February 2011 chemo pals

haha I love that movie! And the fact that she rammed her car into theirs. Although, I probably would never do it!

I hate comments like.."that went by really fast, don't you think?"- um, no I don't think

"arn't you relieved it's all over with?"- it's not all over with

"omg, it's your last one, arn't you excited?" -you go through it and let me know when you feel the excitement, even if it is the last one

If there is one thing that I've learned through all of this, it's that people really just want someone to listen to them. No false reassurances...just a willing listener. 

Melanie, I'm starting to get questionable comments from people now that my chemo is done like, "well, it seems like the worst is over".  They are wanting me to be back to "normal."  News for them: I have a new normal.  Guess I will have to learn how to respond to their comments.  

Yall are so on target w/ the post chemo comments.

dragonfly- I love kathy bates- and laughed myself silly thinking of that scene again. 

melanieann- your comments are so true- i have heard lots of that too. what can you say? NO I am not the same, never will be. Yes I am happy to be alive and done, but my body still feels like a post-war victim (and it is). Not to mention these tissue expanders....the iron bra as they say.

 Our new normal is not the normal we all left behind months ago. And my body still feels like it was hit by a truck. Took a vacation day today, and can not walk far at all w/o getting leg cramps or feeling like just sitting down. WHEW!

Glad chemo is behind me. I only have one eye watering from taxotere- does anyone else have just one? It's so weird...

Better days ahead for us all. 

I am also having intense hot flashes...whew! I'm hoping to get a small reprieve from them before Tamoxifen.

It's been a week since my last chemo and I'm still feeling a bit crappy but I'm smiling through it because I'm sooo happy to be done. At times it seemed never ending and I forgot what it felt like to be healthy.  I have surgery scheduled for end of July.  I will have the traitorous appendage removed, then radiation, then I'll have the good boob removed whenever I can get reconstruction.  My gene testing came back "variant" which to me means NOT negative so i feel a lot better just getting them both taken off especially since this is my second BC and I want to reduce my chances of a third as much as possible.  Now I find myself stressing about other body parts.  I am desperate to get a colonoscopy even though I had one 3 years ago!  I think I'll calm down once I get that done.  In the meantime, I plan to have a blast this summer, minor, ahem, surgery notwithstanding.  Feb gals, we're all almost done and our GI Janes are just around the corner!

It really is interesting how our thoughts and situations are so similar as far as people making comments, what's going through our heads, etc.  I guess it means that people just dont' know what to say so these type of comments just come flying out.  I how wonder if I have said anything that stupid to my friends in the past who were dealing with cancer.  I hope not!

Well today I felt like the power of positive thinking paid off so I wanted to share!  I had my first consult with the Rad Onc today.  I knew it was 33 sessions but I also knew I wanted to go on a vacation and the only week we could possibly go is the first week in August due to my kids' schedules.  I remember reading somewhere that there is such as thing as an accelerated radiation schedule that cuts the time almost in half.  I don't exactly know if it's a double dose or what but I decided to bring it up today.  The nurse who met with us first was not optimistic and said it was rarely done.  But when the Dr came in, he told me I was a fit for that and the research has shown the outcome is the same as the 6 1/2 week treatment.  So unless something surprising comes back on my pre-tests, then I am going to have 20 sessions instead of 33, which means vacation can happen!  I would be curious to know if anyone else has heard of this reduced radiation schedule.  I certainly don't want to sacrifice my health for a few days of vacation, but if they feel there is no risk at all, I would like to go that route.

I will start the weight loss thread and post the name as soon as I get it set up.

Alison

Allison, yes, I have heard of less rads by doubling up on intensity of beam or something.  And I also plan to ask my doc about it, altho I know him, he'll stick to the long haul.  I suppose I'll get just as used to it as we all have this chemo.  My A/C man was telling me just yesterday some advice about cancer treatments and rads, it just went in one ear and out the other, I was too tired to hear him.

Everyone, I am so glad I have permission now to SCREAM!  Ohhhh, hurting a lot, fed up, feet look all beat up and swollen.  MamaV, have we really only got three left?  I cannot do figures.  My nurse told me yesterday that a lot of the girls on Taxol say the last few are the hardest, that the drug is cumulative, so I felt better about it.  I seem to have to justify to people around me how come I feel like hell.  Broke my heart when brother said he was coming down to visit folks, and I won't be able to make it becuz he's coming on my worst days, just no way.  I knew he was coming, he knows my situation, but still I cried.

I have been describing my chemo experience to others as "shattering."  Yup, it's one thing to hurt a while from a busted bone or bad cut, it's another animal with chemo.  I'd write a song about it, like the old song a friend of mine used to sing, "Cocaine, cocaine," a sad ballad, but chemo isn't song material at all.  I've wanted to come on here and complain, but until today, everyone here was quietly putting up with everything.  Thank you everyone for saying what I was thinking.  It's bad when you can't really have a heart to heart and splain how tiring all this is, all-consuming, painful, I can't walk on my feet sometimes, and then the idea of will I make it, it's one long horror show, to be sure.  I wonder if other disease are like this one?  I suppose diff aspects of diff diseases are.  I have a whole new appreciation for the bedridden, folks with Parkinson's or Lou Gehrig's.  But I have made up my mind that I shall not think of this as a past or future a single time once I leave this little world of solitary in a cell with a dirt floor, torture coming whenever the enemy chooses. 

But I do have my lighter moments, after all I'm in a comfortable home with my dogs and husband, and since he has been thru this 20 years ago and since he shuffles around in pain from a goofed-up back like mine for years, we joke around a lot about our "condition."  I also know there is an end, and even if I just buy two years, hey, I'm gonna take it and be happy for what I have in the now.  I love life more now than at any other time, I don't even have to feel good to appreciate it.  Knowing I am alive amongst this beautiful world, and once this thorn in my side is gone, it'll be all good. 

I hear some find it hard to return to normal when it all stops, so I'll give it a few weeks for the last tests, the shift in schedule, but that's it.  I wont' look back and I won't fear the future.  I love Dr. King Jr.'s last public words, he was in a church, the last part drowned in cheers, "But tonight, I'm not afraid of anything, I'm not fearin' nobody, for mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."  Love to all of you, times three, four, five...  GG 

dogeyed - yes ONLY 3!  I'm trying to be positive about that, but still 3.  Ug!  And then radiation!

Glad we all have each other to laugh a little, cry a lot, and support even more!

divine - totally true, and my immediate SE's on #6 were much milder.  The need to gear up for the next is gone and it is much more relaxed.  Some of the other issues for me, like blood counts, swelling are problematic.  Had a CBC today - not good.  Worse than last week, but I am still happy!

I had radiation 17 years ago and I remember that other than a tiny bit of fatigue every now and then, it was not a horrible experience at all. I imagine that treatments have advanced since then so I am hoping that all of you who move on to rads next will find it a breeze compared to chemo.

charlottesmama - holy hot flashes here too!  Worse with Taxol and yup - hair and lashes/brows started to come back after A/C and then fell out again with Taxol. Not fair. 

3 more Taxols for me and then I'm done with this phase of the nightmare!

Pejkug - I feel the same way about the brows and lashes. I had dark lashes and very dark thick brows and now have nothing. Much harder to deal with for me too.



Interesting what you say about micromets and node negative. My cancer was only 1.7 cm which is still stage 1 but surgeon took .3 cm more to make sure she had clean margins. Nodes came back negative in SN biopsy but they found a micromet in the two nodes closest to the breast after dissecting them into tiny tiny pieces. Next 5 nodes were clear. So my MO said some docs would consider me stage 1 and some stage 2. He decided to treat like stage 2 and throw everything that he could at me to reduce recurrance chance even more.

I know what you mean - Dont know if that makes me feel better or not. It's still BC and it still sucks!

I ditto Dogbiskit on the pain meds.  It's Monday and my side effects are worse today than Sunday's were, usually Sun is the worst.  But thank heavens I have my regular pain pills for my back injury and then my special stuff for chemo.  I usually take my regular pills first thing out of bed, and then several hours later, if I still feel bad, I then take my chemo pills, which they stay for maybe four days.  Well, I only lasted 30 mins today, right after breakfast I added a whole pain pill (usually just half).  Couldn't bear it another moment, my hands and arms are the worst this time. 

I think hands are bad becuz a few days ago I got to fooling with an overhead oak tree branch bothering me, sure looked dead, broke it off, but then the sinewy bark wouldn't let go.  Explains why oaks last so long, I guess.  So, I twisted it around and around, even singing church music whilst doing this, "Will the circle...be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by..." until finally the branch came loose, which the effort banged-up, strained-up and even tore one spot in my hands.  I KNEW I should have gotten the loppers, misplaced persistence.  Anyhow, I put some Neosporin on the skin-rip place, lotion all over, and so no lasting damage, except they're more painful this time.  The red swelling goes up past my elbows, but it has been for the last several Taxols, goes down as the chemo leaves the body. 

Ummmm, looks like I could say something positive here.  Michelle, I'm sorry you are losing your hair a second time to "prickly head syndrome," I guess you can call it, so annoying, brother bought me a satin pillowcase becuz he remembered how his son had that ten years ago.  Pekjug, lashes gone, eyes water, but I still have my light eyebrows, color is partly becuz I'm dark blonde with gray tint, so never could see them nohow, altho I would shadow brush or pencil them in with light brown when I did eyeliner. 

I had planned to "exercise" by walking down to the gazebo yesterday, and I simply could not make myself go out the door to do it.  And definitely today will not.  So, can't be consistent whilst on chemo, but at least I've been trying to move around more since first of June, has helped my stamina and sleep better.  I can't help but think since I was in bad shape when cancer started, I've been more weepy about this whole thing.  On the lymph node issue here, they never did do mine, my surgery is after chemo, they were enlarged in the pictures, doc said he would take a few.  But original CT scans and bone scan showed no spread (SO lucky).  Thanks again, ladies, for being here, and how I miss our Fuzzy Lemon girl, I vaguely recall it's her computers needed repair.  Until next time, GG 

Bravehart - it's that damn taxol that takes your lashes and brows.  I am so tired of looking like a cancer patient with no lashes and brows.  Mine were gone after 4th weekly Taxol.  I have 3 left including this Thursday and expect they'll take some time to come back.  I hate that more than the need for a wig!

I am the queen of hot flashes!  They are the worst in the evening and of course - at night.  Not loving chemopause at all!

Ignorant comment for the day - went to work and one of the owners said hello, how are you? I said, ok, not feeling well today.  He said, must be the weather!  (It was raining)  I said no, it's the chemo!  IDIOT! 

Hugs to all - my chemo countdown has actually begun!