Starting Chemo February 2015

I have two wigs, one given to me by a friend who is a breast cancer survivor and one that the cancer society gave me. I think I'll use my hats and scarves more though.

Intro: I'm 39. (Big 4-0 next month) married 20 years, three kids- 17 year old daughter who is graduatin high school this year, almost 15 year old son and 9 year old daughter. I'm an early childhood educator, on sick leave from my job at Aboriginal Head Start. I'm addicted to Facebook and Pinterest, enjoy baking, crafts, and reading.

I am 54, will be 55 next Tuesday!, been married for 33 years, have 2 beautiful girls, 27 and 24 yrs old.  I love to ride, am the director of our local HOG chapter (Harley Owners Group), on the town zoning board, have been a dir of financial aid for 25 years (vr, if your daughter is off to college, let me know if you have any questions, I'll be happy to help), love to cook (and eat), crafts of all kinds, and just enjoy life to the fullest. 

Thanks Nina for asking.

Cathy

hi, I'm Cindy and 60 years old. I have 5 children and 6 grandchildren and another on the way. My husband and I were constant travelers but have decided to wait this out before we go anywhere else. I was lucky enough to retire 5 years ago and have enjoyed every minute of it. I dreaded my 60th birthday and now I know why. I found the lump myself about two weeks after my birthday. I come from and have a large family which have given me so much love and support. I have always been the leader, the strong one, and now I cry over anything and everything. I'll be done with chemo on April 30th. I am giving the cold caps a try and so far so good. My best to you all as we continue this journey together

Hi, it has been a long time since I posted here. I have been following this board and have been thinking of all of you. It is hard for me to post on my phone because autocorrect drives me nuts. I am finally taking a moment to sit at the computer for a while. I'm 39 years old, married, and have 4 children ages 19, 16, 5, and 2. I am on week 5 of my chemo treatments. I take weekly taxotere and get carboplatin every 3rd week to go along with it. So far the weeks that I get taxotere only have not been bad, but when I get the carbo I need my nausea meds and feel pretty tired for a few days. For the past five years, I have enjoyed staying at home taking care of my two youngest children. Before that, I worked as a medical technologist. I was worried how this would all go with me being the primary caregiver for my two youngest, but I have been fortunate to have family close by to come help anytime I need to rest. I joined a support group at my church for cancer survivors and have met some wonderful women. Knowing all of them, and getting to know all of you on here inspires me. I know none of us ever would had wished to be a part of this sisterhood, but I am honored to know you. I shaved my head two days ago. I am surprised that I am preferring to just go bald although I have found one hat that I like. I also have a wig but will probably only wear it on occasion.

Hello Ladies, just checking in. I spent 7 days in the hospital. Onco doc said it was not a side effect so primary doc would need to take care of it. Here if come in as a emergency you have to use in house docs. I didn't recognize one person while I was there that I dealt with before. Ran a fever, white counts went to .7, lots of pain. They said I had an extremely inflamed gallbladder, and Diverticulits. Never even heard of that. With all this happening the side effects from chemo stared, sore nails, some numbness in fingertips, no taste. What an adventure. Now I don't know what I am going to do, lots to think about. And of course the hair is coming out quickly. I did not expect all this. I have never had bowl problems. I feel I am a drift here.

revup, I hope you feel better soon.  the weekend is here, so hopefully you will get some quiet time at home to start and recover.  When was your last treatment?  Are you in a good week, or have more bad days ahead of you?  I hope they are good days.  I've been having fun learning how to tie scarves, maybe when you feel like it you can experiment, but for now soft warm hats will probably be just what you need.  Take care, hugs to you, and feel better soon.

I am 43 years old and single mom to a wonderful 4 year old boy. I did the single mom by choice thing and a very good friend of mine was daddy donor. I have a boyfriend now but I sorta broke things off with him this past week. Anyone else start to feel your SO is and has been rather useless or not really meeting your needs since being diagnosed?

I work as a sales account manager and work from home when not traveling. My territory is the Americas and that typically means 4 trips to Brazil and at least one trip to Argentina, Chile, and Colombia every year. Then in the states, my bigger accounts take me to Portland Oregon and Maine, NYC area, and Cincinnati quite a bit. Oh, and Montreal at least twice a year. I just returned today from my first trip via air this year. I went to Houston with my coworkers for some training. The highlights were a night at House of Blues and a night at Rodeo Houston followed by the Zac Brown Band in concert. I stayed up late and drank A LOT! It felt good, though. Bring on infusion No. 3 on Monday! Needless to say, I will not travel much this year.

I moved into a new house just weeks before feeling my lump. I do love this house and I'm glad it's here where I am now spending so much time.

I come from a large family. 5 sisters and one brother. Mom and Dad come from huge families. 10 siblings and 13 siblings, respectively. I have an Incredible amount of support between awesome coworker's, friends, and family. Two of my sisters often spend the night at my house and that's always fun.

I could go on and on, but I won't )

I had my 7th Taxol yesterday. I asked why I had Taxol first and not A/C and she said it was because I was having it before surgery. Interesting. I had an u/s and it showed my tumor and lymph nodes were smaller which was great to hear.

I'm trying to decide whether to have dose sense A/C with nuelasta or just A/C every three weeks. Do you guys have any input? The real issue is me having to drive 1 1/2 hour each way for treatment and having to do it two days in a row.

They are supposed to be coming out with this thing that they attach to you with a timer and it will inject the neulasta on its own. Ask your doctor about it. I don't know the difference because I am on the neulasta and really didn't get a decision whether or not to be on it...sorry no input

Sugarcakes - I was going to a major university hospital's breast center with all the latest imaging tech. They were having me come in to watch a suspicious area, but they never went so far as telling me it was calcifications. Besides mammos they usually did utlrasounds too. They always told me was that the ultrasound was very reassuring, they couldn't even find an area to biopsy if they wanted to. It seemed like they were just watching the area out of an abundance of caution. They showed me how it hadn't really changed over time. Once I found the lump (after I had just been cleared to go a full year before the next mammo for the first time in 2 1/2 years!) I went back had all the imaging done again. Nothing really new they told me. But they felt the lump. And since my sister is a stage IV BC patient they said I might want to see a surgeon to reassure myself. I love my surgeon and I know it was her advocacy that helped save my life. She had a totally new radiologist look at all my films before sharing my family history. He then spent a solid half hour mapping out my breast to find a way to do a biopsy (this didn't seem like rocket science to me since we could all feel it). At any rate, the rest is history. I also had an MRI done after the positive biopsy. The surgeon told me that even the MRI imaging looked weird. Usually tumors light up like fried eggs on MRI and mine looked like wipsy clouds. Some people, upon hearing my story, tell me I should sue. I really can't even entertain that notion. Looking back on "could have beens" would just sink my spirits and stress me out. I think I have to face this looking forward.

BTW All your travel sounds really exciting, but I realize it can be exhausting too. Do you think you will miss all the travelling this year?

thanks for sharing, Darumama. I read somewhere that mammograms catch only about 15% of breast cancers. Similar to me, my sisters have been told they have dense breast tissue and/or calcifications and have gone in for more frequent mammograms. Now that I have been diagnosed with breast cancer it just has me wondering if more should have been done to check me and now to check them.

Taxol ladies - I had Taxol with Neulasta the day after and the bone pain was terrible. I had 4 injections and the last one I refused the Neulasta. They gave me 1/2 the dose after the last Taxol and no bone pain. I took Tylenol #3 with codeine with the other injections. Ask for more pain meds.

rleepac, I am so sorry that the bone pain etc. has been rough. I get so mad when I have to BEG for pain meds. It is so ridiculous with all we have to go through, and then suffer some more. I have already done all that, but it is truly heartbreaking to read the post about the needless suffering when they KNOW the bone pain is so bad. When you can't move, stand up, or open your eyes, that is too bad to handle. I demanded meds, or no treatment. Some days the pain level just fuels the fire of the other side effects. I told my MO that I would get street meds unless she wrote the script. She relented and wrote it. And a funny thing happened, I did not have the pain and the other side effects fell into line, imagine that! I just hate to get mean and mouthy to get what I need. I am Stage IV, how addicted can I get????? And at this point who cares anyway................hugs all around.

And I think your MO may be lying, they do see it all the time, the pain is real! Hand them a pen to start writing. Grrrrr

Thanks Beachbum and Nina for your responses!   

Hi all,

I'm 47, from NH, and was flying helicopters up until I got the diagnosis. I'm grounded now until I get this beat and the FAA approves so I have been hanging out at home with my DH and three sons, 10, 14, and 16. I hope I haven't forgotten how to do my job by the time I'm allowed to go back and do it! And I have a bad habit of forgetting to take my Claritin so I'm going to go take it now before I get distracted again... Thanks to all of you for listening and for your good advice and support. We will all get through this together.