Twin Girls!

Finally Tuesday arrived!  I was up and out the door at 5:30 am.  Got checked in at the hospital and settled in to the pre-op room with my man and a wonderful nursing staff who were so helpful with all the things that needed to be done.  One thing I had to do was, well of course, get undressed and had to put on on this really fancy kinda paper gown.  It actually has a hookup devise that can blow cool or hot air onto your body  and help keep you comfortable.  Hard to explain, but really cool.  So the doctor doesn’t want to use the port in my neck in case they have to do some fast “push” meds, so they had to poke and find a good vein on my right hand to hookup the IV.  Well apparently I have great veins, their just kinda thick.  Ummm, imagine that…  Well the first one hurt and we could not  get it comfortable, so she said they would change it out during the surgery.  Well I guess they did, cuz when I woke up, I had 2 new holes, I guess the third time worked.  :) All the various doctors and nurses came in to ask the same questions.  The pre-op nurse, the anesthesiologist doc, the anesth. nurse all came in at different times and basically asked the same questions, kinda silly, but I am sure there is a reason for it. Heart problems…headaches…allergic to anything?  You know the usual list of questions.  I did not think I was allergic to anything,  well thats what I get for thinking.  More on that later, I am trying to stay focused here…anyway…

My surgeon came in to do the initial markings and talk over what the operation would entail and what he expected to happen.  So now my upper body is covered in purple marker lines, not quite like connect the dots, but real similar. Just like with the first surgery.  He said that the operation would be about 3 hours and I should be home by early afternoon.  Okay, lets get this party going.  Waitress, what was that cocktail you just gave me.  Bye, handsome, I love you…….

11:46….11:49…. Water please…..Ice chips, even better… 12:00  Can I see my husband?… Oh, glasses would be lovely.  I get moved from recovery back to the room I started in, that was kinda cool.  There’s my man.  All is good.  The operation went a little longer.  Had some other things that needed attention, Oh, okay.  I peek under the gown…Hey not bad, I guess. “Look, twin girls!”  Okay, lets go home.  First things first, missy, slow down.  I have to be able to walk.  Then I have to pee.  Ouch.  The catheter is out, but it kinda hurts to pee.  That will pass (heehee).  Hey its funny, you thought of it, you just didn’t say it.  Compression bra time.  I am sure if you have been reading these that you know how much I just LOVE these compression bras.  It is an evil contraption that serves a purpose, but that does not mean I have to like it. So about an hour or so later I am headed home.  Got settled on the sofa and all is good.

I am starving.  Fried chicken sounds so good.  Which is kinda weird, because I rarely eat fried chicken and can’t remember the last time I had it.  But it tasted so good.  Medication time.  Bedtime.  Okay, this ain’t gonna work.  Laying flat is very painful, so thankful for this adjustable bed.  Not the best night sleep, but I was home…  Woke up on Wednesday and I was ready for a shower.  The bandages came off the night before and all looked good.  But wait, what are these red bumps all over my torso.  Apparently, I may be allergic to the iodine that they painted all over  the surgical site and well, all over my front.  Got the iodine washed off, but the red bumps stayed.  They itch a little, but alls good.  Now I just need to heal.  I am sore , but not in alot of pain.  The meds are helping with that.  Still hurts when I pee, but it is getting better.  The itching is all across my stomach and up my neck, took some meds, so it should go away soon.  I have been trying to walk around the block every hour I am awake and it feels good.  The new implants already feel so much better and they look so much better too.  Okay, maybe its time for a new bikini, well in a few weeks anyway.

I don’t wait well

Tuesday can not come soon enough.  All the pre-ops are done.  I don’t have chemo for two weeks. Life is good.

I had a visit with the plastic surgeon on Wednesday to go over the pre-op info needed for next Tuesday.  He still is pushing for the larger size.  He is trying to convince me that it will be the right size and shape for  my body type.  Blah, Blah, Blah. I am trying to trust his judgement, but I am still a bit hesitant.  I just know that I dont want to go back to the size I was.  I got to wear a bikini this past weekend and it was so great not to have a sore on the back of my neck from holding up the weight of the old ones.  Now, I am not sure  that the new ones are gonna be able to defy gravity like these temps do, but it was pretty nice.  Now about those extra 15 pounds…

I also had a doc appointment with my onco dude.  It was a typical kinda visit.  ”so how are you feeling?  any new things going on”  normal stuff.  My big question was, “How long until “chemo brain” goes away?”  … “Oh, up to 9 months, but usually not a year.”  Oh, man, really.  UGH!  Chemo Brain for the next 9 months.  I am not sure I can do that.  I have always prided myself on my memory and ability to remember and retain alot of info.  Now…. Oh, man, it’s a wasteland up there.  Can’t remember anything.  Can’t form coherent sentences.  Hell, this typing is taxing my abilities.  But,  I move on.  Push forward.  I remember what my Grandpa Nappy would say….” Use the brain you have , or it wont be there when you need it”  Or something like that, I can’t remember.  Anyway.  I continue to read.  I devour Sudoku puzzles.  I try very hard at Scrabble.  (okay, I cheat and use the dictionary, but I am learning new words)  We had some friends over a few weeks back.  And for the life of me I could not remember one of the guys name.  So, I pulled the “C” card and said “I have been medicated and sedated, and I honestly don’t remember your name”…”But welcome and what can I get you to drink”… I think I need one too.  :)  Hey, when in doubt, or awkward situations, I always resort to the jokes.

The hospital pre-op went well the next day, so it looks like all things are set and ready to go.

Most of the side effects have slowly faded and are just the nightmare that I leave in the closet. (under some cute new shoes)  :)  Bloody noses. Gone.  Buzzing lips.  See ya.  Food tasting like sand, dirt, or metal.  Almost completely cleared up. Intestinal ughness.  Bye-bye.  Bone ache.  Later dude.  Eyes totally messing up my make-up.  Done.  No new hair growth, yet.  Had to go ahead and buy an eyebrow pencil.  I choose 2 extremely light colors, cuz the worst thing I could do is paint on some kinda black caterpillar eyebrows across my forehead right now.   But, I am also not going to the other extreme either.  If you know what I mean.  ;)  Still not sleeping through the night, but I have watched a lot of beautiful sunrises and done some gardening in the cool morning hours.  I know there where many more side effects that happened, but they are distant memories now.  Of course now the hot flashes are happening more often, but so far not too bad in the menopause department.

Yes, I am nervous, scared, worried, but mostly I am excited about whats gonna happen and I cant wait til Tuesday.

Early Morning Ramblings

It’s a little after 5 in the morning and as usual I am  WIDE awake.  My poodle just came down to check on me, and after giving me a groan and a mean look, he curled up at my feet and went back to sleep.  Lucky dog.  I’ve been awake since about 3:30 and just haven’t been able to get back to sleep.  This has been the norm for me for months now and finally I just gave up and came down to my computer.  Surprisingly, not many people are on right now.  Um …imagine that.

Well the last big kemosabe is over and it was a doozy.  Symptoms started hitting by Friday.  I thought they where suppose to get easier?  This LAST one ( yay, do a happy dance with me) was anything but easy.  All the symptoms seemed to hit at once.  Usually they are spread out over a few days and as one symptom fades another kicks in.  Not this time.  I was sofa bound for most of the weekend.  No fun if you have kiddos who want to do DO something. ( Parents, can you hear the WHINING)  But they were wonderful, as usual, and helped out and hung out with me most of the weekend.  They also got to watch a lot of tv, which they normally aren’t allowed to do during the summer, cuz I am a mean mom and make them go outside and play or find a friend or something other than electronic stuff.  We watched the rerun marathon of Project Runway.  Not bad this season.  Definitely a good time killer.  Anything to just get through the days.

So now what, you might ask?  Well, my white blood cell count is back up.  YAY!  Last week it hit the lowest it had ever been during treatment.  That may have been why the side effect were so much more this last round.  I have another treatment next week, I had one on Wednesday of this week as well.  Then I start going every other week for the next year.  So excited about that.   My stage 2 surgery is scheduled for June 29th.  YAY!!!  Can I hear a Hallelujah and an Amen!  SOOOO ready for these bricks  to be off my chest.  Ready for the new girls to settle in and be done with these THINGS that have been stuck on my chest for what, gosh has it only been 6 months.  Gee seems like, um I don’t know, FOREVER!

But really, I have no regrets about my decision to do reconstruction at the same time as the double mastectomy.  I am glad I didn’t chicken out.  I thought about for awhile.  But looking back, and reading back through this blog, I know I made the right choice.  Its been a hard year so far, but I am still here to celebrate my 20th anniversary with my husband and I get to do the rest of the year and more!  Best decision ever.

I was a little disappointed that we weren’t able to do some of the fun stuff that we had planned.  My niece is graduating from high school, we can’t make it.  Bummed about that.  Nephew had an engagement party, missed that too.  Bummer.  Grand Canyon trip, on hold.  But maybe….. well, we shall see what life brings.  In the mean time, there’s the local pool and all kinds of fun stuff to do in this crazy town.  And I have a coupon book and I am not afraid to use it!

Last One!

Whew, I made it.  My last big kemosabe treatment was on Wednesday.  I did it.  I made it through the stuff.  Yay!  I am done.  Party time…. Ugh, I feel like crap.  6 cycles of Taxotere, Carboplatin, Anzemet.  Its been fun, but we are done.  I will have to go in for weekly Herceptin for the next two weeks  and then I can switch to every other week for the next year.  Yay!  That will be awesome.  My white blood cells were extremely low this last time.  2.7 was my count.  Normal range is 4.1 to 10.9.  So … if it had not been my last chemo I would have had to wait at least a week for my count to come back up. But I was able to get the last one done.  Now we wait to get my count back up and then I can move to the every 2 week plan. Just nobody sneeze on me.  Okay. Thanks.

The last few weeks I have been feeling better.  My nails are a mess.  The second they grow past the nail bed they split, crack and peel.  Not pretty.  Polish helps, but it it peels off in about a day. Oh well, they will grow.  My eyes are doing better, but I have to remember to use the drops. If I don’t, then they start to run and tear a lot.  Totally messing up my eye makeup. Hey, I don’t have much else to fuss about, so eye makeup smearing is a biggie.

My hair has kinda stopped growing.  It has also slowed down in the falling out department.   My eyebrows are about a thin as they have ever been.  Not as thin as when I tweezed them down to one hair in the 9th grade, but I was a kid, give me a break.  I guess I am pretty lucky as far as hair loss goes.  My hair decided to fall out in a very even pattern.  Just all over even hair lost.  I didn’t get any big patches of baldness, so I guess that is good.  So I bought a hat.  Okay, I bought two.  The first one, my sweet daughter helped me pick out.  It was pretty cute, but it needed a flower.  My hubby, always the comedian, suggested fruit and to rename me Carmen Miranda.

So I bought a second hat and put a flower on that one too. I am needing the hat a lot now.  The summer’s sun is blazing away and my scalp has never seen the sun.  I definitely don’t want to burn my head.  I  wear a hat whenever I am outside, which is a lot, but lately I have not been able to tolerate the heat.  See, I am a lizard by nature and love the sun and being outside.  Just find me a rock somewhere to lay on, I am happy. Yesterday I was out with my kids while they were mowing the lawn and I about fainted from the heat, it wasn’t that hot, just the chemo kicked in and I was seeing stars.  So I came inside and cooled off and just stayed on the sofa the rest of the day. Bummer.

The hot flashes for menopause are also starting to kick in.  Sometimes at night I am laying there, the ceiling fan is cranked wide open and I am sweating like a pig.  Ugh.  I flip the pillow over for the cool side to cool my bald head.  Helps for a little while, then it gets hot too.  Other side effect of menopause are starting to show up, but mostly they are manageable, right now anyway.

I met a new friend during chemo a few weeks ago.  She was starting her first big treatment and I was having my fifth.  It has been really great to talk to someone else who is going through this.  Even just to share sad hair loss stories, it helps.  She was so sweet and brought me a cake on Wednesday to celebrate my last big chemo.  My family also had special cards and some beautiful roses for me.  I was very tired, but it was so wonderful.

I had a slight problem come up last week.  On my right breast, just at the top surgery sight, I started to get some blood and oozing (oh, that is just a icky word, oozing)  I didn’t panic.  But I called the doc.  He got me in right away and checked it out.  It is kinda late in the game for this stuff to happen, but hey if there is a .5% chance that something weird will go wrong, it goes wrong for me.  He didn’t think it was to big a deal, but I had to wear a bandage all the time and change it out 2 -3 times a day.  See what happens in me is I tend to “push” the dissolvable stitches out of my body.  And sure enough that is what happened.  The suture come out this week.  About an inch long.  Don’t hurt, but now it should start healing.

Now I just have to get to June 29th.  That’s when I get the “new girls”  Okay, I don’t know what to call them, so I make a joke.  Anyway, stage 2 is planned for that morning.  I have to be there at 5:45 am.  Surgery at 7:15.  I should be home by mid afternoon.  The doctor says I should be ready for happy hour!  I am gonna hold him to that.

Side effects

I started writing this blog about 2 weeks ago and then I got too busy with other important stuff like planting flowers and feeding wild parakeets in my backyard to really sit down and finish it.  But now seems like a good time…

Side effects are starting to ease up from my fourth round of big kemosabe.  That means I am trying to get a lot done until the next round hits, which will be next week.  Only two more to go and then the easy kemosabe for a year more and then…who knows.  The oncologist talked to us a little bit about some of the other treatments that I will have to do after the herceptin in completed.  Tamoxifen is out.  Wont be the right stuff for me due to the kind of cancer I had.  A few others are out because I am not post menopause.  He wants to wait and see how far I am into menopause ( because the chemo has forced me into menopause.  lucky me) and see what the other trials that he has been following have produced as far as… blahblahblah.  Sorry zoned out.  I still do that sometimes. My man is still right there.  He is understanding all of this for me.  He has also been very understanding through all of this.  I’m a lucky girl.

Thats all I got down, the rest of the week after the 4th chemo was okay.  I wrote about a few things that happened that week in “Old People”.  So now we are up to date  and here’s the rest of the story…..( wait, didn’t I use that already??)

I had my 5th big kemosabe treatment last week.  It went okay, normal stuff.  Met a new cancer friend ( I consider her a friend, because we share something in common) who was starting her first round of chemo.  She had lots of questions, and you know me, I have lots of answers.  Some of them she probably didn’t want to hear.  She kept looking at my head and lack of hair and I talked to her a bit about my experience with the hair loss thing.  I haven’t lost all my hair .  The grey hair has decided to stay a little longer.  (stubborn)  The grey hair that has remained, is still growing.  It is also, still falling out.  Every morning I have to sweep up the hair that has accumulated on my pillow.  FYI, flipping over the pillow does not make the hair pile go away.  I’ve tried.  It seems to be falling out a lot more now then before.  I can hug my kids, hair falls out.  I hug my hubby, hair falls out.  Walking, yup you guessed it, hair falling out.  But when I look in the mirror, there is still some hair there.  More than I think there should be with all this hair falling out all around me.

I was not looking forward to this last round of big kemosabe.  Yes, okay I cried and seriously thought about skipping it.  I know I can’t, but the thought was nice for a little while. I didn’t want the intestine problem, the bone and joint aches, the nausea, the …. well everything.  I was not looking forward to it.  But I went, cuz I’m a good girl, I  am.  And it hit me just like I knew it would.  About Friday, I started feeling sore and tired.  Now I haven’t been sleeping well anyway, so I am tired all the time, but this was more than just tired.  Saturday, my sweet baby girl had a special end of the school year dance and she had “volunteered” me to take some pics with her and her friends.  This was before she knew that it was a big chemo week.  But I did it.  The pics turned out great and she had so much fun at the dance.  I have to admit, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do it.  But I got it done. The next day my sweet baby boy was having his birthday party.  I know what you are thinking…”Is this woman crazy, planning all this stuff on a big chemo weekend???”  ( and yes, I am crazy.  I like it that way) But it had to be this weekend.  School is out next week and all the friends scatter to various vacations throughout the summer, so it had to be this weekend.  I made it through the party, barely.  I don’t know of anyone else who could fall asleep in the middle of Main Event, but I did.  No drool luckily, but definite head bobs.  Oh, and to top off the weekend of fun, my dogs decided to find something extra to eat (no sure what they got into) and then proceeded to be sick for the entire weekend.  UGH!  I can not do “barf” on a good day , let alone a big kemosabe weekend.  But the puppies are better and the laundry has been done.  Well the dog laundry anyway.  :)

I am on the down side of the big chemo weekend and now I think it will just be the intestines and nausea for a few more days.  I have little chemo on Wednesday and also an appointment with my plastic surgeon.  I am hoping we will be setting the date for the “new girls”.  I am really getting tired of the bricks that are in their place right now.  Summer vacation is just around the corner and it’s gonna be a great summer.  I just need to remember to wear a hat.

Old People

Not sure about a title yet.  Not sure where this train of thought is gonna go…..come on, let’s go for a ride.

Something I have noticed lately.  I guess because I am starting to see the light at the end of this hideous cancer tunnel.  But what I have noticed is, cancer is for old people and damn it, I am not old!  When I go into the treatment room, old people.  Waiting room, old people.  New doctors office, old people.  I am not old people.  And I am struggling with this.  I did, however, have a wonderful mothers day.  And I look forward to many more, as I get older.  But it’s kinda got me down.  The old people thing, that is.  My mom got breast cancer last summer.  She is looking at this side of 70.  My grandmother got breast cancer in her 70′s.  Most of the people I have been seeing at the treatment centers are around the 70 mark.  I am bummed.  I am not old.  I have lots left to do.  Hell I haven’t even decide what I want to do when I grow up.  I don’t have time for this old people crap.  But then again I do know that young people get cancer too.  My hubby got cancer in he’s 30′s.  That sucked.  Good friend is battling cancer in her 20′s.  I guess I am lucky that I did my mammy grammy every year and caught this early so that I can be “old people”, when its my turn to be old.

Another side effect that has been bugging me is my eyes.  Starting in March, my eyes would just start watering for no reason.  Totally ruin any eye makeup that I was wearing.  I thought it was allergies, well cus where I live that’s what it is for everyone.  But it continued.  SO, the end of April during my  regular 2 week visit to the onco dude, he asked, well he always asks, “any new side effects?  hand or feet numbness or tingling, eyes watering, dizziness…?”  Wait.  what? go back.  Eyes watering, yeah, like a faucet.  ”Well, lets send you to a opthimologist.”  So I made that appointment.  (old people in the waiting room) Saw the doctor. (she was older, but very sweet and nice)  Did the eye dilation thing.  Can’t see, bright lights! Oh goodie new stuff to take.  Eye drops 4 times a day and another once a day.  My tearducts could be plugged.  What?? that doesnt make sense.  My eyes are watering all the time, how can the tearducts be plugged. Blahblahblah.  Did you get that babe.  Thanks, cus I can’t see a thing and my brain ain’t working right.  New appointment, this time with a “tear duct specialist”. Really???  There are people out there that specialize in that?  okay.  (probably an old guy)  Met the new doc a few days later.  (okay he wasnt old, which is good I guess)  He had to check my tear ducts.  Which meant he had to numb my eyes then stick this probe thing down the tearduct.  FREAKIN OUT!!!  That looks like a GIANT needle and I am still awake and you’re gonna stick that in my eye.  SHIT!  I don’t think so.  Breath.  Breath. I can do this.  It is important to see if the tearduct is plugged.  Look.  It is not a needle, just a blunt probe.  Just relax.  Lalalalala.  Fine.  I can do this.  The doctor finishes the procedure.  It felt like a weird kinda water thing in the back of my throat.  Excellent.  The tearducts are not plugged.  But you do have dry eyes cause by the chemo.  But my eyes are watering?  Does not compute.  Of course he explained it.  Something about different kind of tears.  Lubricating or flushing.  Mine are flushing and so just run out.  They dont lubricate the eye, so the eyes are dry….Whatever…Hubby understood.  Makes perfect sense.  Sure. Right.  Yeah, lets go with that.  New eye drops.  Can wear contacts again.  Okay.  Back on track.

Why be normal?

So the last time I sat down to do this blog thing, I was feeling kinda icky from my big kemosabe.  That was 3 weeks ago and I am not sure why I haven’t written since then.  I guess cuz I started feeling better.  The doctor gave me some new meds for the new symptoms and they were working.  Life was getting into a normal kinda groove.  I had stuff to keep me busy and I just didn’t want to think about chemo and cancer and these things stuck on my chest and no hair and …. Well, a lot of stuff I didn’t want to think about.  Life was getting kinda normal again and that felt so good.

I was able to do more things like I had done before.  Heck, I even cleaned my bathroom.  Now, it took me almost all day to clean it, but it got cleaned.  I was making dinners again and doing dishes and laundry and all the stuff that I hadn’t done for a long time.  I know some will think I am crazy for being excited about doing laundry and cleaning toilets, but hey, thats normal.  And I like normal.

I had even started doing some light workouts.  Just simple stuff like walking around the whole block, stair climbs and different things to get me moving.  I was feeling better.  And then round 4 hit.  UGH!  I know they are supposed to get easier, and I think this round was, but it really bummed me out that it still hit me as hard as it did.  My intestines started hating me.  My skin was crawling.  It hurt to walk.  And I was so very tired, but could not rest at all.  The doctor gave me some new pills to help with that.  Oh man, no thanks!  After 3 different nights of trying these pills, not in a row, but when it was just getting so bad, I would try these. I tried them one at a time and on different nights.  They didn’t help and so I tried what he had suggested and took both of them, together.  The next day was horrible.  I was like hung over and drunk and nauseous and oh, just so miserable. I think I will just be tired, those pills are not for me.

Now the weekend is over.  Monday found me wide awake at 4:30am.  But that’s okay.  I was able to get back to sleep for a bit. I am feeling better, but am still very nauseous and no food is sounding good.  The doctor said this is normal.  Okay, so maybe I don’t like this kinda normal.  Another symptom that has come up, has to do with my eyes.  My eyes just water all the time.  Totally messes up my makeup, kinda watering.  No reason.  They just start watering.  So I need to see an eye doctor dude to put some kinda dye in my eye to see if my tear ducts are blocked.

Great, a new doctor. I have a cardiologist, a plastic surgeon, an oncologist, an opthamologist, a general surgeon, not to mention my regular doctor. Who else is there?  Well, I guess I could see a psychiatrist, but my grandpa was a world renowned psychiatrist and brain surgeon, so I have been fully psychoanlyzed most of my life.  I am normal.  Heehee.  (But don’t tell that to the man behind the blue curtain)  I remember once when my grandpa and my grandma came for a visit and my grandpa called me “an ocean”.  He said, “You are like an ocean, moving and flowing and chasing”.  Now at the time, I was 8 months pregnant with my second baby and had a sweet baby girl that I was chasing around, so maybe he meant “like a whale in the ocean”, but I can’t ask him, so lets go with an ocean.  I have held on to that memory and have tried to understand what he meant by that.  It has actually helped me a lot these last few months.  Just weather this storm, clear skies ahead and smooth sailing…. Normal.  I like that.

Poodle Lessons or Sh*t Happens, whichever works

UGH!  My intestines hate me.  Well, I guess they are hating the chemo and not really me personally.  Although some days I wonder.  Last week was my half way point for big kemosabe.  On Thursday, I went in for the Neulasta shot.  This shot in the arm burns going in, but is very important for helping my body fight infections.  It goes straight to my bone marrow and starts working to build up my white blood cells that the chemo is destroying.  It hurts for days afterwards in my joints and skin.  But this last time it wasn’t as bad.  I actually was up and doing things on Friday.

I took my poodles into the groomers.  Now this is something that was a bit hard for me, because I have been their groomer since they were puppies.  I am very particular about how they are groomed.  Okay I know, I am very particular about , well, everything, …  Anyway, I dropped them off and was feeling surprising okayish, so I decided to do a little shopping.  I headed over to one of my favorite stores and was ready to SHOP!  I had on a cute little purple sweater hoodie and some big chandelearrings and of course lipstick.  ( I don’t mow the lawn without lipstick on) One of the things I was needing were some tank tops that have the bra built in them.  I am just wearing the sports bra at night now, but still need something during the day.  Okay I really dont need anything, these things are still defying gravity, but I feel more comfortable with a tank top on and then a shirt over that. Anyway, walk into the store, there is a little kid standing by the checkout counter with his mommy .  He’s obviously bored and was ready to leave the store.  I hear him say in a not too quite voice, “Look, Mommy, a man playing dress up”…… Deflated.  Embarrassed.  Gonna turn around and leave now.  Stupid kids just rained on my day.  Wait, I like rain.  Okay kid you ain’t gonna get me down.  I continued into the store and eventually found some cute new summer tops and shirts that I was needing.  But it did effect me.  I had trouble with it the rest of the weekend.

I am learning to deal with some of the stares.  Most people look once and then don’t look again.  Some stare for a bit longer than is comfortable.  Some do the sneaky peeky looksee.  I see them looking and then they look away and then they look back.  I am okay with it.  It has opened up a few talks with people that I kinda know.  Like the lady at the grocery store.  She sees me about three times a week.  I like to shop at my local grocery for fresh foods and stuff.  I prefer they hold my food for me, rather than have a pantry so full you end up eating out cus nothing sounds good.  Anyway, she commented on my new hairless do and we were able to talk about stuff other than groceries.  That was cool.  Found out that she had a lump and underwent a mastectomy.  And she lost all her hair, even her eyebrows.  I guess I am lucky.  I still have some hair.  Of course its the gray hair that stayed.  Stubborn gray hair.  I still have my eyebrows. They are a bit thinner and I haven’t had to tweeze them.  Heck I haven’t had to shave my armpits or legs for that matter  ( bikini area too) in like weeks.  Shower time is so quick now.  I kinda wish I had more to do in the shower, but I don’t want to waste water and after about 7 minutes I am done. Getting ready is alot easier.  I really don’t have a bad hair day anymore.  I think I need a trim though.  Some of the hair is much longer than the other hair and it is looking odd.  I think I’ll get my man to help me with that again.

Oh, totally forgot about my intestinal stuff. (although, how I could forget is beyond me) My stomach and digestive tract are not happy.  I am nauseous, and my stomach aches, all the time.  Nothing sounds good to eat and when I do eat, well my stomach doesn’t like it. This has slowly been getting worse over the last month or so.  I am hoping it has reached its peak and is starting the down hill slide.  The onco dude gave me some meds to help with the cramps and intestinal distress that keep me up all night.  They seem to help, but its just day one.

The poodles look terrible.  Their ears are uneven.  Some areas are longer than others.  One has half a moustache.  Poor things.  But luckily they don’t care, even when we laugh at them. Their hair will grow and I can trim them up in a few weeks. We could all learn something from poodles.

Laugh, Alot

So, today I had my third “big chemo” day.  That means I am half way.  YooHoo!  Well at least halfway with that round of chemo.  I will still have 14 months more of little chemo.  Whenever I say big chemo , little chemo, I always think of Lone Ranger’s side kick, Tonto, “Um, that right, Kemosabe.”  I know I am a weirdo sometimes, but it makes me laugh.  And you just gotta laugh sometimes, even if it’s at yourself.  I have a friend who has been supplying me with a steady stream of corny jokes and I love’um.  ”How do u catch a unique rabbit?”      …..  ”Unique up on it!”  hahahaha.  Sorry , I think its hilarious.  She also just sent me some outrageous pics of animals with totally off the wall comments.

Dad left when he found out about Mom and the Panda…

I know.  Tacky, mean, not funny.  Yeah, whatever.  I laughed so hard I cried, these are just too funny to me. “Laughter is the best medicine”, I don’t know who said it, I even looked it up on google for a quick search, they didn’t know either.  No matter.  It works.  I was having my big kemosabe, and was feeling tired and a bit overwhelmed.  This time they had trouble accessing the port in my neck, so they had to do poke me with the ginormous needle, a second and then a third time.  Ugh.  HURT! BAD! yes, I cried.  But I got over it.  Chemo was long today.  The bags were bigger for some reason.  Ohh, the nurse explained why, “blahblahblah”, Yeah, whatever.  I understand that, it just doesn’t make sense right now.  I am sure it will later.  So my hubby brought in lunch and my lips were buzzing, thats a chemo side effect for me, and I just let my mind wander and it settled on these silly pictures and then, I just got so tickled, I couldn’t stop laughing.  And I felt better.

I am still not sleeping well and its kinda starting to effect me some.  I try to nap during the day, can’t.  I go to bed early, no luck.  I usually wake up in the middle of the night, and just lay there.  My mind is wandering all over the place.  I think, oh I should get up and go do something.  Like what?  Yup, thats why I just end up laying there.  I sometimes get back to sleep about 7am when I start hearing the family getting ready for the day.  I feel bad, like I should get up with them, but I’ve been awake since 2 or 3am and now I am exhausted.  I have tried meditation.  We have a soothing sound thingy that plays all night.  Nada.  I get up and get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, you know, all the stuff your mom told you to do when you were a little kid and couldn’t sleep so you came into her and woke her up and she helped you get back to sleep by rubbing your back.  They still don’t work.I cant ask my hubby to wake up and give me a back rub.  He would, thats true, but he needs his sleep so much right now.  One of us needs to be rested.

Sleepy, Nauseous, Chilly, Achy, Baldy, Grouchy, and um, oh what’s the other one, oh right, Forgetful.  These are the seven dwarfs of Cancer.  I am one of them all the time, I think.  Maybe I am two of them at a time.  I know I have been all 7 of them at once, okay, maybe alot of the time.  And its okay right now.  I know it is going to pass.  I know it is going to take time.  I have come so far already, and have forgotten alot too.  I am so glad I am keeping this blog, if for nothing else, but to remind myself how far I have come in this nightmare of cancer.  If I had tried to write down what has happened now, I know I would have forgotten something. (see, there’s one of those dwarfs again)

My hair continues to fall out.  Not completely bald yet, but pretty close.  But I am doing okay with it.  Went and bought some new chandlearrings, (thats what I like to call them)  Everyone I have talked with, all my friends, say I look so great and my head is the perfect shape to have no hair, and I kinda like it too.  Showers take alot less time, as well as getting ready in the morning.  Heck, I can be out the door in 20 minutes now, looking good and ready to face the day. I am doing okay.

A new attidude

Well, really its a new hairdo.  And like one of my friends said, I am rockin’ it.   Some say I look great cuz I have a long neck, others say my eyes pop.   I am not so sure about all that, but it has helped so much in the last few days with my self-image.  Now, I look in the mirror.  I mean, really look in the mirror, not just sideways glance at it.  Some say I look like Annie Lennox, Sinead O’Connor (aka skinhead o’connor, that is what my hubby calls her)  Ripley from Aliens.  Every now and then I see that lady on Good Eats, she’s like a food anthropologist or something.  Yeah, I know I am not that big, but….My daughter thinks it feels fun.  It is still falling out, but I don’t see it or feel it as much.  It is interesting how it feels though.  If you have ever had hair long enough to wear in a ponytail and you wear that ponytail ALL day and then take it down.  You know that feeling you get.  Its hard to explain, but my head feels like that, all the time.  It feels heavy and itchy and when it is windy, I feel it.  But, I am not worried about having a bad hair day, at least not for awhile.

I went to the store for the first time in 2 months.  All by myself.  I was a little afraid to go out in public without some kind of covering for my head, you know, just in case.   But after the initial nerves, I did alright.  I did feel like people were staring at me and one little kid did kinda stared a little longer, but I made a silly face at him and he smiled, so that was the test.  (he did not runaway crying, so that was a good thing) I was able to shop and not worry.  I felt really good.  I bought the biggest pair of chandler earrings I could find.  I think I am gonna need some more.  The next day I had small chemo and the went to the grocery store.  Again, a bit cautious, but still doing my own thing.  I had a few stares, but more people liked my earrings and said so!  All right, I can do this!

Next was the orthodontist appointment with my daughter.  So the doc sits down and looks at me and asks “So how is everything going?”  Was he asking about me and my very obvious shaved head, or was he asking about my daughter and her braces?  I think he was asking about me and  this is where I am struggling.  Do I tell them the whole story,  the readers digest version or somewhere in between, or nothing at all?  I kinda told him the short, sweet, to the point, kinda version.  ”I am in the middle of treatment for Breast Cancer.”  Whew, that wasn’t so hard.  Lair.  It was very hard.   I am not sure how to do this.  I know as time goes on I will be able to handle this better, but right now, it’s hard.  And I am honestly not sure if people really want to hear the whole story.  How much is too much information?  I have run into this a few times now and I don’t know what to say.  Now sometimes, if you ask me that question, you can’t get me to shut up, man I can go on and on, but its the casual question that I am trying to figure out now.  But, I need to give myself some slack, it has been two month and this is really the first week out, back into the real world, so to speak.

So far so good.  I haven’t made small children cry, and that is always a good day.