feels a little more localized inside the joint, and my PT and I are aware of—and slightly ignoring—the possibility that I might have a rotator cuff tear.

Love that. Love rotator cuff tears.

I thought I had one years and years ago, but imaging never confirmed it, so I just did PT a billion times and eventually it stopped bothering me. We’re wondering if losing muscle during treatment destabilized something—physically. We know it destabilized me mentally!—or if I’ve been compensating for everything my body has been through, and now it’s irritated again.

Fun.

I’ve reached out to my primary care physician to get the imaging process started. I mean, if you’re gonna have 57 MRIs in one year, what’s one more?

(I have not actually had 57 MRIs this year. I feel like this parenthetical is necessary because, given how this year has gone, 57 MRIs probably doesn’t sound that unreasonable.)

 

Acupuncture

I’ve been back in acupuncture, which I love love love. The focus has been mostly on my mental health (which has, again, become trash*), fortifying my body so I can recover from surgery and get through more chemo, and this last time, scar work! I asked my acupuncturist if there’s anything acupuncture can’t do. She said she didn’t think so.

*OK. My mental health is not trash. It’s roughly what you’d expect from someone who already had depression and anxiety, got blindsided by a divorce, heartbroken, and hit with two cancers—all in 13 months’ time—and can’t work. How is your mental health supposed to be after all that? Like, “I’m doing great! I love having death stare at me as I re-think every life decision I’ve ever made and sometimes struggle with basic functioning. Really thriving over here!” No.

 

LAR Healing

Going well! Scars look good. Swelling is down. 

Happy to tell you about my poop or you can just skip down to chemo prep (or jump ahead a few seconds if you’re listening to the podcast).

Poop is fine. Mostly it’ll just feel like I have to go and I don’t really have to go much. It’s sorta hard to get out. Sometimes I have to poop again within 30 minutes.

That’s it.

So far, this is super mild LARS*, and we’re only six weeks out.

Chemo will make it all whacky again so we’ll just see what happens there.

*LARS (Low Anterior Resection Syndrome) is basically what happens to bowel function after this kind of surgery—urgency, frequency, unpredictability, the whole deal. 

 

Chemo Prep

I started my next cycle of chemo today.

I’m not a happy camper. I don’t want to feel like crap every other week for the next three months. I don’t want feeling like crap to disrupt the itty bit of momentum I built in the last two and a half weeks. I don’t want feeling like crap to f-up my mental health more. I am ready for this to be done.

Also, I don’t ever want to do this again so I’ll do this now to reduce the likelihood of that.

This time, I’m getting six cycles of 5FU and Leucovorin for the rectal cancer, and Herceptin for the breast cancer. I’ll get these every other week for a total of six cycles. If there are no delays I’ll be done the week before Thanksgiving, then switch back to Herceptin only through February.

My infusions are on Mondays. I’ll get hooked up to the pump (my old pal Sir Spits A Lot), go home, and return on Wednesdays to get unplugged.

We still expect days 3-5 to be the ones where I feel the worst.

Good news is: this time I don’t have Oxaliplatin. My nurse calls it “Oxali.” Cute. Not so cute that this incredibly toxic drug and I share part of a name. Anyway, because Oxaliplatin has been removed, cold sensitivity and the big Oxali-related neuropathy concern are gone, and it will reduce the toxic load of the whole chemo regimen, so I should feel better than last time.

What “better” means, no one can really say. And believe me, I have Googled, gone onto the forums, asked all the AIs, my oncologist, and my nurses and everyone’s answer is different. So, I get to do my favorite thing: move forward not knowing. 

We’ll just have to wait and see!

Hooray for uncertainty.

It’s great.

Literally perfect. Literally the most perfect thing you can tell someone whose nervous system is totally jacked from living in a traumatic, literal fight-flight response, for the better part of nine months. Or 20 years. Who can really say?

Anyway, when I had my chemo prep appointment with my nurse on Friday, the first thing she said to me was, “Life gets better from here!” I wrote it in my notebook. I told her I’d need her to sign, initial, and date that because the last time I did one of these prep things her colleague told me “as far as chemos go FOLFOX isn’t that bad” and it was, by far, the worst I have ever felt in my entire life.

Side-effects I could have include: nausea, GI upset, fatigue, mouth sores, hand/foot syndrome, and hair thinning (which, bless, finally stopped from the last round two weeks after my LAR surgery). So, I got to go back into the closet where I hid all my shit and pulled out all my old anti-nausea meds, ginger chews, special lotions, aloe socks, and miscellaneous super fun chemo :things and put them back in my bedroom.

My nurse crafted an anti-nausea plan for me that’s more ’lax than last time but more aggressive than “most people need”—Zofran and Olanzapine for a couple days, with Compazine and Lorazepam on hand if needed.

She stacked these because she wants me to “have a good first round”—like she’s sending me off to my first day of school with my favorite snacks, a Capri Sun, and a note hidden in my lunchbox that says, “Have a great first day! I love you!” that I hope my friends don’t see.

Meanwhile, I just want to get on with my life. Which is pretty much how I’ve felt since fall 2024.

But first, I guess we gotta keep mitigating my risk of death.

At least the infusion center has Lorna Doones and Goldfish and apple juice.

And 16mg of Zofran to kick me off.

 

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