Here Baby, There Mama....

Waitin in the truck 8/2012

Everywhere..... Yep.  Haaaaaaiiiirrrr!!!!! More & more things seem to be gettin back to normal.  O pointed out one of those things this mornin.  He says: "Well, guess I'm gonna have to get used to your hair bein all over the place...again..." while gettin ready in the bathroom. Lookin around, I can see that, yes, there are strands of my hair around here & there. Yes, the shedding has begun.  Up until recently, I wasn't sheddin at all....Most people lose 100 - 200 strands of hair every day.  Just the natural life cycle of hair.  But I hadn't lost any until a couple of months ago.  Guess since it's all brand new, it just hung in there.  Which would explain why it's so much thicker than it was before it fell out.  But I suspect it's on it's way back to it's normal thickness...or rather, THINness.  Guess we'll just have to wait & see. 

What else....got a call from the Fab Oncologist Dr W the other day.  He was copied on that hormone blood work Dr D did last week.  It's Dr W's opinion that the number is still in the same range...almost an identical reading.  Which it is.  He really felt I am postmenopausal.  Until I shared with him about the ovulation & the conversation I had with Dr D.  Now he's not so sure.  What to do?  I think the two of them need to have a chat or somethin.  Gonna suggest that when I see Dr W in 3 weeks. (There's that Number 3 again! LOL)

Maybe I misunderstood Dr D?  Which is totally possible since I made it 3 years without realizin my bc was Stage III.  (Three mentions of three....ok, I'll stop! lol!) 

The Bitch Is Back... (TMI WARNING)

She goes by many names...Aunt Flo, Miss Monthly Visitor, Miss Red, Dot, Ladybug...After an almost two year absence, yes, the Bitch is Back....I think.....well, not sure just how back....so this is what happened.  *This is where the TMI stuff is, for you squeamish readers.*

I started seein just a trace, teensy tiny, teeny bit of spottin.  I was all like, mmmm'kaaaay...Am I havin a menstrual cycle?? Kinda thought that biz was pretty much over.  Especially since Dr W's FSH test in May showed I was POST menopausal....(but then the other hormone showed ovulation)....Anyway....so I called the ob/gyn Dr D....decided to go ahead & move up the sono appointment from September to ASAP & make sure there were no Tamoxifen related issues.  And also re-ran that FSH hormone test to see what's goin on here.

So I go for the sonogram. And I broke my New Year's Resolution to remain calm & not be a total weirdo freak in front of my doctors. Ugh...so embarrassing!  But everything looks fine.  Same ol same ol, except for the fact that it appears that I had recently ovulated. He & the tech were all like "Hey look at that, she ovulated!" 0.0...  Next day I get the phone call that yes, the FSH still shows I'm POST menopausal...but the number is goin down...a tiny bit...Down is the direction toward PRE-menopause numbers....& then there's the whole issue of the ovulation.  How the hell do you ovulate if you've completed menopause???

So here's what Dr D is thinkin....it appears that perhaps my ovaries are "wakin up" after havin gone through all the trauma of chemo & cancer treatment.  And maybe I will expect some irregular visits from ol Auntie Flo...Hormones could be just all over the place for awhile.  Which would explain a lot....Bitch is Back you say?  Mmmm, yeah...just ask O who's referred to me as a "moody bitch" twice in the last month. (And he'd be SO right, too.) 

Sooooooooooooo long story short....had them copy Dr W on these findings.  Dr W will probably run it again next month.  So still have a bit of a flurry of docs to see in September.  And this "Milestone Mammo"....ugh. 

On the way to get tats

Ok, subject change.  My friend & I went & got matchin tattoos.  I call em our "BFF Tats".  It's a design with an eternity symbol that's open on one end...together you can see that they would "connect".  I know..."Awwwwww.....ain't we sweet?!" 

Yay!

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone...

Oxnard.  Then Oakland.

O & I are major Dallas Cowboys fans.  So as part of our summer fun we took the VIP tour of the new(ish) Cowboys Stadium.  We had a great tour guide take us all over the stadium including the suite where Jerry Jones & family watch the game, (or "go to work" as the guide explained it) a luxury suite, the Miller Lite Club, Cheerleaders & Team Dressing Rooms & just all over the place.  At the end you are allowed to just go down on the field & have fun, take pictures & stuff.  Which we did.  Was great fun.  So glad football season is back on. 

How Bout Them COWBOYS!!!

Strange Magic

Sooooooo....lots of THREE's lately.  This is the third post to do with "three".  The first of 3 posts about 3's was this. A magic number?  Hmmmmm.... Then there was this post.  (In hindsight, I wish I had titled it "One And One And One Is III"...lol.)  And now this post yer readin, where I'm thinkin, sh'yeah...maybe the number 3 ain't so special.  Magic? Eh...it's a Straaaaange Magic.  And with this post, (3rd time's the charm?) I'd like to put this bullshit outta my damn mind.  And yeah, I went ahead & got confirmation from Dr W's...Stage III.  Has been since day one. I asked O if he recalled bein told it was Stage III & he was all like "Well yeah...where the hell YOU been??". 

Anyway....I still have about 6 weeks (3 + 3 lol) till I can see the docs who have the power to put my mind at ease...All THREE of em.

Feelin HOT HOT HOT...

Good gawd! Here we go again....another stretch of days where temps will be at or above 104°.  And we hate it.  Hopin this is the "last gasp" in these dog days of summer.  Compared to last summer though, it's been pretty mild.  I can totally deal with temps around 100°, but when it gets much above that...I just have such a hard time.  I mean, 8pm & it's still 101° outside.  Really?  And if you have to be out & about in this heat...ugh. 

So, looks like about another week of crazy heat & then maybe it will back off to less than triple digits.  Gonna hope for that.

Ok...hair:  Chemo curl.  It goes on & on & on & on....(Journey anyone?)  On super hot days, I've found it's better to "embrace the curl" as a friend once told me about a year ago...so this is it 2 years & 7 months from last chemo.  It's much faster to dry this way.  And so I've been doin this quite a bit this summer.  The less time you have to point a hairdryer blowin hot air at yer head durin this time is good. YAY!

One & One & One Is Three....

Ok, just gonna put this out there....I learned somethin (I think) a couple of days ago.  And it's had me a bit freaked out. (What's new...) And I'm thinkin that if I blog it out, maybe I can put it out of my mind.  (Yeah, right!) So here we go....

I've totally been lovin this new, hi tech computer stuff at my Oncologist's new office.  There's this "Patient Portal" where I can log in & get test results, confirm my appointments with Dr W, & even see all the correspondence between him & my other doctors.  S'all good right?  WELL....I got a notification a few days ago about a new Record havin been added to my stuff.  So I log on & check it out.  Nice letter from Dr W to all my other docs....about how I followed him to the new place, I appear to be doin well, this looks fine, that checks out fine...."I will continue to monitor her conservatively at this time with a follow up in 4 months..." Yeah...all sounds great.  And I also saw that all my stuff from the last 3 years has been scanned in & transferred to Dr W's...And then I saw it. A note from my routine follow up from February.  At the end of the letter is a part called "Assesment/Plan:" And there's my full diagnosis & pathology info.  And it starts with "Stage IIIA, Left Breast Carcinoma, ER Negative/PR 9%......"

WHOA!!!  Stage III??!  All this time I've been goin around thinkin I was a Stage II bc survivor.  So I was all like, "Whaaaatthefuuuuuck????!!!!"  Surely this is a typo....

But I've done some checkin....& I do believe that is the case. And how the hell did I manage to miss this bit of information? 

And yeah, (naturally) it freaked me out, but I dunno why really. It's not like it even matters at all at this point. Doesn't change a thing.  Just changes what I thought I knew & what I thought I had.  Well...& survival rates & stuff, but I never looked into all that anyway.  Shew...I know myself well enough to know better than to even bother with lookin at that stuff. 

Anyway, was gonna call up Dr's W & V & ask for clarification, but then I figured, what the hell for??!  Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all anymore. This has been the case from day one apparently & I've received appropriate treatment.  I do need to clarify to be for sure for sure, but I think it can wait till I'm in front of them in September. I mean, if I'm tellin my story, I need to be tellin it right! Right?

So how bout that! I'm tougher than I thought, bein all Stage III & all....

And I also don't think I'm gonna be lookin at the Online Notes stuff again. 

Nope.