Anyone starting Chemo in August 07?

Hi, girls. Hope everyone had a good weekend. Yes, the stock market is making my stomach churn as well. Ugh. Just keep chanting "Long-term, long-term" along with the "I'm buying low" refrain, and we all should be OK.

Jackie--how are you feeling?

Kaye--I'll have all my fingers and toes crossed that your MRI goes well this week and that they identify your Mystery Lump as a cyst or similar. Let us know as soon as you hear something.

I will let you all know as soon as I feel confident that the ice show is going forward for sure. I got the proposal today from the skater who was going to help me produce the show, and he wants an ungodly sum of money, so I'm going to have to plow forward by my lonesome. I will be submitting a proposal to the skating club board of directors this week for a vote during their November meeting, so everyone keep your fingers crossed that they will be receptive. 

Hi Ladies,

Kaye----I thought that was a new recipe for yours and DeAnn's smoothies.  Sounds just as appetizing as some you have described!!! (LOL) only kidding, I swear.

Nash, please don't stress about this event.  Take baby steps and I'm confident you are going to pull this off.  Is there anything I (who has no talent) can do to help you?  Please let me know.

My new girls are very strange.  I still have stitches on one foob until Friday.  I like them, but I don't love them.   I guess it's too early in the relationship to tell.

Ladies, I did the Making Strides for Breast Cancer walk today.  It was wonderful.  I went to the Survivor tent to get a t-shirt and survivor ribbon and all these survivors were there and they come over and hug you.  I'm crying just typing this.  It was very emotional.  But I must say it felt good.  The saddest part of the walk was looking around at all the very young survivors.  It's scary to see these young beautiful women and totally understand what they've been through.  I was truly inspired. I'm going to try and post pix on the other site.  We'll see if I can do that.

Hugs to everyone, Jackie

Hi, girls. Well, Kaye, that was a tad funky--loved the smoothie recipe comment, though, Jackie. I needed a laugh! The bc walk sounds like it was a really intense experience--I'm so glad you had the opportunity to do that. And on the foob front, I think it will just take awhile for the new girls to settle in. Hey--last Halloween we were all set with our bald heads and surgery scars, and this year you've got the added bonus of stitches in one foob. How totally Bride of Frankenstein is that? Very cool.

Well, Kaye, I don't know what skating producers charge, but this guy claims he was giving me a 1/2 price deal. Perhaps it would work if I was doing the show in a large arena, but the rink only seats 300. We can bring in bleachers for maybe another 150 seats. Not a lot of revenue potential in ticket sales, due to capacity. If I were able to raise the sort of sponsorship money it would take to cover this guy's fees, I would just hand the money straight over to bc.org (or go out and buy pink M & M's, which actually might be a more sensible course of action). He wanted his fee, (which included two other producers he works with) travel and lodging for all three of them from the East Coast, and an appearance fee for him to skate, which would all total about $15,000. I don't think so! Anyhow, I will plow on ahead by myself and see where I get.

Thanks for the offer of help, Jackie--I know there will be something once we really get going that I can recruit you for. And you sure do have talent--I think it's so cool you do the afghan project. I once tried to crochet a charity afghan, and ended up with something that resembled a tree skirt. 

DeAnn, that's hilarious--bet the nurses were surprised! Congrats on finishing--that's so cool. I didn't watch "Living Proof" b/c I wasn't sure I could handle it right now, but I understand it was well done and very moving. Thank God for Herceptin being approved for Stages 1, 2 and 3 now--when my mom was first diagnosed at IIIB, she couldn't get it b/c she wasn't Stage IV. I really think it would have helped her to have it earlier on in her treatment. Anyhow...

Hope everyone has a good weekend.  

Hi, Lilith--thanks for the great ideas and the offer of the miles donation. Still not sure what I'm going to do with the producer fellow. His appearance fee was actually $1500, and the additional $10,000 was for show production, then more for the travel, etc. I thought the appearance for of $1500 was outrageously high since the other bc show (in which he skates) pays a stipend of $500, and in his show, the skaters all donated their time. So, we'll see. I'm waiting to hear back from the skating club, so I can meet with them in a couple of weeks at their next meeting.

Good luck with the job interview!

As far as what the cells do when the treatment is done--I think the hope is that they all got wiped out with the chemo/Herceptin. But that certainly is something that weighs heavily on all our minds, I think. I read on another post where someone asked her doc if the Tamoxifen just keeps things at bay and once you go off of it, things start to chug along again, and the doc didn't really give an answer. I think the problem is that there's no way to know which patients have stray cells floating around and which don't. And cells can set up camp somewhere and go dormant, and then either start up again or not. Some people's immune systems can kill the stray cells, some can't. So I think there's nothing the docs can do but treat active disease, and there's no way to accurately predict who will recur and who won't.

I'll join you in that smoothie, Kaye! Now that I'm done with Herceptin, its pretty much all I can do along with exercise and eating lots of greens.

 In honor of me being all DONE with active cancer treatment (except of course Tamoxifen), I decided to be bold and I colored by hair chestnut red/brown!! Wow, do I look different! I'll try to get pictures up soon. 

DeAnn

Ok. I'm a little challenged getting this photo up, so try this link.

http://i439.photobucket.com/albums/qq114/deannhoff/deanndark.jpg

DeAnn

DeAnn--you look great!

Kaye--I know what you mean about being happy to be back to the way you were prechemo (with the hair). My hair came in exactly the same as it went out (brown and uber-curly), but I can't tell you how many people said to me while I was bald, "Oh, maybe it will come back in blonde and straight!" I didn't want it blonde and straight for the simple reason that's not how I've looked all my life. And I was also really happy last month when my period reappeared. Not because I'm very fond of menstrating, but because my body was back to how it was before it got chemo-ed. BTW, every doc I saw told me I was in permanent menopause, which is another good example of how they tend to blather nonsense a good portion of the time.

Kaye: I am still in the process to try to secure some (micro-lactin, that is...). I mail ordered some from France, but either the company was cheating or it is a very LONG delivery... I have to re-contact them. Shoot. Otherwise, I'll try ebay (it is suprising what one can get off e-bay, and it is easier than convince a US company to ship oversea...)

Ok I am off. In 2 hours I have a job interview, I have to clean up a bit and ) decurl my hair, so that I stop looking like bozo the clown - that wouldn't cut it.

Lilith, glad the interview went so well. Have you made a decision whether to pursue the position?

Am in the middle of an uphill battle with the skating club board. Won't go into details here, but let's just say it's unnecessarily complicated. Everyone think happy, cooperative thoughts.

I saw my onc for a four month checkup today. Two questions--one, she doesn't physically examine me at all. Does this sound strange? She asked if the surgeon had done a breast exam when I saw her in the summer and I said yes, so she said she wouldn't do one then. She also doesn't listen to my heart or lungs or anything. Hardly getting my money's worth. She did order a bone scan for some rib pain that I'm having, and will order my annual MRI. But then I have a unilateral mammo ordered by the rad onc for January that she wants me to skip since I'll be having the MRI in January, yet the rad onc wants the mammo done for my followup with her in February. Argh.

And on the topic of imaging, my second question is what do you guys think about adding infrared thermograms to the mix? I'd have to pay out of pocket for one, but sometimes they can pick up tumors before they really start to form. Do you think they're overkill with the MRI? Here's some info on it, which has to be taken with a grain of  salt  since it is written by a place that performs the test:

http://www.iact-org.org/patients/breastthermography/what-is-breast-therm.html

But I figure it might be worth it? I don't know. Onc said it was up to me. 

And boy, it sure was hard to go to the cancer center without my mom. I got so used to going every week with her for so many years, that walking in there is like getting sucker punched in the stomach. 

Kaye, I'm so glad to hear that the MRI report was a good one! I also wanted to let you know that I appreciate you sharing the Micro-Lactin tip. I met a woman a couple of weeks ago who was having joint pain issues from the Arimidex, and I suggested it to her. She said it really did the trick!

Nash - I'm sending a hug your way as well. 

I had my nipple reconstuction surgery on Wednesday. It is amazing how such a little thing can have such a large psychological impact. I guess it speaks to what you mentioned in an earlier post, Nash, about how you just wanted to look like you did before.  This was one step to getting me to look a  little closer to how I did before.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  Now I just have to wait six weeks for it to heal and then I can go get my tattoo. 

DeAnn