Starting Chemo March 2015

Wondering how Sharon is doing.

really just got angry. So angry my eyes filled up. It's SO NOT FAIR what she is going through.

Any of us.,I rarely indulge in the why me/why us. But serving myself a heaping serving of it right now. And she's so far away.....and nothing we can do to help.

I do believe in positive energy. Let's all just direct our warm thoughts to her for a moment.

Can we?

Yes!  Sending much love out to Sharon and honoring Derith's memory tonight. 

I'm sending love to all of you, in fact, and hoping for excellent news on biopsies and scans as well as minimal SE's as the week continues.

Bekah, we are moving this weekend too.  People think we are crazy for selling/buying/moving during this time, but I can't think of a better time to simplify and minimize our lives.  We will miss our current house, but we are looking forward to less maintenance and expense.  I'm just glad we get to stay in our quaint little neighborhood that we love so much. It will be stressful, but it will be worth it in the long-run.

For those of you that have been feeling down and lonely the past few days, we must be on the same wavelength.  I have felt like such a Debbie Downer.  I literally just posted about this on my blog:

I was on the struggle bus emotionally and even spiritually the past few days.  I was glad to hit the halfway mark, but it was also hard, because I realized how far I still have to go to get through this phase of treatment.  I wasn't feeling good.  I couldn't eat well.  I was exhausted beyond anything I've ever experienced.  Really, I just needed a few days to have a good, old-fashioned pity-party.  Pity-parties are necessary and often helpful as long as you don't participate in them for too long.  If you don't get back on the horse quickly, you can really get mired down in your own mess.  Spend too long down there, and that stuff will bury you.  It will crush your spirit.  It will siphon out your hope.  So I arrived.  I slept.  I whined.  I vented.  I licked my wounds.  I got back up. 

And here I am.

That's one thing that has been so great about this message board.  There is always a friendly ear here.  We are never alone.

 

BRAVO Indygal!

Well put and thank you for Derith tonight. It means a lot. I have nobody to grieve with since there will be no services. So I've been talking to her a bit. Can you say whaaaaaack job???

Oncologists - Because many of us (ER/PR+) victims will be working with an MO for at least 5 years, I'm curious as to how many of you will stick with you you have, or switch to someone else.

My "F" came today.

How apropos

Moving is not fun but I do like the idea of minimizing and simplifying right now. I have lots of help from my church family and I think it will go smoothly with minimal activity on my part.

Yeah...I'd like Teresa to make a few runs with her bike!

Joanna- what great news about your son! Yes. Small victories. And that was no small feat straightening out the insurance. You don't need to worry about money and bills at a time like this. Congratulations on finishing A/C! You have a lot of victories today. You certainly earned them.

I am so sorry to hear of your neighbor. So unfair. And I know he loves his time with you hubs. Hope he's home soon. Sending healing thoughts his way.

It's wonderful to know that your head is back in a place where you can focus on real life, and have the wonderful tradition of your Christmas holiday with family in PR to look forward to. I am very VERY happy for you.

I've read on several other forums that if a pain lasts two weeks, mention it. I have had every scan known to man, but there is still always a worry because supposedly they only pick up things 1 cm in size or greater. Although my PET scan did pick up my cold as a sinus mucosal thickening, so maybe they are better than that. I am also guilty of reading a lot of the stage 4 forums, and it seems like the women there are living a long time even with mets. My MO tried to reassure me that nothing will grow during chemo, but who knows. I just try to take each day as it comes, knowing I am here today and tomorrow is promised to nobody.

One of the reasons I exercise so much is there are a lot of studies that say that exercise, even a 30 minute daily walk, seems to reduce recurrences anywhere from 30-50%. But they aren't exactly sure why. So since I have no long term tamoxifen or AI available to me, I figure that exercise will replace those things. My wig lady has lived with stage 4 colon cancer for 12 years, and her tumor exploded in her abdominal area. That was how they found out she had cancer. It is crazy. I know so many people with different cancers that it is like an epidemic.

I wish we were all closer together so we could physically support each other too.

And oh yeah, got the eye twitch thing yesterday and today. Just great! But I rode my bike 117 miles last week, so I'm still here, still chugging along.

Our emotions are aligned to stand in for synched cycles
Today is really hard for me as well. Can't stop f@^^^$ng crying and I'm at the lake w/ my pup - I'm never sad when I'm here. I have lymph build up in my arm down towards my wrist. I think that's what put my mood in the toilet. Surgeon has an opening next Friday (?!). If it's not looking better tomorrow I'll ask for him to call me.

Regarding MOs. I really didn't care for the one assigned to me. Switched and really like my current one. First one didn't like questions and had no personality/warmth about him. My appt with him where we set up the tx plan and set up my 1st infusion was very brief. He told me what I was getting and when to show up. The second MO spoke w me at length, answered all my questions, had the chemo case manager come talk to me, she gave me a tour of the "spa", an oncology pharmacist came in to go over the drugs/SE/answer questions, etc. These are all part of the support staff that apparently doc #1 had no use for.

Hang in there everyone.

I am really not looking forward to the spa this week since it will be my first Taxol/Herceptin/Perjeta infusion. DH will be out of town so my sis is going with me but DH has all these people lined up to help out if 'things go bad'. WTH?!? He's gonna drive me insane!

Anyway...I'm really not liking the whole pre-infusion dexamethasone. I hate, hate, HATE steroids! Plus I think it's a standard dose but I'm only 103 lbs. seems like I should need less but noooooo...they assure me I need the full dose at least for the first infusion to make sure I don't have an allergic reaction. Uggghhhh.

I don't want to do this anymore. I want this nightmare to be over and I want to wake up to my old life that didn't involve countless dr visits, tests, infusions, surgeries, rads, and SO many unknowns.

This reminds me of taking my DD on an airplane trip when she was only 3 yr old. We really talked up the airplane ride to make her excited instead of scared. 5 min in the air and she says 'mommy...all done airplane!' And she fully expected me to stop the plane and get her off. I couldn't do it then and I can't do it now

Bekah

I hear exactly what you are saying. I want my old life back!

Hello, night owls.

I'm going to try to post some photos. I'm not photogenic, and am very inexpert at taking selfies, but here goes.

Success! This is one of me, with hair, from the day that my port was installed. You can see the Tegaderm on my neck covering the insertion site into my vein. Next up: a photo of me in my wig (not sure of the date, but I was at home, in my jammies:

The wig is actually "better" than my real hair - not gray. I got my wig with bangs in anticipation of losing my eyebrows, so as to provide a bit of camouflage.

And finally, a pic of my fuzzy cuddle buddy:

She seems to know when I'm not feeling well, and she plants herself, either on me, or cuddled up beside me, for hours on end.

If I get myself together and make a selfie with actual makeup on, I'll try to include it in my profile.

I hope everyone has a restful night.

Hi Katy. When I was wig shopping, I really wanted to have a wig that would let me continue to look "like myself". I can see there being another wig in my future - a shorter one that will blur the transition when I start to grow hair again. At least, I'm hoping to grow hair again. An uncommon, but real, side effect of Taxol is permanent hair loss, and I'm hoping that I escape that one. On the other hand, the shit sandwich I'm trying to digest isn't that common, either, so analysis of the "odds" doesn't provide me with much comfort, at the moment.

Our little Ewok (our son named her when she was a kitten) isn't really a big cat, but she does still have her winter chubbiness. Every fall, she grows extra furry, and puts on a couple of pounds. Once the weather warms up (we are about there, but still have frost on many nights) she goes outside much more, and slims down. She's no more than 9 or 10 pounds at her "summer weight".

She is basically a tortoiseshell, but she does have a single, tiny tuft of white fur on her tummy, which might disqualify her from the label, if you apply such things strictly. She does an impressive flop, though, and her intent is absolutely to lay claim to the hallway.

Thanks for the kind comment about our house. We live in a little old homestead house, out in the middle of nowhere. We have pretty good reason to believe that the house will have its hundredth birthday in 2016. It isn't big, but it is cozy and comfortable for the two of us, as empty nesters. Our son turns 22 in June, and lives about 2 hours away. He wants to be a chef, so he is working in restaurants, and doesn't get much time off.

I'm really tired, but not sleepy. Hope to get some sleep soon. You should, too

Katy, I'm not much in the gardening department, but there are many people in our neighbourhood who garden a lot, and very beautifully. Our nearest neighbours, whose farm is a mile south of us, have a beautiful yard with different landscaped areas and many flowerbeds. We are quite a bit downhill from them, tucked into a valley, and it is regularly a couple of degrees colder overnight at our place. We usually get away for a month to my DH's family cottage in the lake country a couple of provinces over, so we don't plant things that require care in July. We do have a variety of hardy perennials, though.

Gardening here can be quite a challenge. We are at about 3500 feet above sea level, so nights are cool no matter how warm it was during the day. We are about 2 hours east of the Rockies, so a bit farther than Denver is east of the mountains in the states, and we are in a bit of the rain shadow of the mountains. Water for irrigating yards is available, but only for a short season. Our well water isn't great for irrigation

Years ago, before we were able to take so much time off in the summer, I had a big garden, both fruits and vegetables. On the fruit side, we grew hundreds if feet of raspberry bushes, along with currants, both red and black, and chokecherries. It was a bit cool down in our valleyto grow sweet corn, but we harvested lots of peas, beans, lettuces, carrots and the like. At one time, we had irises growing along the driveway, maybe eight feet deep and about halfway up the driveway. I do have some pollen allergies, so can't spend too much time digging around, but we do encourage the perennials, including "wild" roses, columbines, etc