Rash, Rash, Go Away!

By the end of last week, Shari had started to experience some pretty unpleasant side effects from the targeted therapy drug that she is taking. As of Friday, the body rash that Shari was experiencing had spread and soon covered 95% of her body. Shari has described the body rash as being very similar to having a bad sun burn (And, as a melanoma patient, the strange irony of this has not been lost on Shari at all!). At first, her skin was red and raw and blistering in places. She was having significant difficulty in walking because even the bottoms of her feet were effected. Her skin then started to look purple, just as a bad sun burn would look. And, then her skin started to peel.

Shari and the oncologist's office decided late last week that Shari would stop taking the targeted therapy drug temporarily until the body rash started to calm down. Shari discontinued use of the drug over the weekend and touched base with the office on Monday. They decided that her skin had not healed enough to begin the drug yet and decided to wait until Wednesday. Shari did take her first dose of the meds on Wednesday, and overnight last night was greeted by the full body rash having returned :-(

She is not taking the meds today, but is suffering quite a bit both from the rash as well as from a night of fitful, poor sleep. Around 3am last night, Shari was in significant pain and quite itchy. She took some Benadryl and also tried to put ice packs on her feet to numb them because they hurt so badly. Remember that tomorrow Shari has her second round of chemotherapy and needs all of the energy reserves she can have, so this episode is poorly timed. Shari will be speaking with the oncologist tomorrow regarding how they are going to proceed with the targeted therapy given her reactions to the drug. One choice would be to take a smaller dose of the drug and hope that as her body got used to it, she could ramp up to the higher dose over time.

Also, this weekend, Shari decided it was time to try out a new hair cut :-) Shari had started to experience some hair loss, so she made the decision to "buzz" her hair to make the hair loss process a little more manageable. Shari's friend Mair came to the house on Sunday to complete the next step in her hair transformation. Shari said that she shed some tears but mostly had laughter. She was listening to Indigo Girls - Right of Passage ("Galileo") as Mair started to buzz it all away. That song is really important to Shari because of a personal meaning from a class that she took a long time ago.

Here is Shari before:


And, here she is after with her "buzz" cut:

How awesome does she look?!?!?! So beautiful!

Shari told me today that her hair is starting to fall out more regularly now, and so she may choose to buzz her hair even shorter. I'm sure we'll have more pics to share when that happens. Shari has chemotherapy scheduled for tomorrow. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers! We will keep you posted.

Peace,

Shannon