April 2011 chemo

Kg I like your tag line 

People no longer scare me, its best that they realize that because the last few who have tried to be intimidating or pushy have really had me in their face. I don't know if it is the low hormones or that I am just over it. Once you face cancer down, other things seem so little. And nasty people are something I am no longer willing to  tolerate.

Windlass, I am her2+ also. I will continue with Herceptin for a year when I finish chemo, rad for 6-7 weeks when I finish chemo. 

I am so thankful for this site; it's great to have a place to come where you are understood.

I completed round 5 Friday and have 1 more to go of TCH. #5 has knocked me for a loop though. I lost my voice and developed a cough..now I can only squeak! haha 

thanks Merilee

Pawprint

Yes to everything you mentioned.

thinking of you rangermom:)

Hi Rangermom, I was home all weekend alone.

My husband took all three of my boys camping on Thursday, and they just got home today.  It was eerily quiet in the house. But I enjoyed a lot of quiet time and quite frankly loved it. It's hard being a mum, taking care of the kids, going through this H$LL we are going through and trying to find enough energy just to cope with all of this.  My boys are 7 and quite busy and active and it's just work all day to keep them going.  It exhausts me.  So having them gone for 3 nights/days was bliss. 

However, I think it's completely different mentally when you know they are coming home.

Huge hugs to you and what you are going through.

Love, KG.

Ps. off to the chemo chair tomorrow and getting Taxol #5 done and over with.  Off to watch GLEE and go somewhere else in my head!!!

Hi everyone, sorry to hear some of you are not having an easy time.  Had a line put in last thursday due A/C 4 this thursday.  Arm very sore.  I work in a petshop/garden centre and now very worried about infections.  anybody else working with a line in?

ranger mom, I can totally relate to the being alone on public holidays even though i have kids too and sometimes they are around, or pop in. public holidays are really in our faces had decades of it, sometimes it seems harder than other times...it is dooable though, we get thru, like much of life it seems- cancer, friends/family who let us down,chemo blah.... I think merrilee made some really helpful suggestions, love the shaman cat.

you know, i had a moment the other day with a stranger which is prob irrelevant to you but....atm i have to get cars to get into my chemo/nuelasta, usually i can drive but some unknown stranger thoughtfullly wiped out my car on the street the other night and it is now in the shop and i have no car...anyway, got in the car with my driver and he said wistfully, you smell nice. so i do wear perfume often as a pick me up, but what was in his voice was something else. something very sad and very lonely, a man living without his partner, in pain.  then just like that, he volunteered how he doesnt like that he is driving me to Mount Sinai hospital, because his wife died there in 2009. how his young wife had a aneuryism, just like that, months after giving birth to their first child.and then in the chaos his thriving business failed which he had brought to this country to build a better life..and how now he juggles and works long shifts now at various jobs in order to provide and raise a baby alone getting quality care etc.i told him a little of my story too. it was an unusual ride and conversation, not forced, nothing profound, just wistful, perhaps a bit depleted exhausted with the recognition of how life can deal and how we often dont get choices ad how we deal is the only thing we can control. guess the thing am saying is that there are so many back stories out there,  on here too, just so much we cant control in our best efforts, and sometimes i end up wondering about our culture of cultivating the expectation that things will go smoothly in life, that public holidays will not be spent alone rather than shared with family/friends/loved ones like the magazines tell us... was that depressing? sorry didnt mean it to be..was just thinking how there are possibly just as many alone out there, all part of it too, and some of it is our myth making

rangermom...i deal with being alone by planning on reading a book or watching a movie like i make a date with myself since hubby and daughter are gone so much she works at night and he is gone for 24 hrs at a time but i know they will be back so its easier for me. i like what merilee said about getting new friends, i need to do that but that a whole other story! lol i don't know what worse...having no one on this holiday or having to get your house in order for the in laws to come over and cook for them. i am pooped and they wont be here til 2 its only 11 my power went out yesterday so i had to get up this morning to finish my cleaning and getting ready for chemo next week i really didn't wont to entertain for too long...ugh..i just had to complain alittle while dh is on his computer and not doing anything and the daughter slept late, i did make her vacuum though!they really do help but they don't see what i see that i want/ need  done

sudz/sue are you on TCH?? i am so ready for these last 2 treatment that i want them to come on. my last one will be on july25 i think and i don't want to rush my life away but i can't wait!!! and 3 weeks after that ( when i feel somewhat back to normal)hi might have  to have a party!!! 

Hi Everyone.

Happy 4th. Happy belated Birthday to all who celebrated recenty. I had my operation two weeks ago to flip my port back to the correct position. ( Hope it don't flip again) Then I had my chemo. Number four over with. Felt to sick to even complain, finally got my strength back. I been reading a little, sorry to those alone on the Holiday. We are here with you, I wanted to post today because I know Holidays can be tough. It's such a pretty day here in Pa Lehigh Valley.  I wish I had a safe place with reasonable rent and/or a safe place to go for a walk or to exercise outside. Ranglemom, hang in there and stay strong.

Women, I need ya.  I'm flipping out here.  So, a friend visited this weekend--her mom is 3 years in stage 4--a recurrence after 15 years.  Her last treatment failed, so her outlook isn't good.  I am now completely consumed by fear.  None of my doctors will talk to me at ALL about recurrence rates because I'm having neo-adjuvant chemo, so I haven't had any surgery yet (no sentinal node biopsy yet, just needle biopsies of my tumor for diagnosis).  

I just feel like no one is telling me that I no longer have a normal life expectancy, that I won't see my five year old grow up.  I'm not usually like this--you know I think.  I am usually totally upbeat.  I don't think I've ever really cried about this whole thing at all...I'm still having trouble crying over it.  But I'm afraid.   

Thanks, Merilee.  I'm just not in a good place today.  I think maybe a trip upstairs to grab an anti-anxiety pill is in order.  I haven't taken it since my doc first gave it to me when I was first diagnosed and couldn't sleep, but now may be the time again.  It's true--I'm doing all I can to fight this.  I even decided to do the BMX instead of lumpectomy to lessen my odds of recurrence (although they say survival rates are the same, recurrence rates are really different).  

It just really hit me as this friend was talking about being a teen when her mom first had breast cancer, and now she's in her 30s...15 years...well, my son is only a baby--FIVE!  15 years...he won't be settled and married or with a partner.  He will still need his Mom.  I can't imagine.

I love the 2 cm of unhealthy compared to the rest of the body.  I'm going to try to focus on that.  I don't know why, but I'm just really freaked out today.  Thanks for being there, Merilee. 

Profbee, Its okay to be freaked out. You're okay to have some really bad days. When we have those really bad days, then we learn what it takes to pull ourselves back out of it. It may not happen in one day, or 2 or 3 but just keep praying that you are being guided and directed and are doing all you can to beat this. and we will be cured. I've talked to women 10 years out withot any recurrence, I've talked to women even longer than that who are cancer free.  I'll keep you in my prayers tonight. 

Profbee, I like to think about it like this ... the only difference between us and another person is that we've had our blinkered sense of "it won't happen to me" taken away.  Apart from that what are the odds that a "normal" person would develop cancer over the next 15 years?

Nobody knows what's going on in their bodies until they have a scare. In a lot of ways we'll be monitored more closely than a "normal" person and have better odds of finding anything early and dealing to it.

I also would give anything in the world for my children to be safe and healthy.  I'm glad this is happening to me and not them.  You know how you'd wish you could take away their illness if they were sick? When I told my husband I was grateful it was me and not them he said, "but that's how I feel, I wish it could be me and not you".  I'd never thought of it from his point of view and it really gave me an insight into his feelings of helplessness.