Posted Dec 31, 2009 Goodbye 2009!

Goodbye 2009!

Posted Dec 31, 2009 6:28pm

So yeah, like most people I talk to, I'm MORE than ready to say goodbye to 2009! What a crappy year it's been, for so many people. 2009 can kiss my *ahem*...patootie! LOL!

Anyway, today, I got my bod all marked up so they can line up the radiation machine exactly the same every time. On Tuesday, I'll go in for just a run through, where they will use the marks on my body and do a bit of a "dry run" of a treatment, and then the Radiation will start on Wednesday. Got my Aloe Vera Gel ready. Lookin for a big ol Aloe Vera plant I can bring home & pinch from. Heard that really helps reduce the burn.

Then I went across the hall and got my Herceptin started and spoke with my chemo oncologist, Dr W. My MUGA scan looks not just good, but GREAT! My heart is functioning very well. MUGA scan measures the percent of blood the heart pumps out...it never pumps all the blood out. Anyway, he says any thing from 55% & up is normal. I'm in the GREAT range at 81%! YAY! =)

So I'm back to healthy eating, (kinda been treating myself since Thanksgiving) and back to rebuilding my stamina for the elliptical machine. Gotta start slowly and work back up. How I ever did 45 minute workouts on that thing, I dunno, but I hope to work back up to that.

So Good Riddance to 2009! 2010 WILL be better! I will complete "active treatment" in August 2010. =)

Happy New Year y'all! Hope you all have fun and safe celebrations. And thanks again so much for your thoughts and prayers, cards and well wishes and comments here. It really does help me, and I know it's working too! =)

Posted Dec 22, 2009 I Touched Myself...

I Touched Myself...

Posted Dec 22, 2009 1:05pm

Yeah, my cousin would get a kick out of the title of this post, but I finally did actually touch, with my bare hand, my surgery sites. Some of you know that I haven't been able to bear touching the left breasticle area due to the fact that it's been totally numb, like dead, since the surgery & it totally grosses me out! Just to bathe in the shower, I take the pouf & quickly scrub under the arm & the boobie which is followed by the sound of me wretching, cause it's soooo icky feeling! Anyway, I am trying to get used to how it feels to touch these parts, cause radiation is about to start, & I'm gonna have to be slathering Aloe Vera Gel on these regions, sooooo, time to be touchin stuff. There is some feeling coming back, but I don't think 100% of the feeling is ever gonna come back, & that is not unusual. And I will totally live with it. No biggie.

I met my Radiation Oncologist, Dr. L, on Friday, after having a follow up appointment with my fabulous surgeon, Dr. V. Both say they think I'm doing really really great! Both did an exam of the affected boobie area. Both said all feels fine. Dr V wanted to order a mammo, but I'm still quite sore over there & told him that if that boob got squashed down in a mammo, that I'd probably faint! So he opted to physically check the boobies for lumpies. None found & he liked the feeling of his scars. Said they feel fine. Ordered a mammo for March. I have zero faith in mammos, as my lump was not detected by the digital mammo. But it's not really being done to look for cancer so much as it will establish a new "base line", so we can see the scar tissue & exactly how a post op boobie looks. And I totally LOVE Dr. L. He is the 1st person to say these words to me: "You are in total remission." And he also says I'm one of the ones that is "cureable". How bout that?! But I knew this stuff already. LOL!

ANYWAY....so here's the deal. Radiation is about to get started. I will go EVERY-FREAKIN-DAY, Monday through Friday, for SEVEN-FREAKIN-WEEKS! (I totally need gas prices to go down, right?!) I will lay under the machine for about 1 - 2 minutes. Whole appointment, from arrival to departure should only be a bout 15 - 20 minutes. I will receive 25 doses of radiation to the lymph node area. I will get 26 doses of radiation to the entire left boobie area. And finally I will receive 7 - 8 "Boosts" directly to the area where the tumor was. And this is strange to me, cause that entire area of my boobie "appears to me" to be gone - removed during the last breast surgery. But hey, boost away. Kill this crap! Right?!

Radiation Side Effects: And again, "everyone is different"...this seems to be a mantra in the bc world...fatigue, itching, inflammation, burning, swelling, firmness, dryness, peeling, less elasticity, oozing...sounds like FUN, right? Might even come out with a rib fracture! Possible light scarring to the lung & heart too. Dang, this is serious business!

And, although I'm done with Chemo, thankfully, I'm not done with the chemo room yet. I will still get an infusion of Herceptin, till the end of August. MUGA scan willing....

Went yesterday for that MUGA scan. It's a heart scan they do so they can measure the strength of your heart. One of the side effects of Herceptin is a weakening of the heart. Soooooo, I so hope my MUGA looks good so I can stay on it, cause it's supposed to be like a "Miracle Cure" for my kind of bc, HER2+.

So, I will go for the Simulation of the Radiation & get my body marked up so they can line up the machine on New Year's Eve. Then I will go across the hall to have my Herceptin infusion. And then Radiation will start about a week after that & Herceptin (hopefully) will continue on the 3 week cycle.

Hair: Stubbles are still growing. I look like a freshly sprouting Chia Pet! LOL! Or a little baby bird - head. Cause you can still see my shiny, round BALD head, but there's all these 1 inch long hairs standing straight up on it! Lost most of my eyelashes & brows, but they are starting to grow back in. Yeah, I check em daily. LOL!

And even with all this crapola going on, I'm soooooo loving that we're totally off work till after the New Year. Enjoying my Christmas trees...all sparkly & stuff...Anyway, I hope y'all all have a really wonderful Holiday Season. Allen & I are really enjoying it, cause it's so great to be off from work for 2 whole weeks!

Thanks again y'all for checkin in on me & for all your well wishes, cards & prayers & stuff. =) I enjoy your comments! =)

Posted Dec 9, 2009 Some Musings on the Day Before My LAST Chemo!

Some Musings on the Day Before My LAST Chemo!

Posted Dec 9, 2009 6:06pm

Can you believe it? LAST CHEMO is tomorrow!!! I'm totally trippin! And I really do appreciate the timing too, cause by the time the Christmas Break rolls around, I should be well back to feeling like myself, if things go as they have with the previous chemos! So, it's a weird feeling too, cause I'm very excited about it, yet I'm kinda scared at the same time, and nervous too. I'm always nervous about getting the chemo. But yeah, hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll be able to celebrate the end of Phase One of my "active treatment".

It still feels like I'm talking about someone else's life when I discuss the bc and treatments and stuff. And I do try to be mindful to have other stuff to talk about too, so it's not just bc, treatment, bc, treatment, hairloss.....Which still ticks me right off! But thank goodness for awesome wigs, I'm tellin ya! But anyway, I try to ask people questions about what's up with them, but sometimes forget. Dern chemo brain!

And speaking of hair....stubbles still hanging in. Almost an inch long & they stick straight up on my head. Starting to see little bitty stubbles growin in inbetween the longer stubbles, but don't get too excited about that. Saw that last month and they fell right out couple weeks after the prvious chemo. Same thing with eyebrows and eyelashes. I'm all checking with the magnifying mirror to see new lashes & brows & stuff! LOL!

Here is a new side effect for ya! Vision and eye issues. After chemo #4, about a week before next chemo, my left eye went all wonky! Watery, blurry vision..Then it cleared right up! Last week, right eye did the exact same thing and is already almost cleared up. Craziness. I'm told Taxotere will do that sort of stuff. Oh yay! If both eyes do it at the same time, I'm totally screwed! LOL!

Chemo brain. Now there's a side effect for ya. That's the one that just hangs around & gets worse & worse. I've turned totally stupid! LOL! Not really, but I sure can't remember a single thing. Short term memory is blown! Not that it was that great to begin with, but dang! I'm tellin people stories 3 and 4 times now! Ugh!

So anyway, there's a very good little Italian joint here in town that I just love love love! Looks like a total dive, but the food is totally fabulous! It is super cold here, and I'm thinkin I need to celebrate the end of chemo with a nice, hot plate of Grilled Shrimp Angel Hair Alfredo!

Thanks everyone for all your support, cards and comments on here. It really does still help keep my spirits up. I'll let y'all know how it went when the chemo fog lifts.

Posted Nov 27, 2009 HAPPY THANKSGIVING Y'ALL! =)

Posted Nov 27, 2009 12:13pm

So I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am sooooo glad that my energy level comes back right on schedule, 1 week from chemo, so I could plan to cook the big meal. Ok, I did scale it back a bit and did more stuff the night before - a fabulous trend that will now be a permanent part of the meal prep. But can you believe I was able to pull it off? I totally cooked a Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, dressing, squash casserole, a wonderful beefy mushroom rice dish that my lovely cousin, Kathy, shared with me years ago, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, stuffed celery, cranberry sauce, and my Hubs made his totally AWESOME pea salad. Hubs helped me out quite a bit by choppin the squash, & doin the heavy lifting.

I'm always nervous about how the turkey is gonna come out. I've dried out many a bird. But this turkey turned out to be the BEST one I've ever done. When my Hubs cut into that breast, juice just ran down! Not dry! Not dry! Not dry! I was all doin a little "turkey's not dry" dance! Seriously, I was so impressed with that bird when he came out of the oven, I had to snap a cell phone pic right away and send to my mom!

Even the dressing turned out good. (I've made some dressing flavored "glue" many times! LOL!)  And my taste buds were all back to normal, so I could actually enjoy the food. Hubby's mother and her friend came over and we all just ate till we were about to pop!

So, 1 week from the last chemo, and I was cookin up a storm. We really did have a great Thanksgiving, and hope you all did too. Only thing that could have made it be perfect would be the ability to "beam travel" like in Star Trek, and get together with my family. But thanks to the internet, Facebook and the telephone, we get to share the turkey love. =)  So I am super glad to have my lovely leftovers to munch on for a few days. We'll be putting up our decorations tonight, and looking forward to the rest of the holiday season.

Yep. I'm thankful. For soooooo many things. Thankful that I have a great family. Thankful for my fab husband. Thankful for awesome friends. Thankful I could taste my food! LOL! Thankful for my health. (Did I say that? Yes, other than doing chemo, I'm quite healthy!) Thankful that in 2 weeks I'll do my LAST CHEMO! And thankful to say goodbye to 2009. Seriously not been the best year, yet I'm determined to come out on the other side smilin!

=)