Starting Chemo May 2008

again short on time. Eddie.. the fact that u told Oprah about us made me weepy.

 Rock, I am so glad u got there safe and fine. 

I will read more later and tell my tale as promised. My high school student has quit and I have to make bath bombs today. I have not made them regularly for 3ish years. I used to love the meditative time of making dozens and dozens of batches ( it is a little like making cookies and sandcastles)  

 xoN

Wow, could you imagine us on Oprah? She would be so delighted with our group, all our crafty wit, careers and not to mention good looks, lol! 

I over did it last night at the concert. I think I had four or five beers. My doctor said if I was to drink alcohol, limit it to three a month. Are you kidding me? Three a month or did he mean, three a week? He said they can't really tell what the safe amount would be, so just avoid it. I really like beer but I guess I can try my best to avoid it.

Me too, I wish I could help make bath bombs. They sound lovely... 

Roxi-I'm not a beer drinker, but I do like my wine!  (Haven't had any since April, but seriously thinking about it now!)  If you are allowed 3 beers a month and don't have any for say, 2 months, could you add it together and have 6?   Just a crazy thought from my chemobrain!!

Kristy-You are one tough woman!  And #1 in my book!  (All of you are!) 

Rock-So glad that you are safe and sound!  I, like Julie, look forward to your stories.  You tell them like no one else can!

Noelle-I'd come help you make bath bombs.  We haven't had much luck with them, so we stick to making soap and lotions.  Speaking of, we haven't made any new soap in awhile.  

Does Oprah do her show in Chicago?  DH's cousin just bought an apartment in the Trump Towers-I'm sure he'd let us use it.  (He is a cancer survivor.) 

MMMMMMMM bath bombs! I can imagine how good the shop must smell while making them. Count me in on helping make them. :O)

Guess who Obama is thinking about naming as ambassador to South Africa? Uh-huh, OPRAH.

Today I ran into otters on not one, but two occasions! (I posted photos on www.rockthebald.blogspot.com). Otters + the Oprah thing definitely points in the direction of good things happening.

By the way, women, I'm here to report that even though my hair is very very short, it somehow still can manage to look like crap and stand on end in a very "Hello, I am Janet Reno with a crew cut" unflattering kind of way. I am not actually sure that this beats being bald, because this looks deliberate.

Daughter came over to watch the Eagels vs. Cardinals game so I had her take some pics.Here is an update on my hair. I tried styling my out of control curls and waves.

Don't know what happened to the lighting in the back view it shows more salt and pepper then I acually have.

LOL @ Otter regarding "bath bombs"

Oprah

Saw a couple of post about contacting Oprah. If they are not interested in our May group, was Breast Cancer.Org stressed in the contact letters? If not us, she should really do a show on the website. We KNOW how it got us through. Too many do not know about it and a show on it would help spread the good news. When it comes to having BC, this site is good news.

LOL Otter!

Karin - You and I have the same hair!  Except mine is more gray.  It is coming in with FAR more gray than it left with.  I'm not liking that too much.  Congrats on figuring out how to style it.  I blew mine dry once a couple of weeks ago...POOF!  I had big hair.  Didn't make that mistake again.

Just because I wrote her doesn't mean she'll talk to us and SHITE, I did NOT link her here without anyone's permission. After all, we have to get a bit first. Love you all.

Hey, guess what, I'm back...kinda...

First, an apology to you all.  I started rads 2 weeks later then I was supposed to, and decided to take a complete break from bc until rads were done. NO posting, no talking about it, no blogging, no writing.  I finished up on 12/21 and then Christmas came and went...lol.

The day before New Years I got a cough, my MIL had had pneumonia for the past 2 weeks and was really sick, so that's what I thought I finally caught.  By the 7th, I was huffing and puffing just getting the mail.  Called the rad dr and he blew me off, didn't call, just let his nimrod nurse handle it saying try OTCs.  So, I went to my onc, they  did a chest Xray and my lungs were 1/3 fluid filled.  She thought it was pneumonia and put me on a Zpac and scheduled a CTscan for the 20th.

BY thurs. I was barely moving air and having coughing spasms.  went in, this time the chest showed less then 50% of my lungs were clear and my pulse was over 110. So my only option to get a Ct was to check myself in, which I did at 7 pm and ended up getting the CT at 3 am.

Here's the hard part, it showed lesions on both lungs, liver, spleen and 2 spots on my spine.  Nice huh?  They decided that I needed a lung tap to drain off the extra fluid and then test it.  They ended up taking over a liter from each of my lungs.  The right lung fluid was urine colored and had protein floating, and the next day when they did the left, it looked orangey.  Which they are now saying looks more like mets then an infection.  because of the holiday, I won't get the lab work back until Wed at the earliest. So, what do you think?

Me, I ended up staying 3 days in the hospital and cried thru 2 of them, then cried some more when I got home.  Crap, does this not suck ????

Now, I have a better handle on my chances after reading the Stage 4 boards, so I feel surpisingly optimistic. What really sucked was that my kids were in the room with me as he was merrily talking about cancer, my 10 year old looked like someone had hit her over the head woth a bat.  That night, my BP shot up to 200/125 and they wanted to know why...lol...gee I have no FUCKIN idea people....They endd up making me take a pill before I stroked out.

there you go, my update...now I have to go back 40 pages and catch up!!!!

ranD

ranD - So glad to hear from you. You were greatly missed. Sorry to hear the update. I will continue to pray for you everyday. Please don't stay away so long again. Even if it's just to say hi then bye. Love ya

RanD~ I'm so sorry about all of this going on. You will stay in my prayers as well sweetie. Beyond all of that I'm so damn happy to see you! If you are up to it can you pm me your snail mail addy? I have everyone's on a big list from when we exchanged cmas cards.

Karin~ Loving all the hair! fabulous daulink!

Otter~ LOL on the bath bombs!!

We've had flurries here for the past few days. At least the temps came back up to the upper teens/20's. Started my anti-deps .... waiting on the hotflashes to slow down or give up. I heard it takes up to 3 weeks for these to kick in. I've waited this long I guess I can wait a bit longer. I had noticed that I do have more energy the past few days. That's always a good thing.

Eddie~ maybe they will bring us all on and give us a BIG shopping trip and makeovers! I always liked to wish big LOL... and a big <squish> to help you along right now

RanD - so sorry to hear about your diagnosis.  We are just glad to hear from you and we will always be praying for you.  I'm glad you were able to take the needed time away from the boards and put it out of your mind for a little while.  We will go through whatever you go through.  Just let us help.

Karin - my hair looks like yours length and curl wise, but I have a big gray patch in the front that usually got people's attention before the shortness of it all.  I've had it since I was 25 and it doesn't cover very well.  When I had my head shaved there was this perfect circle on my head and I asked if it was a bald spot.  My hair dresser said that it was the gray spot - just looked bald.  I knew I should have used the gray sharpie to cover it up.

Everyone have a nice Monday!

Julie