From one chemo to another

I had hoped to go the full six, 28-day cycles with paclitaxel, the intravenous chemo I was on as part of my treatment for the breast cancer that’s spread to my bones and is in my bone marrow, affecting my body’s ability to produce healthy blood.

That would have taken me to early/mid February next year. Frustratingly, my cancer had other ideas. I’m now no longer on paclitaxel and I’m due to start a different chemo – eribulin – on Wednesday this coming week. 

Yes, I was annoyed and frustrated and angry and sad and, yes, I swore a huge amount out loud to myself once the results of the half-body PET CT scan that sealed my fate with regard to paclitaxel had sunk in. I got the results on Tuesday this past week. I’m not going into detail but they showed “progression of the skeletal metastatic disease” and “nodal and widespread metastatic activity… suggestive of disease progression”. The paclitaxel session I was due to have two days later was duly cancelled.

A few days on, I’m more settled but I’m still also massively pissed off.

Of course it could be worse. However, most of you know that I’m a great advocate of the sentiment “just because it’s not worse doesn’t mean it’s not shit”. It is shit. Every time a drug in your limited treatment arsenal stops working is shit. That said, there’s still no visceral spread and there are no concerns regarding spinal cord compression. There are options and there is a plan. That plan is eribulin (brand name Halaven).

My tumour marker level had tumbled during the first and second 28-day cycles of paclitaxel almost to an all-time low since my secondary breast diagnosis in Spring 2019. When my tumour marker level is falling, it tends to mean the cancer is less active. It had edged up a little during the third cycle but it was still very low relative to where it had been when I started on paclitaxel in mid-August.

The fact that the marker had gone up at all was disappointing, but not disastrous. I’d also been experiencing some pain in a couple of joints on a sporadic basis. On a positive note, the results of the spinal MRI scan I’d had recently had come through, showing no change from my previous one, in July. It was decided when I saw the consultant at the end of Cycle 3, on Wednesday 17th November, that I should go ahead with Cycle 4. I had the first session a couple of days later, on Friday 19th, following the now seemingly standard blood transfusion. On Thursday 18th, I had a half-body PET CT scan, which covers from the top of your head to above your knees. As with the MRI scan, my last PET CT scan had also been in July.

It’s fair to say things started to get a bit messy on the Wednesday night (17th). I awoke with considerable pain in various joints on my left hand-side at various points during the night. It largely eased after I took some strong pain killers. It happened again the following two nights, although the episodes on Wednesday were by far the worst.

Things were largely ok during the day. I’d signed up as a volunteer at my local Parkrun on Tooting Common in southwest London at 9am on the morning of Saturday 20th. I was due to be one of the barcode scanners at the end of the run. I felt wrecked but I wasn’t in pain so I went along and did that. I’m glad I did. I’ve had so much out of Parkrun; it’s good to give back.

To cut an even longer story short, some pain returned on the Saturday morning after I got home from Parkrun. I’d run out of strong painkillers and I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. I ended up being admitted to the hospital where I’m being treated and kept in overnight while they sorted out my pain meds. I was not screaming in pain or anything like it but it was not pleasant. I was discharged on Sunday afternoon, by which time I was absolutely fine. I left with copious amounts of both strong and very strong painkillers.

I cannot fault the care I received in hospital but it was all rather frustrating as I’m pretty sure I could have resolved the matter at home had I not run out of my usual painkillers.

On the Monday, I was contacted by the superbly efficient clinical nurse specialist who’s a critical part of the breast cancer team at the hospital. She said she and the consultant were fully aware I’d had an overnight stay and that the consultant would like to see me the following day. I didn’t realise it at the time, but the results of the PET CT scan were already through. Those, together with the pain-related episodes, meant it was time to move on from paclitaxel. 

With Tuesday came a detailed review of the scan results and my signing the consent form to start eribulin.

So what is this new treatment? 

With paclitaxel, it was a 28-day cycle. Each cycle consisted of three iv treatment sessions. These took place on Days 1, 8 and 15, with blood tests the day before each session and then again at the end of each cycle, followed by a meeting with the consultant on or around Day 28. Each treatment session took a couple of hours or so, with the first session of each cycle taking an additional hour or so as this was when I received my monthly infusion (also intravenously) of the bone-strengthening drug, Zometa (zoledronic acid). The standard number of cycles one has on paclitaxel if things are going ok is four but this can be upped to six.

With eribulin, it’s a 21-day cycle, with each cycle consisting of two treatment sessions. Treatment is on Days 1 and 8. As with paclitaxel, there are blood tests the day before each session, to check that it’s ok for that session to proceed. There are also blood tests at the end of the cycle, followed by an appointment with the consultant 1) to go over the blood test results; 2) to discuss how you’ve been coping with the treatment; and 3) hopefully that you can go ahead with the next cycle.

Unlike with paclitaxel, there is no limit to the number of cycles of eribulin you can have. As long as you’re tolerating it well and it’s working, you keep taking it. The longest the consultant has had a patient on it is 13 months. Fingers crossed it works for me and that any side effects are tolerable – as they were, it has to be said, with paclitaxel. My feet feel better than they’ve been in years and I’m pleasantly surprised not to have lost all my hair. I was also feeling really well overall.

There are some overlapping potential side effects between paclitaxel and eribulin, but of course each drug also has some that are unique. Somewhat strangely, bone marrow suppression is a potential side effect of eribulin – but that’s also precisely among the things we’re trying to treat.

On the bone-strengthening drugs front, I’m switching from Zometa to denosumab (Xgeva). We’ve switched between the two before. The idea is that a drug that works in a different way will have a more beneficial effect. That, in essence, is also the idea behind switching to eribulin. 

Eribulin is delivered intravenously – that’ll be through my port – over a period of just two to five minutes. Denosumab is given as a quick injection – in my case to the abdomen – once every four weeks. It’s clear treatment sessions at the hospital will be much shorter than when I was on paclitaxel and Zometa.

With my haemoglobin level and resulting energy levels being largely low, I now rarely cycle and I don’t run at all.  Swimming has become my new favourite pastime. I don’t swim far and I don’t swim fast but I’ve always loved swimming and now I do it once or twice a week. I’d like to do it outdoors but I get cold very quickly and if I don’t have a way of getting warm immediately, I’m cold for hours.

This desire to feel the sun on my shoulders was in grand part behind my decision to escape to a beautifully warm and sunny – and beautiful – Cyprus for a week in early November. 

Yes, you read correctly. Cyprus. Photo number one to the left.

And yes, you’re also right, my husband and I had indeed just been to Madrid.

The photo to the right was taken on the trip to Spain. It’s of me and two of my dearest friends, both of whom I met in Madrid in the early to mid-1980s when I lived there teaching English as a foreign language before coming back to Glasgow to finish my degree (in Spanish, what else!). We were in Madrid for a wedding; the woman in the middle is the mother of the groom.

My now husband and I met in Madrid in those same early days. We loved the city this time round as much as we’d always done.

And, yes, there is even more on the travel front. Before the Madrid trip, we had been to Tiree, a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland.

My husband and I were in Tiree with one of my brothers, John, his wife and my niece, one of their four children. We had a lovely week.

Madrid and Scotland had been in the diary for a long time. After months of coronavirus-related uncertainty – combined with uncertainty over how I might be feeling health-wise – we were delighted that we were able to do both trips.

Cyprus was an impulse booking, done the day before I had my port inserted on 1 November. I just Googled ”Where’s hot in Europe?” and Cyprus won.

I’m happy to say I swam outside every day of the Cyprus holiday in the sunshine, either in the pool or in the sea – indeed sometimes both on the same day!

There is little that can beat the feel of the sun on your shoulders drying you off after you’ve been swimming.

The sea was warm, the water was clear. It was an absolute delight. I went with one of my brothers, Peter. We took dozens of photos. The one above on the left is among my favourites. 

I couldn’t stay in the water for long at any one time as I’d only recently had my port inserted. The wounds from the two incisions from the procedure were healing well and while I wasn’t concerned about getting them wet, I didn’t want to overdo it.

Before I had the port inserted, I thought I was ok with the chemo nurses taking several attempts to find a decent vein through which to administer chemo or blood transfusions. Since I’ve had the port inserted and we’ve now used it several times, I have to say it is a game-changer. It makes things so much easier.

The procedure to insert the port only took some 40 minutes. However, with the pre-procedure preparation and the post-procedure monitoring, I was at the hospital for the best part of the day. The procedure, which is done under local anaesthetic, was the weirdest experience. You feel the sensation of cutting, pushing and shoving – but no pain. The port stands out from my chest; it looks weird but I’m totally fine with it.

Several other events have happened in my life, not relating to my treatment or travels. On my last day in Cyprus, I awoke to the news that the 57-year-old husband of one of my best friends back in Glasgow had died very suddenly and unexpectedly the previous night. A day or so later, the husband of my beloved aunt and godmother in New Jersey died, of advanced prostate cancer.

It’s easy to say, but this first tragic event in particular illustrates why worrying about one’s own mortality – or indeed about the mortality of sick parents, friends or relatives – is so futile. Enough sad/bad things happen that aren’t even on the radar. Be concerned, yes, but try not to over-worry. Events such as these will happen regardless. If anxiety about your or someone else’s future is becoming overwhelming, please seek help. And let the people you’re worrying about know you love them. That should make you and them feel better.

I’m hoping to go up to Glasgow for my friend’s husband’s funeral later this month. It will depend on how I feel after starting this new chemo and on the ever-changing situation with regard to the never-ending pandemic. 

In the meantime, I’ll be booking regular swim sessions at the two local leisure centres to which I’m fortunate to have access. I may also be on the lookout for another break that involves winter sun and warm seas. If you have any ideas, let me know!

To finish, fingers crossed eribulin works for longer than either paclitaxel or indeed the drugs I was on before that. I’m not aiming for or expecting anything, but more than just a few months would be very welcome.

A cathartic week in Scotland

I very recently got back from Scotland, where I spent a whole week visiting family and friends I’d not seen since last November.

I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. I also swear that for much of the time I was there, I came as close as I possibly could to forgetting that I have incurable breast cancer.

The main reason I went to Scotland was to see my mum. This wonderful lady is 83, has dementia and lives in a care home in my home city of Glasgow. She is very well looked after but things are tough with the pandemic. The restrictions on visiting are very tight – for example, indoor visiting is banned. In common with thousands like her, my mum is struggling to understand what is happening and is suffering quite badly from among other things the lack of social interaction and physical contact.

Over the course of seven days, I saw as much of my mum as I possibly could. I also spent time with each of my five brothers. I saw nine of my eleven nieces and nephews (the other two live here in London). I visited a few good friends, and, thanks to the good organisational skills of one brother, I managed to combine a lovely bike ride out in the countryside south of Glasgow with a visit to a cousin who recently lost her mum – my own mum’s last remaining sibling.I had four 30-minute “window visits” where I spoke to my mum on the phone while standing outside her room with her inside at the window. I also had one 30-minute socially distanced face-to-face visit in the grounds of the care home. 

While my mum now struggles to remember who we are, there’s definitely still a connection. Even if she can’t process the fact that the person standing there in front of her is her daughter, she knows that the concept of daughter is important and that the person talking to her is important to her and that she is to him or her.

The proof lies in the following anecdote.

On my first visit, I suggest that my mum write in her diary that I’m coming to see her the following day. She gets her diary out, opens it on the July 27 page, and I suggest she write “Maureen”. She writes “Maureen to visit today” in that still lovely and still neat handwriting that I’d recognise anywhere. I’m aware that the more memory prompts she has, the more likely it is that she’ll make sense of what she’s written. I therefore suggest that she also write “daughter”.  She duly writes daughter. Then, out of nowhere, she adds a little tick and a few kisses. As she adds the final “x”, she looks up, gives me a massive smile, and says with great satisfaction and pride, “there”. I can’t describe how happy that made me.

I felt relaxed, cared for and loved throughout the whole trip. Despite talking about my situation at length to anyone who cared to and was brave enough to ask, I became aware many, many times throughout my stay that the fact that I have incurable breast cancer was as far back in my consciousness as it’s been since I was diagnosed over a year ago.

It helped that the week I was there coincided with my week off treatment. Under the drug regime I’ve been on for the past few months, I’ve been taking a certain number of tablets of the oral chemo drug capecitabine twice a day – every day, morning and evening, more or less 12 hours apart – for two weeks then I have the third week off. You have to take each set of tablets within 30 minutes of eating.On the week off, I don’t have to eat at a specific time, twice a day. I can skip breakfast if I want. I can have a late supper without having to remember to eat a snack a couple of hours earlier to stay within the 11-13 hour range that I think is acceptable. I don’t have to think about whether I need to take that evening’s supply of tablets out with me in case I’m not at home. I turn off the “Tablets AM” and “Tablets PM” reminders on my phone. It’s nice.

I packed a lot into the week but it never felt rushed. 

I visited friends and family in various places – Glasgow, Killearn, Perth. I rode a tandem for the first time. I had my first ride on an e-bike. I discovered a new park in Glasgow. I was introduced to the music of a couple of bands I hadn’t come across before. I had some really great food. I played tennis. I went on two bike rides, one of 35 miles and one of 20 miles. I breakfasted on wild raspberries during a walk in a park in Perth. I had my first meal out since lockdown was introduced in mid-March. I also managed to read a whole book – Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

If you’ve read the post I wrote for the Institute of Cancer Research, you’ll know that I don’t have a bucket list. That said, being on the tandem was such good fun that retrospectively I’m adding “have a go on a tandem” to and ticking it off from that non-existent bucket list! The e-bike was fun too, but not bucket list material. It may yet become so, I guess, once getting up hills on a regular road bike becomes too much of an effort.

On the book front, parts of Hamnet moved me to tears. The protagonist in this beautifully written novel is Agnes (William Shakespeare’s wife). In one particular scene, it’s Agnes’s wedding day and she’s thinking of her mother, who died years earlier. O’Farrell writes:

“[Agnes] senses, too, somewhere off to the left, her own mother. She would be here with her had life taken a different turn… So it follows, of course, that she will be here now, in whatever form she can manage. Agnes does not need to turn her head, does not want to frighten her away. It is enough to know that she is there, manifest, hovering, insubstantial. I see you, she thinks. I know you are here.”

Again, as I wrote in the ICR blog, I try not to worry about possibly not being here for specific events such as weddings – the events we fear we’ll miss may never happen – but that passage did make me tearful. Indeed it’s not exactly easy writing this now. I find the words sad but also hugely comforting. I hope that when I’m gone and people feel they have need of me, they’ll think along those lines and find some sort of peace. I recommend the book, not just for that passage.

You should get the message loud and clear from reading this that I had a really lovely time. If I’m in any doubt at all myself as to whether I had a lot of fun, I have a physical reminder that I did. I’ve got a sodding big cold sore on my bottom lip.

I’m an atheist but I was brought up a catholic and I can’t dissuade myself from thinking in a very Old Testament-esque way that cold sores are God’s way of punishing me for enjoying myself too much.

I get them quite regularly, in exactly the same place on my bottom lip. They never just happen, though. They always happen in the immediate wake of my having done something that’s really fun – skiing, being on holiday in the sun, cycling on a sunny or windy day (that’s what caused the one I have now). Of course I know that bright sunlight and the cold and the wind can trigger cold sores but I have fun thinking divine retribution is to blame.* I hate them. They are horribly painful and can make you feel really low. The Scottish word “louping” seems tailor-made to describe how your lip feels when you have a cold sore. In addition, of course, they’re unsightly – so much so this time round that I’m quite thankful I have an excuse to wear a mask in public places!

Going back to the god issue, I have to confess that I went skiing several times earlier this year and, despite skiing in glorious sunshine on some days and in bitter cold on others, I didn’t get any cold sores. I like to think that was god giving me a bit of a break cos he/she knew that 1) the scans I was due to have soon after I got back would show signs of progression and I’d have to move on to a new line of treatment and 2) coronavirus was around the corner.

The pandemic forces us to make choices. You balance the risk of catching or unknowingly spreading the virus against your desire and/or need to go to certain places and do certain things. I didn’t need to go to Scotland but I chose to go. I took care on the hygiene front and on the social distancing front I did what I could. Everyone was very accommodating. Almost everyone I came across was complying with the recommendations on social distancing and mask-wearing. I felt pretty safe. 

I also didn’t need to have a massive hug with each of my brothers or they with me, but hug we did.

It was sad that I couldn’t hug my mum. This photo shows how close we were allowed to get to each other on the outside visit. It was far from ideal but, under the circumstances, it was the best I could do. It was enough. It had to be. I feel like a different person after my trip. I realised in hindsight how concerned I’d been about my mum.

I hadn’t seen her in eight months. That’s a long time. It was a huge relief just to see her – even within the very limited boundaries of what was possible. It was also so good to be in the company of so many family members and good friends. 

I got back from Glasgow on Sunday evening. First thing yesterday I went down to the hospital to have blood taken for the regular end-of-cycle tests. Today I saw the oncologist for the results. I’m tolerating capecitabine well, the relevant tumour marker is down again and all the other blood test results were good enough to switch from a three-week cycle of two weeks on and one week off to a four-week cycle of one week on and one week off times two. I start cycle #4 this evening. Back to enforced breakfasts and reminders on my phone and, more importantly, taking the cancer treatment that for the moment at least is enabling me to get on with living my life.

*While this image made me howl with laughter, I do of course realise that it is based on an outdated stereotype. One of my mum’s sisters was a nun and she was the life and soul of the party. More pertinently, my mum’s care home is run by nuns. Before lockdown, there was plenty of singing and dancing and fun and frivolity. I hope they can return to those days soon.