Starting Chemo April 2009

Oh Wait - I forgot to tell you, I have a huge rash under my nostrils and beneath my lower lip - cause unknown, but I can relate to Lena about not wanting to be seen in public (even less so in private)  My Poor boyfriend doesn't deserve to have to be seen with me!  And I just looked in the magnifying mirror because my eyelids are itcy and behind door #1 - NO EYELASHES...AGAIN!!!!  Last Chemo was weekly Taxol x 12 ended mid September - 5 months and one week PFC!! HAD A/C/T and now Herceptin alone - lost eyelashes/eyebrows end of September, came back quickly, but this is just too much (I'm amazed how self-centered I am since my dx - was never like that)

Geri

Thamk you for the encouragement, Betsy.  I feel even worse today, and gave my boyfriend an excuse why I couldn't see him tonight, so I punished him for how I feel by depriving him of getting out ....he was probably relieved!  Oh, I am so negative.

 Like I said, not like me pre bc days.

Geri

Geri - I am so sorry to hear that you are feeling sad, it happens to us all and it is ok. However understanding our loved ones are, there is a limit to how much they can really understand. My lashes started to fall out at around 5 months pfc and it was like being knocked down by a truck but they stopped and then grew in again. I think it will all pass, but I don't suppose we will ever go back to how we were before and like Betsy says, we are in mourning for our past lives.

I am finding things very hard this week, I had my bilat mastectomy with failed reconstruction on 4th March last year and I am finding this week so traumatic. Just the small signs of Spring in the air are bringing back a time that I would rather forget. I was ok during the winter, but now I am finding it harder.

Betsy - I hope that you start getting back on track very soon.

Helen - I am so sorry to hear about your DIL's mother - ditto Betsy, life is just not fair.

Hugs to you all and thank you for always being here...

Judy xoxox

Thank you all for reminding me to be patient with myself and allow some of those unwelcome emotions to come to the surface and deal with them in a healthier way than to just stuff them away.

Betsy, your husband is right in my case.  I do feel as though I have lost control over many things in my life since the diagnosis.  However,  when I take the time to reflect on the past year, I realize I have also regained (or maybe just gained) a perspective on what I want to be important in my life. There are some positive things that come from this experience.

Judy, my mastectomy was March 10th, and I can feel my level of anxiety go up as the date gets closer.  I suppose that is normal and will diminish in time, but this is a "first" anniversary, and as you , Betsy and Amy have reminded me, I need to be good to myself right now.

So, thank you all for the understanding and Amy, the virtual <<<hugs>>> from all of you mean more than anything when I'm feeling down.

Geri 

Hi, ladies.  I agree - we are all going through various stages of minor depression and up periods - I think as we all get closer to and pass our milestones, the anticipation / memory / trauma of it all starts to mess with our brains.  I have passed the 1 year mark with the dx, and surgery, and I was anxious about it, and the follow up with the bs, but once I was finished, it was a little bit of a relief, and a little bit of "now what happens?".  I have been dealing with hives for the last 6 weeks - first on the back of  my head (shades of the chemo rash) and then something else under the bc breast (both of these are cleared up) and now full-body hives.  My derm did a biopsy of one crop of them and it came back as a drug allergy.  Well, the only prescription drug I am on besides the priolsec I've been taking for years is TAMOXIFEN.  I cannot believe that I could be allergic to the thing that will help prevent recurrence!!!!  Both my onc and derm told me to stop taking it, which I have stopped for 8 days now and am still breaking out in full body hives.  I am on 3 different antihistamines, and am finishing up a course of prednisone and follow up with the derm again tomorrow and the onc next week to see what my options are.  Calahist lotion is my best friend and I can't get near my dh, because I am so flipping itchy!  Everywhere on my body, I have patches of hives - neck, chest, under arms, back, legs - I have bruises on my arms and legs from the intense scratching - very attractive!  I don't know if it is the filler in the tamox or the tamox itself - but this does suck the big one, because I will not go on an AI at all - I absolutely refuse to rob my body of any estrogen it makes, which must be miniscule because my ovaries have been out for over 10 years already.  Geez, this crap never stops, does it?

Oh no, Geri and Chelev!  :-*(

Geri, you too? I think something's in the air or something when it comes to feeling like emotional crap of late. Cancerversaries maybe, now that that idea comes up again? (Toldja all way back I didn't think THOSE merited celebrations-Hahaha but yeah, true, I just passed my "You have IBC" and "It's Stage IV" anniversaries which I did NOT "celebrate")....see I've been REALLY upset (sometimes melancholy/depressed, other times angry) for the past few weeks myself too Geri, and yesterday when my former chemo nurse popped into the exam room while I was waiting for the oncologist, she said hi and asked how I was doing, my response was to immediately just totally and completely "lose it." I'm telling you, I actually went on a screaming semi-profane almost busted-into-tears TIRADE about how sorry I was I let myself get talked into treatment and wished I had just listened to myself in the first place and just let myself die of my BC because I HATE the time I bought myself by doing chemo -- I was saying "If I hadn't done it I'd just be dead by now wouldn't I?" and how I turned into the stupid horrible hideous Creature who I HATE and how the person I used to be freakin' died and, well, you get the idea. She says, "You're very angry," but says it's OK, she understands and sits down/talks with me while. Did it make me feel better? Ehhhhh, Temporarily maybe. It calmed me down a little but all the reasons for me to BE upset are still with me. I am STILL sorry I went through treatment and I wish I WAS literally dead/had something to make me dead quick and painless. I'm still not the person I used to be, I still hate what I became, I'm still hideous and so on -- so nothing has changed. Except of course now we can add the broken coccyx (from when I fell down the stairs a couple weeks ago) and the mysterious blood clot. The onc still doesn't know why I have the blood clot: says it COULD be the cancer, or it COULD have been the Tamoxifen, or it COULD even be something else but I'm off all prescription meds for now and he wants to see me in a couple weeks (for what, I dunno. Maybe to find out if he has a clue?). He had more blood taken. Next appointment is 3.15.10. Oooh, idea! :-)  Maybe a nice piece of that clot'll break off, escape from my spleen and kill me fast and easy with a nice stroke in the brain stem this time I hope just like that former co-worker's husband... 

Chelev --  OMG OUCH, those hives sound awful!!  :-O And you know what, I'm beginning to wonder also how long it takes Tamoxifen SEs to go away -- I stopped taking my Tamoxifen as per my onc last week but I'm still having those horrible hot flashes!  I didn't get hives (well not from meds anyway), so I don't think I'm allergic to it (unless blood clots are some weird new sign of allergies I didn't know about), but, I stopped taking it too and am wondering if maybe I'll go back to "normal" except my cancer will go out of control. Well let us know when the hives start to abate and you feel better -- I hope that's soon.

~Lena. 

Hi all, how are you all doing today?

Lena, I agree with Geri, you are so important to all of us! Keep your postings coming!

Chelev - how are you feeling today?

I am not having such a good day today. Feel down and impatient with everyone around me.

I feel that I need some time to myself, but just don't seem to find the time.

Hope everyone has a good evening, hugs to you all, Judy xoxox

I'm sorry to hear that so many are feeling down. I wish I could say that I was better but I'm also in a lousy space. Like others have said, I wish I was the person I used to be before all this SFBC.

HUGS to you Judy - and everyone else who is feeling low.

Spring is coming.It reminds me of the Beatles song - "Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter..."  And if you are on the east coast, it HAS been! But Spring is coming and I am hoping that as the sun shines again and it warms up, that we will thaw and begin to bloom as well. I know we'll never be the same as we were before all this, but I want to have the best/richest/fullest life I can where I am now.  

Sending care and concern to my sisters across the miles!

OK, ps and bs scheduled implant and propylactic mastectmy for March 31st because of leak in expander and risk of infection - much more nervous about this surgery than the original one (one year March 10th).

Sign on billboard outside church I saw today

"Whoever is praying for snow - please stop"   

Spring is coming!

Amy, Judy and Helen - we're all here for each other and hopefully this is another bump in the road - gotta be something to this one year mark, because we all are going through the down period around the same time.  Maybe I'll pay a visit to the new people who were ua a year ago....I know I really appreciated it when someone who had gone through it gave support.

Geri

Although I don't understand what you are going through with this diagnosis a second time, you have many friends here who are pulling for you to gain strength, phsical and emotional.

Peaceful thoughts, gentle hugs

Geri

Geri & Titan, thanks for your thoughts. I think I'm still angry that it happened a second time and that, despite being closely monitored, it had progressed by the time it was found. I won't get started on what I think about it all as it won't make any difference. But going through all this cr@p a second time was awful. I feel that I would never do it again. And I truly have not bounced back. I am finding it much more difficult.

Betsy -I am so pleased to hear that things are improving with you. Enjoy your weekend.

Amy and Geri, thanks for all your support and for always being here! Geri, completely understand the pre surgery anxiety. If I have to take one of my kids to the doctor, I get flustered. I hope that it will all go well for you. Love the church billboard.

Helen - I cannot imagine having to do this twice and as always wish that there was something I could do to help you. But we are all here any time you need. Maybe, as the sun begins to shine and spring comes, things may start to look a little different to you. Hang in there : )

Titan - your posts always make me smile, thank you x

Dawn - I hope you are managing with all your house stuff.

(((HUGS))) to all for a good weekend, Judy x

Mazel Tov!!!! Great news!!!! Much joy to you and your family.

• Thanks Helen...Mazel Tov right back at you! 

And yes Tammy..thanks for the thoughts...like Lena said it really isn't a celebration..it is more like..ok..here is where we are NOW...compared to one year ago....Is it better..I think it is...is it great..well maybe not the best because of what we have gone through...but you know...like I told the onc when he asked me about my breathing..I just said YES I AM! 

AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO!