The Mandoline Incident

My immunotherapy infusions cause me to bleed easily....and I don't stop bleeding. You would think knowing this I would have taken extra precautions when I was slicing fruit on a mandoline, but you'd be wrong. 

The second it happened, I knew it was bad. Molly was home ill from school that day so I enlisted her help in calling Sam. I was in so much pain, and the bleeding just would not stop. I needed him to come home and take me to the ER because I couldn't apply pressure to my finger and drive myself. There was no way this was going to stop bleeding and heal on it's own without medical attention. 

I waited forever in the ER. I know that's how it goes sometimes, but I was starting to feel dizzy, sick to my stomach, and get a headache.  It was getting hard to keep applying pressure.  After 2 hours, the ER Dr. was finally available to see me. 

I knew he was going to have to numb the area for stitches, but what I didn't know was that he was going to stick the needle literally into my wound. Not above and below it, but right into it. That was, without a doubt, the worst pain I have ever been in in my entire life. I don't know how I kept from screaming, passing out, or throwing up. 

Once numbed, he was able to put in some stitches and bandage it up for me. I couldn't watch. It was still seeping blood, so I had to change the bandage a few times still that night and over the course of the next few days. I was dreading the numbing agent wearing off, and I was right for doing so. The pain was so intense that night and into the next day, I could hardly sleep. 

Now, a week later, I was able to have the stitches removed. I already had an appointment with my naturopath, Dr. Farr, so I asked if he was able to do it for me and he said yes, so that was awesome. It healed up pretty nicely.  There's no scar, but the nerves are super sensitive there, so I'm always careful not to knock my pinky into things. 

Lesson learned: use the slicing guard that comes with the mandoline. 

With love,

Mama Hauck

September Homesteading

With our garden winding down and our fruit trees all ready to be picked, it's the perfect time to do a bit of homesteading. 

Our apricot tree was incredibly full this year. I managed to pick 5 gallon size bags to give away to friends, and still had plenty for us to slice and dehydrate for snacking, as well as strawberry apricot jam, and straight apricot jam. 

Our two Japanese plum trees were also super fruitful this year, so again, I gave about 3 gallon size bags away, and we used the rest to make strawberry plum jam. 

I picked all the apples off our one little apple tree and made them into applesauce because they were pretty tart. I hope that'll change as the tree matures, but I don't know anything about apple trees, lol, as with most things, we learn as we go and kinda just wing it. 

We were gifted a huge box of peaches from a friend, so we dehydrated a bunch for snacking, and canned the rest. 

As far as the garden goes, it's been winding down the past few weeks. By now we've picked all our corn, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and green beans and put those beds to rest. We'll get a few more strawberries here or there. We are giving our squash and pumpkins another few weeks before we'll pick those. And once that's done, the garden will once again be quiet until next Spring. 

A while ago I decided, on the days I felt well enough, that I would do a bit of soaping so that I would be able to participate in the Farmers Market Holiday Bazaar coming up in December. I know I said I'd take the year off from soaping, but I really missed it, and I really want to be able to do the Bazaar. So the first week of September I got to soaping. By myself I can get about 3 loaves done, but when Sam is home from work, and with his help, we can get anywhere from 5-7 loaves done at a time. I'm really excited to be pumping out soap and hope to get my stock up to where I need it to be so I can announce I'll be at the Bazaar! 

I have a few more homesteading projects I hope to get done here shortly before winter comes, so fingers crossed. 

With love,

Mama Hauck

Immunotherapy Infusion #1

Now that my chemotherapy and mastectomy are complete, the next chapter in my breast cancer journey is targeted immunotherapy infusions. 

You might think by the name, that these infusions are to bolster my immune system, but that's not actually what my particular infusions do. My targeted immunotherapy infusions will consist of the drug Kadcyla. My breast cancer is triple positive, meaning it has estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors. Many cells in the body, both healthy and cancerous, have HER2 receptors, but HER2+ breast cancer cells have too many HER2 receptors, which make them grow and divide faster than other types of cells. This usually causes tumors to form. And in my case, it did. Kadcyla is thought to bring chemotherapy inside HER2 cells and kill them. Kadcyla finds HER2 cells and attaches to them. It tells the cells to stop growing and tells the immune system to destroy them. Kadcyla is designed to cause less damage to normal cells, though that can still happen, and focus on the HER2 cells. 

Common side effects include joint and muscle pain, fatigue, headaches, low platelet count, bruising easily, inability for blood to clot, and neuropathy type pain in hands and feet. More serious side effects include liver and heart issues. 

I don't know what to expect for myself, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Right now I just feel a bit tired. 

I will have 14 rounds of Kadcyla, going every 3 weeks. I feel quiet depressed about the length of this next chapter. I wont be done with infusions until June 2024. I want so badly to be done with this whole cancer journey. I want so badly for life to go back to normal. 

It was incredibly hard walking back into the infusion suite. I hope I have the resolve to do this all 14 times. 

 wa

1 round down, 13 to go. 

With love,

Mama Hauck