February 2011 chemo pals

jenn - I am on the rads table for 2 minutes max - just 2 quick zaps (less than 30 seconds each) - no wonder I'm not as tired as others.  Plus it's on my way home from work so I just leave work 30 minutes early and get home at the same time.  Sorry you are having a tough time

I'm still having trouble with my nails - and it's definitely from Taxol - which I finished 8 weeks ago!  I'm also taking tamox - no problems except HOT FLASHES - every hour from 1:30pm - 8:30pm - fun times!  HA!

MICHELLE, JENN, MEL, and MAMAV, seems like old times with so many of our chemo girls visiting here again! 

MEL, I had to take a week off, also, after I got over my surgery they wanted to launch into rads, and I had to just stop everything, so I understand the work thing for you.  As a result of resting, I did much better going to my pregame rad appointments.  I now have ensy-insy tatto dots in I think three places.  Next week or week after, my six weeks begin, they'll be giving me a total of 60 gys.  I'm going to try to get a few last things done in the first couple weeks, before I get tired.

ALL, you are talking about "Tamox," and I'm assuming this is the hormone pill?  I am supposed to take something for my estrogen-positive cancer, and I've heard of other pills, like that bone pill Evista, I think it is, and supposedly it helps bones and cholesterol, which I have family w/osteo and I myself high choles, and that pill has less side effects, so I might tell doc, altho he always does what he thinks is best.  And is it true sometimes you can take the pill for just two years?  Or maybe less?  I'm post menopause, and when I went thru that, I lost my mind for about six months...hope I don't have a repeat. 

I THINK I see some stubble on my head, and husband rubbed it and said he felt it.  There's a little shadow that quits at my face on the sides.  I had waist-long dark blonde hair with some gray, sure miss it, I still grab at it, "phantom" hair pains.  Smile.  The chemo pain is behind me now, just the neuropathy in feet and fingers.  And still somewhat tired from both chemo and surgery.  Bye for now!  Always, Gail

Thought I'd check in too and say hi. Congrats Mamaoftwo on finishing rads, and the triathalon!!! Thats so great! I start rads this coming Wednesday. Won't be finished until oct 24th. I've decided not to work during rads and instead try and take it easy as my daughter begins kindergarten and this will be the first time since diagnosis that I will have some "me" time. I'm actually not returning to work until beginning of dec modified and then back full time jan 1st. I'm looking foward to some recoup time. yoga time, rest time and it will be nice to be home and get my daughter on and off the bus. I wasn't able to do that with my son as I always had to be at work early.

I'm actually enjoying the short hair too. It's so soft! I remember when I was diagnosed and my onc said I would start with chemo and I would lose my hair-I replied, " well, I was ready for a change"!lol-guess I was in a bit of shock, lol.

Wishing everyone a great rest of the long weekend-it's pretty rainy where I am. I'm trying to tackle closets, lol.

xo

Hi all-

Glad to be done w/ chemo, removal of tissue expander/placement of implant surgery. Still have about 8 more herceptins to go (maybe 7 not sure on that one?). And back to work full time.

I run out of energy some days- but can make it to work and home. Changed jobs last week but still with the same company. Glad for the change.

I have been on Arimidex too for two months now w/ some of the usual SE but manageable. I do tend to get tired easily at night and go to sleep early.

We've all come a long way since February. This group was so wonderful to me during the worst of so many days this winter. Love to you all!

Lisa

mamaoftwo - awesome on the triathlon!  I am proud of you and jealous at the same time.  They just told me today at physical therapy that I can't go back to exercise until I am fitted for a sleeve.  Dang!  Now I am stuck in the catch-22 of what does insurance need, where do I go, do they send me, do I need a scrip, who writes it...? 

jenn - don't know how you are keeping up, that is a lot - work and long-distance rads, bummer and no wonder you ran out of gas!

mamav - glad your rads have gone well, when are you done?

ruffolo - glad you can take a break - enjoy your family and spend some time enjoying yourself!

dogeyed - sounds like you have a plan!  Also sounds like you are surprising yourself with your progress - fabulous!

LisaGH - Hey my triplet!  How are things going?  My SE from Femara are going OK too!  Let me know about your 17 or 18 H tx - I think I am 17.  Can you believe that next is #11?  Amazing!

Mel - glad you are taking a break too!  Glad you are back to running.  It will be a while yet for me but I am going tomorrow to walk on the treadmill at the Y.

All - had fill#2 today - it went OK but was chatting with the PS and he says "uh-oh" and I look down and there is blood all over my gown.  Apparently the restoration of blood supply to the skin over the TE is going very well!  He had to apply pressure for about 5 min then band-aid me again!  Never a dull moment!  Also have an appt. tomorrow with the derm about my one ugly nail - the consensus is that it may have to come off - wish me luck.  I am getting tired of stuff being removed or falling off of me!!!

Hello everyone.  I saw my psych and neuro yesterday for my six-month checkups.  I hadn't seen my neuro since a year before I got cancer.  I told my neuro that my back had been getting worse before cancer and thought I needed a back brace and better medicine, and he wants an MRI, but I wanted to wait for any new appointments until this cancer stuff was over.  I take Lyrica and Tyl/Codeine#3 and so I'm not without SOME pain control.  He did not want to give me any new drugs.  I was annoyed.  So, in spring, once my cancer stuff is behind me, we'll make appointments for a back brace, and an MRI of my back, and that's when I'll revisit the idea of better medicine for me. 

See, I told him I found with my cancer pain drugs, I could do more things, went out in the yard more, could stay upright without my back giving out.  But the one medicine the doc brought up is one the cancer people gave me, but it goofed up my sleep and made me irritable, so I said I didn't want that one.  He said the other ones required a monthly prescription.  Sigh. 

Looks like there would be SOMEthing out there to give me on a regular basis that would help.  Do you all know of something that would work?  Seems like there's a patch, I'll have to read about it.  And I know there's shots.  But I'm torn between he doesn't want to hand out something stronger or is it really possible there's not much suitable stuff for pain in a doc's toolchest?  I don't know why he won't give something, I've been on scheduled and addicting drugs for roughly ten years and I handle them well. 

See, right now as I write this, I've had all my medicines for the morning, and my lower back is really singing.  Well, I'll work at it in the spring.  Still don't know when rads start, they'll call.  GG 

sewingnut - Hi!  How are you?  I knew I needed  a Rx for the sleeve - just not sure whether the onc would write it or should I get it from the BS since he did the node dissection.  I talked to the durable med equipment folks yesterday to find out specifically what it needed to say.  My BS is usually running around the world lecturing and the onc is only in the office where I see him one day a week, which is Thursday.  I may try to snag him tomorrow.  They may also have a generic one with his autosignature, so it might be easier than I am thinking.  He wrote the one that sent me to physical therapy.  Initially he sent me to a non-LE place and I undid that one so I could go to rehab at Moffitt Cancer Center, where they are all LE certified.  I am not a very patient patient!  I want to get the ball rolling because I can't (am not supposed to) exercise without it. One step forward, two steps back...

Hey- Special K and all- to answer your question I have 7 more to go (I think). Bad news is I have a UTI- OUCH! They tested me today- started on meds for it- it's yucky.

Most all my labs are FINALLY in normal range- except WBC and neutrophils are low. Maybe that's why I ended up w/ this UTI. UGGGH. 

Always something it seems.....

DIVINE, thank you for the feedback, helps confirm my thinking.  I have decided I will make an interim three-month appointment after rads are over, to get my MRI and my back brace orders.  I'll ask doc to continue to think about my pain control situation.  That way, when I see him in the spring at my normal six-month checkup, he'll have the results from the MRI, and if he doesn't voluntarily bring up new pain medicines, I'LL take over and insist.  One time it got to bothering me so bad, I came crying to my psychiatrist that no one was listening to my pleas, she knows me very well, and SHE prescribed my Lyrica out of the blue, which eventually the snubby neuro took over.

MAMAV, oh, I did enjoy hearing your hair is 3/4" long, I was amused.  I'm wondering, does it just stick straight out from whence it came, or does it lay down?  I am now convinced I have stubble, and it is indeed gray.  My wig looks so good, I may take to wearing it forever more instead.

SPECIALK, I'm glad someone is taking care of your fingernail.  Oh, and I have lost so much weight that I was able to wear my wedding ring on my pinky finger the other day!  On your skin cancer situation, I had a melanoma mole on my boob, and I'm wondering since mine has been chemoed, demolished in surgery, and soon to be radiated to kingdom come, if there's further treatment it needs since it's gone.  My radiologist wants me to see a dermatologist.

ALL, I went to see an oncologist who specializes in melanoma, and do you know I arrived five mins early, handed over fifty million completed forms, and my appointment was at 1:00 p.m.  One hour later, whilst waiting in the little bare white doc office, fluorescent bulbs flickering and one magazine, my back was hurting so bad, feet hurt, I was so tired from all this cancer treatment, that I found the nurse and asked if perhaps my doc swapped me with another patient, goofing up the timing of my appointment.  She got a liason type person to come, and she said the doctor was busy and wanted to give each patient enough time, and I said well why didn't scheduling office take this into account, and that while I understood the needs of the doc, that I had needs too, and I was a crippled, sick, older person and I was SO uncomfortable... then I broke down and cried in that lady's shoulder like she was my mother.  She asked if there was anything that would help keep me comfortable while I waited (probably yet another hour) until the doc arrived, and I said the only thing that would make me comfortable was to leave, I couldn't take it anymore.  I told her to tell the doc I was so sorry, and doc was free to phone me and have her appointment that way.  They said no, I'd have to come back in on another appointment, and I said I wasn't ever coming back.  SIGH. 

I don't know why I was seeing her anyway.  The melanoma is gone, and a dermatologist is who my radiologist wants me to see. I'm terrible about waiting, mainly because I AM so uncomfortable to begin with, and somebody needs to raise hell once in a while.  My tailbone has hurt for years, bruising there, which is unattached properly to my lumbar spine and floating out there at the wrong angle, hurts so bad I have to sit sideways in a chair.  And that doc's chair was HARD.  Well, if my cancer surgeon needs to know the score, since he sent me there, HE can talk to her.

I should have been a lawyer, those guys WANT to fight.  Me too.  That's the main reason I went ahead and chose journalism as my career, I wanted to tell everybody just what the hell is going on "out there."  Got a few things out in my own column, but disabled from work now.  Eventually I will tell the truth in a more subtle way, thru some short stories.  But I think I would have been happier as a designer, which I could have chosen that, too.  I sketch all the time whilst watching those clothing design shows on TV, home design shows, etc.  Some draws are so good I've set a little trio aside to be framed, I did them with coloring pencils.  I even built a model of a whole house one time.  Yes, I am better suited to crayons and big sheets of white paper.  I'll fit right in if I wind up in a retirement home.  Smile.  Love to my chemo sisters forever, GG

mamav - mine is chia pet all over - I feel ya.  And I am 13 weeks PFC!!!

Dogeyed I keep dreaming about having long hair ... Too bad they can't reconstruct that in surgery b/c I'd be lining up for that!

MAMAV & CHARLOTTE, I'm glad you both had dreams about your hairs.  I'm annoyed with no hair, always have to put on some cap, hat, or scarf affair, and when I put on my wig, I really cannot believe how much at least some hair helps with my appearance.  Losing weight does too, so reckon I should get on that right away.  I'll lose it tomorrow, maybe.  Smile.  Love to my sisters, GG 

My hair sticks straight up on top too, but the back and sides are starting to look pretty good. It had comepletely white but now it's pretty much my normal goldish color with some grey coming in for good measure. Everyone says they love it short but i will feel better with it when my bangs come in...my hair was never above my shoulders in my whole life.

I'm just about half way through rads, still sucks, I am so tired and feel nauseous (however that is spelled) sometimes too, but just counting down the days!! Glad to hear everyone is doing moderately well and getting all kinds of issues figured out! Love you all!