You Know You Are a Breast Cancer Patient When......Part 2

Infobabe

There is another page with this heading but I have compiled about the first 20 pages eliminating personal references and editing for content.  

Some of the posters want those posts published but I don't if it has been done or if it is possible.  

Remember, this was all composed by the patients themselves so it is for a select audience.  A lot of people won't think it is funny.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A CANCER PATIENT WHEN…….

Your doctor expects you to gain weight.

You find yourself discussing your bowel movements and don't find it a little strange......

You have more doctors than friends

You look at an infants head of hair and compare it to yours

Your friends from work see you with very little hair and a bloated face from steriods and they say you look good...............

You actually miss plucking or having your eyebrows waxed.

You are on a first name basis with the flower delivery guy

Your breasts have had more "pictures" taken of them than Pamela Anderson's.

Your sex life is so non-existent you actually look forward to being felt up by your oncologist...

You walk in the rads room through the hallway and threaten to just go there topless because the whole entire cancer center has seen your boobs.

You go to the dentist and start to unbutton your shirt.

You can't remember the last time you bought razors

You ask for "seconds" of Communion Wine!

You're ecstatic over having nose hair

Your pedometer says you took 108 steps today.

Your doctor gives you a prescription for a cranial prosthesis...

You wish you still had bad hair days... 

You fall off your bike.....end up with road rash, sprained wrist and broken finger and tell the doctor in urgent care."its not THAT bad"

Your favorite snack is a rusty flagpole

You are happy that you get to have chemo because white blood cell counts stayed high,

You catch yourself giving self-breast exam in public

You have to check to make sure you have all your "parts"on before you answer the door.

You have drank in the past 6 months more juiced vegetables than you have eaten in your entire life...even though it looks and smells like pond scum. 

You bump into something with your fake boobs and don't realize it

You suddenly panic while walking down the street because you are not sure if you have a top on.

Your bra strap slips off your shoulder & you don't realize it until you see you have one boob in place and one near your waist.

You are using your insurance card more than your credit cards.

You have no hesitation to whip off your top so a stranger can examine what is left of your chest.

When the closest thing to you when sitting in your arm chair is a pair of tweezers for the chin hair.

You take your fluids intravenously!

People of all ages start calling you "dear".

You only have to shave one arm pit. 

You buy volumnizing shampoo for your crotch hair.

You show up at the radiation safety office at work after PET scans just to make the Geiger counters go off..

You let co-workers feel your Foobs to see how dang hard they  are

Your name has been on the church bulletin for over a year.

Your pharmacist calls to check up on you because you haven't been in for a while

Your total lack of fear makes new car salespersons sweat.

You go in the pharmacy and actually know what all the drugs are for because you already have most of them in your medicine cabinet!

When having a wreck doesn't seem so bad compared to what you have been going through.

You are using the lint roller on your head to get out the stubbies!

People keep telling you how good you look, and you wonder, "If I look so good in a wig and have no eyelashes and one eyebrow (the other drawn on), how bad did I look before I had cancer?

You are THRILLED instead of depressed at the idea of turning 50!

When the lint roller isn't working so well on your head anymore so you start using duct tape to get those "prickles" out

You go without the robe because you just didn't care anymore who saw my boobs, and are told, the robes are for the other patients. You don't want to shock them....

Well meaning friends and family buy you pink everything.

Your teenage son tries to signal you from across the room to "adjust" the foobs!  He endes up texting "Mom....you have one creeping to the middle!"

You consider it a perk to be a priority patient at the lab.

When you find yourself explaining to your dr's intern what a PET scan is.

When you can trim your bangs by simply adjusting your wig

All you want is liquor and dessert.

When you tell a cancer joke to non-cancer friends and they look at you horrified while you are cracking up at your own joke.

Realizing your whole body is just more scalp.

When you used to worry your nipples would show through that white t-shirt, and now after BMX, you worry that you don't have any nipples to show through that white t-shirt..

When the man driving the car in the next lane over is looking oddly at you because you are taking advantage of the red light to do a little lymphatic drainage massage.

When you don't have to worry about getting lice.

When your housecleaning standards take a complete nose dive, and you are finally ok with writing reminder notes to yourself in the dust.

When you have chemo brain so bad you can't remember your kids' name and you just have to call him "Hey you!!"

When someone tells you "You're so Strong". It really means: Your life sucks and I'm glad I'm not you!

When you can't breathe from your nose, your eyes are watering and you are sneezing like crazy - you get ready to call the onc to see wtf these new se's are from and realize - its my allergy season.

When you panic because you are getting ready for work, running late, and cant remember where you took your foobs off.

When you open your eyes in the morning and your head is still swimming from the night before and you didn't drink.

When you pull in the parking lot and realize you forgot to put your falsie in; and you scrounge around in the car, come up with a sanitary pad and try to discretely shove it into your bra without anyone seeing....

When you didn't notice the man at the bar touching your breast

When your husband is okay with you getting felt up by everyone in town.

When your treatment plan involves turning you into a big, fat, beefy, red-faced bald guy.

When you know what makes a chemo-fart different from a regular fart...

When you panic looking for your  "lost" phone, while on the phone.

All your new favorite books were written by breast cancer survivors and oncologists.

When you are feeding the cat and, after putting his dish down beside the fridge, you are hand-crawling back up to a standing position and the cat gets brained by your foob falling out of your old, soft bra.

When your hair comes back, you dye it PURPLE, just because you can.

When you realize you have been sitting in the same spot all day and have not gotten up once, and you don't care you haven't moved.

When it's normal to get out of bed by sliding to the floor and crawling across the room to "get going"

When you've run out of TV shows to watch and now watching the Travel Channel even though I can't go anywhere.

When you can recite the fine print on your health insurance policy like the Gettysburg address

When you reach for the reading glasses on top of your head, and realize you're wearing 2 pair up there!

When you start to run long distances again and realize you no longer have to worry about nipple chafing!!!

When it's summer time and all the ladies are walking around in gorgeous outfits and you nudge your DH and say "Holy crap, look at the tits on that one!"

When your head feels like 800 grit sandpaper!

When you can become an instant drug dealer with all the narcotics you now have in your possession.

When you automatically take a book with you when you leave the house ready for the long waits. It's not really necessary at the grocery store though!

When you can't balance your checkbook, but you can instantly calculate when your supply of Schedule 2 naroctics will run out. 

When you can blame Tamoxifen for everything negative in your life, even the Gulf oil spill.

When you look forward to watching the "Price is Right" during your chemo infusion.

When you are out in public and you feel like everyone is staring at your breasts like you have two heads and you panic wondering what is going on inside your shirt!

When empty prescription bottles become your main storage container for all your sewing notions, sock knitting needles, buttons, tacks, nails, screws, fake nails, fake eyelashes, and travel containers for all your small items.

When you're over the moon that your CT scan shows a cyst on your liver

When your eyelids twitch (from chemo) meaning you can use cheap mascara and get the same effect as the expensive Lancome oscillation mascara!

When you can't remember your husbands name, you just refer to him as DH.

When the young man helping you with your groceries asks you, “what do you have?” and you think he is talking about your car, but he is responding to the scarf on your head. 

When your two eyebrows are in a different place, horizontally, everyday, because you can't quite remember how far up/down from your eyelids they normally are.

When you used to sleep naked but now sleep in a t-shirt to absorb the night sweats.

When you know the other side of the pillow's not just cooler, it's drier

When you no longer hesitate to tell a man on the train to stand up so you can sit down!

When your daily life involves so many acronyms you might as well work at IBM....or NBC...or, well, you get it. (Why haven't they got an acronym for acronym?)

When you take a shower in the morning and then look in the mirror and you wonder who that old bald headed man in the mirror is.

When you let your daughter cut your hair just for fun. 

When you have maxed out all your insurance copays. I guess there are some perks!

When you are told that the radiation tx may leave you with heart problems 20 years from now and you are smiling at the thought of being alive to experience that!

When you use lubricant regularly with no thoughts of having sex in the foreseeable future.

When you finally stand up and are "surprised" it wasn't painful (this time) and than forget why you even bothered to stand up in the 1st place.

When you can say a prayer for strength and help in one breath and the next breath curse like a sailor as they are hooking up your IV

When you wake up, get dressed and head out the door to start your day.Then you realize you never even looked  in a mirror once.

When you talk about your treatment mentioning drugs by name, and your husband says it sounds like some bizarre code that no understands. 

When thinking about your "hairdo" for the day- your choices are: go commando with your 1/2 inch hair, ball cap, wig, or scarf? 

When a friend e-mails you that she is sorry about your "nymph lodes"

When you fall UP the stairs AGAIN, because you can't feel your toes.

When you can't wait to show your oncologist your newly aquired DIEP cleavage. 

When you show up at the wrong Dr.'s building. 

When you had to eat a burned sandwich for lunch and it doesn't matter because you have no tastebuds anyway.

When your surgeon told you after the lumpectomy that your breast looked "fabulous" and the radiation oncologist said your breast was "very hot" and neither of them was making a pass at you.

When my baby cried hysterically when I wore the wig.

When you have 12 needles in 24 hours, and people wonder now why your veins are so crappy!!!

When you allow people to feel up your radiated boob to compare it to a "regular" boob.

When you're at a family event and all of the "older" people are talking about their various ailments and you can relate to all of them.

When you wear a surgical mask to Wal-Mart.

When your DH refers to himself as DH.

When you rather write out California than the abreviation CA, and when you rather write out British Columbia than BC.

Laughing is much better than crying. 

Edited by Mods to remove html text.

Stage 0, Grade 1, ER+/PR+Surgery 05/01/2012 Lumpectomy (Left)

Infobabe

I wish I knew how to get rid of all that code but it is all invisible on the edit page.

Moderators

Got rid of it for you, infobabe! Thanks for posting this entertaining list!

Infobabe

Moderators 

Good.   I thought you were going to be mad.

Moderators

Why in the world would we be mad??!

Infobabe

Moderators 

I thought you might think I was taking liberties with posts I did not originate.  I just wanted to be sure not to offend anyone. 

christina0001

This was hysterical!!! Loved it!

Infobabe

christina0001

I laugh every time I read it too. 

Anonymous

Thanks for the laughs Infobabe!

SpecialK

OK, what does it mean when I have done the phone one and the two pairs of reading glasses on top of the head one, and that was BEFORE having BC?  I also recently went to attend a funeral (non BC related) based on reading the online obit, which said services would be on Saturday (I was reading on Thurs. because I had just heard) but the funeral had been the previous Saturday.  Felt like an idiot, but someone did compliment my shoes!

Infobabe

SpecialK

 What is means is, you are really funny. 

SpecialK

I regard myself as a reasonably intelligent person, but I have also forgotten to take my sunglasses off after walking into the kitchen and then asked everyone why it was so dark!  A number of years ago, pre-BC but apparently peri-menopause, I also asked everyone if they were REALLY hot, when I was actually experiencing my first hot flash.  It didn't dawn on me until later that if I was the only one who was fanning themself to try to cool off that was what happened.  Now mine are so obvious everyone around me knows what is going on, lol! 

susan3

soooo funny!!!!! thanks for that..you could be published!!!!!!

Cookiegirl12

Just caught myself doing this:

You know the dates for Doctor Appreciation Day (March 30), Nurses Appreciation Day (May 6), and National Hospital Week (May 12-18). You know everyone so well, that you are making a gift list. AND you are happy that you don't have to plan any extra trips to drop the gifts off. Chances are you will see them on or around these dates...

wanted to bump this up anyway

Catie2013

When you ask your brother, a pilot only 3 years younger than you, to come on his way home from a trip to take a photo of your stitches (located on your butt area from a SGAP) so you can send it to your PS to see if there is a Seroma, and also offer for him to feel how soft the new breasts feel.....having him say yes to the naked backside but "ewwww NO!" To the free feel! And hurt your feelings doing so!

indenial

When you contemplate selling some of your narcotics supply to a drug dealer so you can pay for your last hospital stay.

When your friends decide that nothing they're going through, including loss, divorce, etc., could possibly be wose than what you are dealing with. (This is not true by the way!)

When your last 100 google searches all contain words like "side effects," "scarves," "survival," and "radioactivity" and you stay up past midnight on BC.org... 

grover

...and when the word predict feature on your kindle or other device suggests cancer as the 1st word as soon as you hit "c," lumpectomy with "l," mastectomy with "m," and breast with "b!"...because you're on BC.org so much:)



Another thought I wouldn't want to start a thread about, & hope doesn't offend, esp. since I'm likely to need menopause induced for proper hormone treatment (if it's not done by chemo!)(I'm 43)... it's probably good that BC is more common after menopause because having to experience menstrual cramps in the midst of all this bs is just ludicrous! I feel like, "really? et tu ovaries??"

Cookiegirl12

When your DH, starts it refer to himself as DH.



Speedy recovery to all...

mdg

When you open your wallet to grab a credit card to pay for something and you realize you have pulled out your medical device card for your implants and have just handed it to the cashier instead of your credit card.

When you get a text from another BC friend and it's a picture of her new nipples and you don't think it's odd that a woman you met on the internet sent you that kind of photo.

When you read a post on BC.org asking how long your nipples were after your nipple surgery and you actually grab a ruler and measure them with no hesitation.

When you and your BC friends go to lunch you decide where to eat based on the size of the handicapped stall in the bathroom so you can all get in there at one time and check out each other's reconstruction results - then you don't even care what kind of looks you get when 5 of you come out of one stall together. 

indenial

Got another one:

When you give up your casual, comfy style and start wearing flowers and ruffles and jewelry because with no breasts and/or no hair, you're worried people might mistake you for a guy...

Infobabe

bump

chrissyb

I am laughing so hard I have tears rolling down my face!  And I just woke my DH doing it!!!

Janetanned

Thanks for the much needed giggle!  Somehow I missed this post when it was originally posted.  

lemon68

Thanks so much Infobabe for compiling this, it is very funny and SO true!

M0mmyof3

lol

NineTwelve

You know you are a Stage IV breast cancer patient when you find yourself in the store looking at expensive new calendars, and wondering if you actually need a whole one.

Happy New Year, to all.

Infobabe

bump

Anonymous

Too funny!! Thanks for bumping it up, Infobabe! This is the first I've seen it!!