one more chemo...one more chemo...

One more chemo. That's all I tell myself. When I get aches and pains, or I get

aches in my stomach or pelvis area, or the hot flashes, I remind myself the worst of it is behind me. I have one more chemo, radiation (28 days/m-f), exchange surgery from expanders to saline implant, exchange surgery from saline to silicone, nipple reconstruction surgery, and finally the tattooing of the aereola. At least I think that's the order. If all goes right maybe I'll be done in Dec.

I do finally feel the cumulative side effects of all the chemos. I am weaker. I

have a fatigue that won't go away. I'm grouchy more because I snap at Frank. We never fight except when he drives ( he drives like a madman but as he points out, he hasn't been in any accidents- Nevermind the trail of destruction behind him) 

I know I am getting physically weaker because I feel it at my Pilates class.

During the first regime I could feel my strength improving. The regime caused

nausea and overall yucky feeling for the few days after but then I was done.

This regime lingers with fatigue. Things I was able to do in class a month a go

are a struggle to do and I haven't missed a class, well I've rearranged them

sometimes when I haven't felt well enough to go.The AC regime I found myself hungry or craving things when the nausea would pass. This regime has shut off my desire to eat. I have to force myself to eat. Nothing at times seems appealing and it's not because of nausea. I just don't feel like eating. So when I don't eat, I get sick. Crazy cycle.

You would think if I was fatigued I'd be sleeping all the time but I'm not. I

just don't feel like doing anything but laying down. The afternoons are the

worst. If I do a big adventure in the morning I am physically feeling sick in the late afternoon.  Trying to keep up with the hydration also since I forget to keep drinking water. So I need to plan my days and get as much as I can get  done in the mornings since I know I will be feeling not so great in the afternoon.

My hair is very slowly coming back but it's not really hair. It's fuzz here and

there. I have started to lose my eyebrows and eyelashes-go figure! I seem to

have a half brow on my right side and a very sparse brow on the left. My eye

lashes have thinned out also. I can tell when I put on mascara. I am calling the plastic surgeon to get started on Latisse. It makes your eyelashes longer and thick. It is used for chemo patients as well but it is not covered by insurance. It is thought of as a cosmetic procedure. 

Funniest thing! We went as a family hot airballooning-up at 4:00am....talk about not feeling good in the afternoon, I was a zombie by noon. Part of the package they do is take pics of you in the balloon as it lifts off. Well we had to share the basket with a family from  England. So as we were lifting off the photographer is snapping away and I was thinking he was taking pics of just our family so I whipped my hat off figuring what the hell maybe we will use this as our Xmas card. Well once we viewed the pics it included the other family. Imagine their surprise seeing all of us complete with the bald lady.  Classic submission to Awkward Family Pictures! don't think they purchased that photo as a memory Keeper.

So, one more chemo...one more chemo....

6 Months out from my cancer diagnosis-life in neutral

I am coming up on my 6 month anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. January 3rd is when I had my regular mammo and ultrasound. It was at this appointment, that I knew something was up. I was all too familiar with watching the ultrasound person and how they zero in on questionable areas. Within 2 weeks I had a biopsy, confirmation of breast cancer (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma) for the 2nd time in 3 years, parameters of my type of breast cancer, HD MRI and finally on my 45th birthday, January 19th, a confirmation from my Dr. and to myself, a double mastectomy was in my future. My girlfriends that night surprised me with a birthday party where I promptly burst into tears and told everyone what was happening. Talk about a downer. I was so angry at my husband that night for not warning me of what my friends were doing. I just couldn't handle it. I really just wanted to crawl into bed and cry. His thought was it might cheer me up to be with my friends...well in our 28 years together, he has only been wrong a few times about my feelings and this took the top prize.

So after that night and countless additional tests, I set a date for the double mastectomy, March 10, 2011. Amazing how some dates just stick in your mind. Leading up to it, life was good. Had a girl's weekend away. Time away with my husband. Got the house and kids in order for my "out of order" time period. The thought of having the double mastectomy was more terrifying then the actual event. It was by no means a walk in the park. The days after surgery, the uncomfortable feeling, the drains, etc. etc. Within 3 weeks I felt pretty good. I was getting fills every week on my expander's. Incisions were healing fine. Came to the conclusion chemo was in my future now since my tumor was 11cm large, encircling my entire left breast. Big clear margins though-thank you Dr. Gottlieb! Went to UCSF for my 2nd opinion. They concurred with my oncologist here. Set the date for chemo start all based on when my daughter's graduation was going to be from high school, June 10...there's another date to remember. Crazy enough, I can't remember the date of my first chemo...but after looking it up, it was on May 5th, 2011. That was a horrible weekend. Period. End of story, well not exactly end of story. I have 7 more chapters after that and then end of that story.

Every 2 weeks on Thursday am. I had my chemo, Adriamycin and Cytoxan. I lost my weekends plus Monday and Tuesday following my Thursday infusions. I would have some side effects that would follow me into Wednesday, Thursday, Friday but I was functioning. Starting Saturday I would feel back to normal and by the time Tuesday rolled around I actually felt like a little hanky panky with the honey. Wow once every 2 weeks...no boobs (redefine that- boobs that are hard with the expander's), no hair... how sexy is that look? Wednesday I head back to the Dr.'s for blood tests and then Thursday's I do it again. This part of the whole process is taking way too long. I will be starting the next phase in 2 weeks, the Taxol. June 30th will be my 1st infusion date of my 4 part cycle.

I feel like my life is in neutral. I'm not losing ground on making my life happen but then I'm not doing "stuff" to make my life move forward. I'm not overally sick that I'm in the hospital or having side effects that impair me the whole time I'm doing chemo-that would be my life in reverse. I'm also not in drive, I can't really go on vacations since I don't know what and when side effects will happen. I couldn't help with our high school's Grad Night preparation. I was on the steering committee but I dropped out. I couldn't (or I should say I chose not to) go to the all the preparation events making Grad Night. I couldn't risk being exposed to germs or getting a splinter and having it get infected. I couldn't go to parties because of the germ exposure. All I was concentrating on was being healthy for my daughter's graduation from high school.
We did not attend any grad party's since the days after graduation were Junior Olympic qualifiers for boys water polo. Frank and I split our times at the pool watching our son's games. Just a half day was too much for me, weirdly enough. I fell into bed achy each night so no Grad parties that I really had been looking forward to. Again, my life in neutral, life around me in drive.

I would be lying if I said there was no bitterness. The bitterness creeps in occasionally. I ask, why me? Why do some people who are self absorbed, pretentious, untrusting liars get all the breaks? They cheat to get what they have and nothing negative happens to them. You spend your life trying to abide by the right morals and decisions and then you get stuck with cancer-what the f*ck??!! I have lost a year in my life. I spend just about every day with some ache, pain, or fatigue. I am sick of this. I want to put my life back in drive.  I want to be able to just leave whenever I want and not be stuck by a chemo schedule or illness.  I want to have my husband look at me with lust not sorrow. I want to be able to eat that hamburger that's dripping with melted cheese and chili. I want to go to a crowd capacity baseball game, drink all the beer I want and eat the greasy garlic fries with my fingers. That is life in drive. As you can tell the bitterness is creeping in. I'm stopping now. I feel better...thank you.

Yes I know, it could be worse, a lot worse and I should be thankful for where I am and what I have. Just sometimes, I want more. Anyone who has had cancer and has to deal with the baggage that comes with it, can relate. I want my life to be in drive.

As for now,  neutral is the best description of my life and that is not me.

p.s. one of my blogs I talked about my 6 month chocolate bar. Well, it's time to enjoy it unfortunately it just doesn't sound appealing so I'm giving it to my youngest to enjoy. Here's a thought-the Dr. says don't eat stuff you like while you have nausea from chemo. Well, why wouldn't you eat ice cream, cookies, pies, drink lots of wine, beer during this time? Once your done with chemo, you would associate all this stuff with nausea so you would stop eating it. Doesn't that make sense? I think it does and at least I could keep some of the weight off. Just another crazy thought that has some logic to it.