Is there a July 2011 group?

hi everyone!! I have been so overwhelmed lately sorry I haven't posted in a while. 

J-Bug, thanks so much, It's funny I think I prepared myself so much for this, that it's not really freaking me out. I enjoy being alone and will use this time to enjoy my family and close friends and really figure out who I am and realize I do not need a man in my life anytime soon.
by the way, you look FANTASTIC!!!  

shinypop, I bet your hair looks fab, take a pic for us pretty please

hi PhillyBird, hope you are doing well!

bcisnofun, I start zometa in a few weeks, my MO said they found women that took zometa actually reduced their risk for recurrence of bc. So that's the main reason I'll be taking it, strictly to help reduce that risk. But my mom has oesteoperosis so it's another good reason for me to take it, he said I'll get an infusion every 6 months.

misswim, I'm sure your follow up will be an A+ let us know!

yesterday I went to a UofL women's basketball game and at half time they did a bc survivor parade and we walked across the court, the whole place was on their feet cheering and applauding, it was awesome, I get so emotional at those things!

My best friend runs the office of a construction company and her sister works there, well she is having back surgery Tuesday so she asked me if I wanted to cover for her, of course I accepted, it will be pretty full time for 2-4 weeks depending on when Kim feels she can come back to work. So now I have to be at PT 7am 2 days a week, then rads 9am, then work LOL I'll have my hands full for sure. I'm hoping the rads don't tire me too much. I work from home for 11 years or so, doing internet adv. and I was only working a few hours a week since the start of chemo, til just the last few weeks when I started getting my energy back, now I'll be full on with work! We will see how it goes I'll let you all know.

Well, my bc sisters, love you all, and I pray we all keep in touch, you all have been a very important part of my journey and life.

Until next time  

Wow....just realized it's been about 2 weeks since I last posted. Time flies! I will be posting my 4 month post chemo picture soon!

Robin - I love your picture! You look great with short hair!

Ellen - How are you doing with the breakup? I am sure it was difficult to walk away, but you know what is best for you, so I applaud you for recognizing that.

Misswim - Would love to see a picture of your hair growth! I'm also dealing with Tamoxifen side effects. Yippee. It's not bad enough to truly complain about though. I really don't like the discharge I get with it. I'm not interested in having to wear pantyliners for the entire 5 years on this drug! Good luck with your appointment tomorrow!

Yooper - Love your pic! And thanks for your kind words. I think not having had kids yet has been the hardest part of this journey for me. I know those of you with kids probably had a different set of difficulties while you were in the thick of treatment. I can't imagine having to take care of children while going through chemo. And now with chemo brain, I'd probably leave them somewhere.

Ellen - I'm sorry you had it so lousy with your radiation, but glad it's over! How often do you need to go for Herceptin? Do you have to deal with any side effects from that? Hope you get your house fixed up soon. 

Deb - Sorry you also had a lousy time with radiation. Hope everything heals soon. Post a pic so we can see the progress on your hair growth. Did you hear back about the biopsy? I think having had cancer once (let alone twice in your case) is enough to make us all paranoid. Hoping it's just paranoia. 

Shiny- congrats on finishing radiation! Hope you are healing okay.

J-Bug - You look great! You may have more hair than me!

Rabbit - Your hair is really coming along!

bcisnofun - I'm glad you had your bone density checked! Hope the Zometa takes care of that and helps prevent recurrence!

Dexxy - Glad you're doing what you can to enjoy life! I don't see the picture. Can you please re-post? As for all the things that are bad for us...well, I think we all take our health seriously and are all doing things to prevent recurrence. Sometimes we need to enjoy ourselves though. Stress is not good for recurrence, so if you need to have a couple of drinks every now and then to let loose, then so be it. I don't drink on a daily basis, but do drink socially and every now and then my husband and I open a bottle of wine. I do other things to prevent recurrence, like eating less meat, cutting out almost all added sugar, and upping my fruits and vegetable servings. As long as I do things right on most days, I'm not going to worry about the occasional "fall from grace" lol!

AFM - So do you all have 3 month follow ups? My onc wanted to see me again after 4 months, so I go in a couple of weeks, but it seems like others here are posting about 3. Also, I'm spotting, so think my period is back after less than 3 weeks. Not sure what is going on, but obviously it can take some time to get things back to normal, so I'm not going to worry too much, but I really would rather they come every 4 weeks, not every 3! The spotting explains my lower back pain and abdominal pain (which I always get with my period) and possibly even the headache I've been plagued with for the last several days. I thought it was too soon for my period, so the back pain and abdominal pain was worrying me. I guess it's normal to get paranoid over the smallest things after you've had cancer. I hate that others in my life can recognize pain for just being pain and not cancer. I try not to think about it, but I have my moments when I think about what certain symptoms mean. Oh, and I also still have some neuropathy (mainly in my feet), but mostly in the morning and after I've been more sedentary, i.e. couch potato  

No eyebrow/eyelash loss for me yet, but I'm just hitting the 4 1/2 month mark, so I guess there's still time! I'll keep you posted...

So, my period is definitely here as of yesterday. I'd rather have it every 3 weeks than not at all, so I'll hold my complaints about the cramping and the back pain!

I'm still here. I guess I've been so busy getting back to normal life. I had to slow down a bit this week as I have a cold. First time being sick in months so I can't complain. Weird thing is I haven't had any hot flashes all week. Either my hormones are getting in gear or they're just out of whack with this cold.



Very sorry to hear about some people's radiation burns. That doesn't sound fun at all. Hope you heal quickly.



Jbug and rabbit...love the new pics! Jbug, can't believe all the hair!



How are you guys posting your pics? I can't figure that one out.



My hair is coming in well but soooo gray. Would like to color it, but I've never colored it in my life. Not sure the best way to go about it. Saw my hairdresser today (she cleaned up my neckline) and she said I need to wait until my MO gives the ok. I didn't realize it could be a health issue. Aren't there some that are more temporary and less penetrating? Do they work on the gray?



Speaking of gray...I got together with an old friend last weekend and someone thought I was her mother. We're the same age! Then yesterday the young clerk at the grocery store gave me the senior discount. I'm only 40 for Pete's sake! Now do you know why I want to color it?



Tuesday I go in for my new baseline mammogram and MRI. I expect it to be okay, but I can't help but be a little bit nervous.



Keep on keeping on!



Wendy

Hi Yooper - mine came back pretty gray too.  I'm 46 and my fear is that they will ask my husband at a restaurant when I get up to go to the restroom whether or not his mother wants coffee!  Then I decided it could be worse, they could ask him if his father wants coffee since my hair is so short.  I've taken to wearing earrings to try to avoid that.  I have an appointment to do a temporary color later this month.  I figure if it's temporary and I decide I like the gray better, I can go back for a while.  Not sure if it's less toxic.  Good luck on Tuesday. 

Hi there ladies. Sorry I've been delinquent in posting my 4 month post chemo picture. I took the picture at 4 months, but just uploaded it and it didn't turn out well. Had my husband take another picture today at the 4 1/2 month mark instead. I'm probably going to have to cut my hair in the back soon! I also need to start looking at hair coloring options. Has anyone done any research on natural products? I'm trying to avoid chemicals and would also like to try doing it myself in order to save money. My preference would be to do some highlighting (since I only really want to cover the greys), but I'm not sure if this can be done with natural products? Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated!

KK- Beautiful!!!!

J-Bug - Did you finish radiation?

Thanks Phillybird! I guess I'm somewhat uncomfortable going out as is right now, because I'm so used to covering my head. I almost feel naked when I don't have something on my head! I have some awesome scarves too As for the coloring, the picture doesn't show the grays, but they're definitely there. I need to learn to color my hair myself or I'll end up broke!

J-Bug - Sounds like you've transitioned to "topless" pretty well! I guess I'm so used to wearing the scarves, I'm going to miss them! Maybe I just like the weight on my head? In any case, I don't have any trouble showing people the progress if they ask!

Well, I have some good non-cancer related news to share! I was offered a job on Monday (in the same organization where I currently work) that would bump up my pay significantly. The manager happens to be a friend and she's more than willing to be flexible with my hours and will allow me to still work from home 2-3 days a week. Currently I'm working from home 100%, but I'm sure it will be refreshing to get back into the office part of the time. I'm a bit anxious about telling my current boss since she's been so accommodating, but financially, it would be very hard to refuse. So I'm pretty sure I'm taking the new job, but I am going to give it a full week to make sure I'm 100% certain of the decision. Even though I have a little anxiety over the matter, it's nice to know it's due to something that's in my control rather than out of my control like the last 18 months have been. 

Kristien...wonderful news! Congrats on the new job.

I saw my MO yesterday and told him I had a pain under my breast where the ECG guy was poking me with his instrument thingie. (that just sounds dirty.) So my MO pokes me there and I'm like OW stop it. It still hurts. I may have to have a CT or something or other. yuck.

The echo itself didn't hurt. The thing that he pressed under my breast caused pain in a spot that has been tender since my mastectomy. I wish I could blame rough sex, but I haven't dated in 2 years. The pain is something from the surgery. Maybe when they go back in they'll notice something.

rabbit: I am not taking Zometa. Are you taking it to prevent osteoporosis? Is it because you take something else that might cause osteoporosis? I would love to understand this one. I did a quick Google and found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000306/. It does describe what you went through yesterday. I will be meeting with my MO on Tuesday to talk hormone testing results and what the strategy will be with that. So these meds are something that I am trying to do some learning about right now. I wonder if it will do that to you every time? Is it a once a month infusion? Do you use your port or an iv in the arm? I was thinking that you had gotten rid of the port. Mine is still in and we kept it through rads. That will be another discussion soon.

J-Bug, I was told that zometa is now used to help reduce the risk of recurrence in bc patients. Supposedly reclast, being used for osteoperosis, was found to actually reduce recurrence of bc in women so they revised it and made zometa (it's like 4g instead of 5g or some small difference in the two) so my MO said for that reason alone it was worth it, but the chemo takes away bone density and my mom has osteoperosis (although I don't think I ever told him that) so for me it's a win, win situation. I am not sure if he learned this from the recent breast cancer conference in San Antonio? I would love to hear if anyone else has been told to take zometa (that does not have mets in the bones as that's what it's also used for).

xoxoxo all!