Chemo Safe during pregnancy?

OK. I got a comment recently and couldn't really tell if it was rude or not. How is chemo safe during pregnancy? Well, ideally no you would not want to have drugs like that during pregnancy. But we don't live in a perfect world do we? Bad things happen. And unfortunately this happened to me at the same time as pregnancy. Without chemo I would have died, and so obviously would have my baby. But to answer this question, not much is known about the safety of chemo during pregnancy. You can't actually do a large scale study on pregnancy women on chemo. So, all you can do is go by what cases there HAVE been. And so far, every doctor I have talked to, every bit of information I have read, and even my high risk OB have all said that every situation they saw where a woman had chemo during pregnancy the baby came out fine. Why? I don't know. I have heard that they are not sure that chemo even crosses the placenta to the baby. Chemo is a larger molecule drug that may not be able to cross the placenta. The medicine is not ingested, but put through an IV. All I know is that my baby is doing wonderfully. This baby has handled the chemo fine...and is growing and progressing normally. Tell me why a woman who loses all her hair and is very sick during chemo can have a child with a full head of hair? If the chemo got to the baby, why would that child be born with hair? Many questions still need to be answered and there are not any answers as of yet. But this is something I already have been through. The same question has been asked many times and this is the only answer I have. Go to pregnantwithcancer.org and read some info there. It happens. It sucks, but it does happen.

My 23 week pregnant belly

This is either week 22 or 23. I have forgotten now. I am 24 weeks going on 25 tomorrow now.

Updated my entire blog today

I copied and pasted what I had already posted somewhere else. That's why sometimes these posts come in bulk. My docs told me in the beginning it was good to keep a journal of what I have gone through during all this, so I am basically. I don't feel like going back through and editing them so I just thought I'd point out there were several updates posted today. It is Thursday August 30, 2007. I have an eye doctors appointment today at 10:30. I would rather not go, but have no choice, so I will go. I need new contacts. Being pregnant, and being sick and on chemo, I would think my eyes probably will do a lot of changing that is probably temporary. I know water retention during pregnancy will cause eye changes. I wish I could just get a prescription without the exam part. haha But no, I know that isn't happening. Ahhhh well. I need to get some things done today anyway. My bathtub is deciding to give me troubles. Any idea why the bathtub would keep filling up when the washer drains??? yeah...me either. :(

August 29, 2007 - Wednesday

Well, feeling a bit better today than yesterday. Fighting a simple cold has never been quite so difficult. But even though I have felt weak, tired, and fluish, in truth I have no infections and my lungs are crystal clear. So I won't complain too much. I can fight this and get better. I never really assumed chemo would be smooth sailing all the way through. It's chemo for crying out loud. Not easy. It was just crazy how fast I got sick Tuesday. I had already been sick so it wasn't a surprise as far as that goes. But I felt fine, then cold, then freezing, the shaking. It was nasty. I hated that feeling. Then I was sweating all night which is in itself nasty. Anyway, the treatment went fine Tuesday. I saw my doctor and got my blood drawn...through my arm again of course. The port? Haha! Never will I see blood come through that thing. They got my meds started around 11 ish. Then the nurse has to come over and manually push two different kinds of meds through my IV. That takes several minutes. I have fallen asleep during it before. lol Then I get a bag of primary fluids, which is sort of to flush the IV. Then I have my last bag of chemo. My treatment is ABVD and I forget how to spell or pronounce each drug but the final one is the one with the D and the one the doc said probably caused my problem yesterday. Like I said though, I felt fine. A cold is nothing to complain about. I was ok. Got in the car, feeling fine. Air conditioner running, and I was hungry. It was around 1:30 p.m. and I was ready for food. I took just a couple of bites then my body just said NO! I was not so good after that. But on the upside today I am feeling quite improved. I have taken no tylenol and my fever is still gone. Thank God! Between freezing then sweating alternately all night I just want to feel normal. By sometime in January of 08 I just miiiiiiight feel like a normal girl again!!! Woohoo :)

Update August 28, 2007 - Tuesday

Felt okay other than a bad cough today, told doc about being sick all weekend, the ER trip. We had to go ahead with chemo because it's very important to stay on schedule. My white count was still good. So we did it. Stopped for food on the way home, ate two bites, immediately started feeling fluish. 15 minutes and I was shaking uncontrollably. 100 degrees outside, windows in the car barely cracked and I was freezing. At least an hour from home. Called doc, he thinks the virus and a certain drug involved are kind of at war at the moment. He wasn't too worried, but I need to pop tylenol and stay in bed. It took all the energy I had to type this so I'll update more when I can.