July 2020 chemo club

Finished chemo today! Yes! Side effects have been minimal through it all, thank goodness. My BMX is January 21st. Also at the same time is an oophorectomy. The doctor wanted to do a hysterectomy for preventative uterine and cervical cancers. My BRCA2 results don't even mention a risk of those, so am 99.9999 percent sure I'll only do the oophorectomy. Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on this? Thank you.

Dubhain, congrats!!!!

I had an oopherectomy a couple months before my mastectomy, and wish I'd gotten the complete hysterectomy done then. I don't want another surgery, but want it out. The gyn onc had said he would do the oopherectomy with mastectomy, but I wanted it done earlier, and as it turned out that was a lucky choice as covid would have shut down that part of surgery (would have been elective). He would not, however, do the hysterectomy with mastectomy as the potential to seed implants with bacteria was, according to him, too high. Even though I did not have implants, In retrospect, I think in my circumstances with limited help, healing from both complete hysterectomy and mastectomy at the same time would have been too much for me. Sure wish I'd gotten it done earlier with the ooph though. The ooph healing, by the way, was a piece of cake. That I could have done with mastectomy. The hardest part was making myself not climb ladders and reorganize cabinets and such.

Iamloved, yeah that happened to me too. Or at least that's when I first noticed how straggly they were and realized I'd lost them. It was about the time when my hair started growing back. And They were last to start growing back. Just maybe a week ago I finally saw tiny baby lashes poking through. The good news is they grow much faster than my hair, and in about a weeks time I have actual fringe on both lower lids and one upper. The other is taking it’s sweet time it seems, but if I look close, I can see they are trying on that lid too.

that is such great news melbo! My pathology may take 2 weeks, as they said it’s taking longer due to hospital staff out because of covid. Glad you are feeling well. My drains are a pain, otherwise I feel fairly good. I have the most pain underneath my non cancer side, right at the top of my ribs. I don’t know if this is due to a drain or the tissue expander. It gets really sore in the mornings after I’ve been sleeping. I have a call into plastics to see if I can make an appointment to have drains removed (I will be having them removed here since I’m 2 hours away from their office.) and see if I can get more pain pills. I do ok with Tylenol during the day, but need a little more in the morning and at night...

Merry Christmas Eve to you all!!!

sharon0706: when my scalp started to hurt I had my hairdresser buzz it off to about 1/4” using a guard. Then I would use a sticky lint roller, and roller my head before and after I showered because the hair got everywhere...once most of the hair fell out, it felt so much better! I eventually shaved it using a razor because I had a few stragglers and it looked funny. Using a silk pillowcase also seemed to help with it feeling better.

Iamloved, I hope you don’t mind me popping into your group. I finished chemo in September and had neuropathy in my hands and feet. Just like you, my hands are getting better. It’s only the fingertips that are still numb...cracking eggs has been a challenge, with many eggs lost in the attempt . But they are getting better. Similar to you, my feet are a different story. The neuropathy was slowly creeping up my legs. We tried neurotin, which did slow the spread. I came off of it last month though, as I developed a cough and we are hoping that being off the meds will help the cough. My MO wanted to send me for a scan, just to be safe but I wanted to see if stopping the meds would help.

I finished chemo in September, so I think I may be a few months ahead of you, but wanted you to know you’re not alone. My MO tells me not to give up hope and that the feet are almost always slower to come back, so I am still hopeful.

I hope you don’t mind me jumping in. My biggest regret is that I didn’t find this site sooner. I would’ve loved to have the support during the scary early days and especially through chemo. Sending you best wishes and hoping we can both feel our feet again in 2021!

I'm only 2.5 weeks out from my last chemo. I had some very slight neuropathy which has gone away, but still have fatigue and nail pain. I was hoping the side effects would go away by now but suppose I need to be more patient

Dubhain, congrats (way late) on finishing up chemo! So your oncologist suggested the hysterectomy/oophorectomy? I'd like mine to consider that in lieu of estrogen blocking drugs for eternity, but I'm not even sure if that's something that's done.

Congrats with the great news mtspacekace! Wooo Hooo!

you know how some days just seem to slap you in the face? I had my consult with the radiation oncologist today and apparently they think I did have a positive lymph node early on. The original biopsy didn't show cancer, but it reacted to chemo like it was cancerous. Therefore they are assuming it was cancerous and will radiate my lymph nodes as well to be sure. If it was cancerous it moves me to stage 2B and almost to stage 3a since my original big tumor was 2.8 cm. (The cutoff for 3a is a 3xm tumor and 1 lymph node.) the whole thing has messed with my mind quite a bit.

Which, made the phone call I got later from my OB-GYN a complete mind f***. Apparently the Pap smear I had in August (six effing months ago!!) was abnormal and they need me to get a colposcopy to rule out HSIL and/or cervical cancer. I'm sure it's nothing. But that's also what I said about the lump in my breast.

Cdw — I haven't discussed with my oncologist yet, but I assume they will recommend it since they recommended I get the regular flu vaccine even when I was in the middle of chemo. I will see my oncologist tomorrow and it's on my list of questions for him

it occurred to me this morning that I had started chemo right before I had that pap six months this ago. I had asked at the time if it was okay to do the pap with the chemo and was told it wouldn’t be an issue. A thirty second google search this morning showed that chemo can cause an abnormal pap. I assume that’s why my ob waited six months to reschedule me — to make sure I was off chemo — but that’s a guess since she was shit at explaining.

Mtspacekace — sometimes the only thing we can do is put one foot in front of another. We had very similar diagnosis and had the same chemo treatment. The only difference is I chose a lumpectomy + radiation instead of the more aggressive mastectomy. It truly sucks that you are throwing everything you can at your cancer and it’s still causing problems. I truly hope that radiation knocks out the last of your cancer cells and that you can manage treatment despite the awful drive