Trodelvy Hair Loss, or Call Me Tufty

 Yes, that's what's left--some tufts in odd places, and if you've seen the Kenneth Branagh version of Frankenstein, you remember Bride Elizabeth after her transformation, when the ambitious young doctor and the monster are fighting over her:

I now share her hairdo--actually, she has a tad more hair than I do. On the upside, my face is more symmetrical. 

I hear some lose eyebrows, eyelashes, even nose hair--one guy said, "it's always dripping" since there's nary a hair in his nostrils. 

But somebody else got to keep her eyebrows and eyelashes! Me, I'll carry on with the mascara as long as I can. I must say, I like everything about this drug but the hair loss. I had no side effects, and for a week or longer after my second infusion I felt no sign of that slightly crawly feeling . . . as if a tiny creature or two had taken up residence in my scalp and decided to tickle each follicle. Combed my hair like always and it felt normal. Starting to imagine the hospital pharmacy had made some mistake (just given me saline!) I was almost relieved when, toweling off after a shower, I wondered where all that hair on my face was coming from. Oh. My head. 

But I'm going to the gym and my tap dance class. A symptom dogging me since my Ibrance days, sudden breathlessness, has disappeared. I actually have more stamina. This stuff is supposed to attack only cancer cells, as opposed to slaughtering other cells who just happen to be in the neighborhood. Maybe the treatment's working? In any case it's nice to have plenty of energy--I can use it.

The Perfect Meal for Trodelvy-ites

 You've got to see it to believe it: 

Yes, that's cold (refrigerated, leftover) sticky rice piled high with Kimchi. Yes, these kinds:

The one on the left is "mild"--meaning very sour but not the kind setting your mouth on fire. The one on the right with the the lid that makes it look like Bonne Maman jam is full of fire--when I popped the lid, I could see the fermentation bubbling. This kind of kimchi is special; as a Korean friend said, "it hurts going in and it hurts coming out." This is true; you feel that peppery burn at both ends of the alimentary canal.

Why is this meal so delicious? Why am I heading back into the kitchen right now, breaking off typing for just one more spoonful of the stuff on the left? "Ha, ha, like a pregant woman!" I said. And a nurse said. And my friends said. Which got me wondering, naturally, what on earth a 66-year-old postmenopausal woman has in common with a pregnant one. You'd think nothing. The whole business of my treatment has been to block estrogen, the hormone feeding the cancer. A pregnant woman's estrogen levels rise sharply in early pregancy. Which is, believe me, not the state I'm in. 

But maybe estrogen, or a need for estrogen, has something to do with my current cravings--and wow, are those cravings strong. I walk into my apartment and can smell the kimchi even before I open the refrigerator. Those jars are tightly screwed shut. "What a lovely aroma!" I pause to inhale, knowing most people would wonder "What's that awful stink?" It's the delicious fermenting heavily garlicked peppery spice of kimchi, elixer of the gods!

Without yesterday's dose of Trodelvy, however, I doubt I'd feel this way. I liked kimchi before, but in small doses, and I didn't eat it all the time. Now I'm gobbling it. Exhilerating. 

I listened to a podcast suggesting a beneficial effect of light doses of estrogen in breast cancer. Listening to this while dozing, I woke right up. It turned out the guy who invented Tamoxifen discovered that when the drug failed, light doses of estrogen helped push back the cancer. Can this be?

Sounds like a hair of the dog that bit you. But maybe. Maybe. 

Days of Trodelvy and Hair Loss

It's been great having hair, even if it looks like a toilet brush. But I'll be Yul-Brynnerish sometime in the next twelve days. So long, eyebrows! Been good to know you. Bye-bye eyelashes. Hello, looks-like-I-chugged five Schnapps look (the cortisone to combat nausea). Hello snoring (the anti-allergenic). 

"Trodelvy"--they all have such evocative names, these cancer drugs. I think of trolls digging and delving somewhere underground, Grieg's Hall of the Mountain Kings playing in the background. 

I'm not far off with "dig and delve" either. My doctor is digging deep for the right drug and everybody's delving for another rabbit to whip out of a hat. But remember that children's rhyme:

One, two, buckle my shoe,

Three, four, shut the door

Five, six, pick up sticks

Seven, eight, lay them straight

Nine, ten, a big fat hen

Eleven, twelve, dig and delve . . . .

The rhyme goes on, but by the time you're on your eleventh or twelfth line of treatment, they're starting the real dig-and-delve. 

The Trodelvy experience, so far, hasn't been anywhere near as bad as Avastin, Paclitaxel, Epirubicin, Cyclophosphamide, or the capacetabine or the Letrozole or the Ibrance and the Faslodex or the Everolimus/Exemestane combo. Or the Enhertu, which my lawyer twisted my insurance company's arm to get. Thank you, wonderful lawyer! If only the stuff had worked.

The Trodelvy doesn't make me feel that bad, actually. Maybe I'll even go to the gym. If it works, yay! If it doesn't, I'm up the proverbial creek without the fabled paddle.