1 of 16 under my belt

The countdown has begun. Yesterday, I had the first of 16 chemo treatments. The lymph node in my left armpit that appeared on the funky side just turned out to be a fat lymph node. No cancer. So we went ahead with the original treatment regimen of 4 cycles of Adriamycin and Cytoxan every two weeks, followed with once a week treatments of Taxol for 12 weeks. If I'm lucky and everything goes according to plan, I will be done with chemo in early December. A very nice early Christmas present.

The nurse assured me I will lose my hair. I'm cool with that. I ordered a wig, a couple of hats, and a couple of scarves, and they should be here just about the time I lose my hair, which generally happens about the two-week mark. In fact, I'm thinking about having it shaved a few days prior to that to avoid the headrush of losing a clump of it.

The one thing that I'm still a little iffy on is the possible loss of fingernails and toenails when I start the Taxol. I don't do anything special with my fingernails. Never had a manicure or anything like that. In fact, they aren't very good fingernails at all. I just like that I have them, I guess.

Last night I felt kind of nauseous and extremely tired. The nurse said I probably wouldn't be able to sleep, but I fell asleep on the couch and I fell asleep snuggling with my daughter. She woke me up because I was snoring!!!! And the rest of the night proved no different. The only time I got up was to go to the bathroom. My chemo nurses said they wanted me to drink 3 quarts of fluid in 24 hours to help flush the Cytoxan a little bit, so I've been a flavored water guzzling fool and making many, many trips to the bathroom. I am happy to report that I got those 3 quarts in by 3:30 p.m. today, and they didn't even start administering the Cytoxan until about 4:45 yesterday, so I came in well under the 24-hour limit! (Hey, you have to take those small victories where you can find them!)

I also have something to look forward to after every treatment. Yesterday, my husband gave me a charm bracelet, and at the end of each treatment, I get another charm that signifies things that are important to my or that I like to do. The first one was the pink ribbon to signify what we are all going through. Getting those charms will be the highlight of this journey and help me focus on what is really important.

It really wasn't until I got cancer that I realized just how many people wish only the best for me. With all that support, how can I not beat this? I thank you all.

Last Friday's flowers

I  was going to post pictures of some of my new blooms, but as luck would have it, this cancer thing took a turn that caught me off guard, and I spent some extra time getting ultrasounded and biopsied on Friday.

The oncologist decided a lymph node in my left armpit (opposite side of all the hullabaloo that has been keeping me preoccupied over the last two months) hadn't gotten smaller over the last month and should be looked at more closely; hence the ultrasound. When the ultrasound came back "iffy" they did a biopsy. When that happened, the oncologist said we should wait with further treatment until we knew what we were dealing with.

So no chemo for this cat today. I had actually gotten myself psyched up for getting this party started, hair loss and all. (I even ordered hats and scarves and a wig!) Now we need to wait until tomorrow for the results of that biopsy. Cancerous? Possibly. If so, what next? Hard to tell. Just have to wait and see, I guess.


Believe me. I'm trying to distract myself with as much as possible. Yesterday, we walked around town in the 96-degree heat looking at other people's gardens. Then I vacuumed the floor with my falling-apart vacuum (it is literally held together with duct tape and glue). Still, I'm finding I'm pretty anxiety-ridden about this new development.


It doesn't help that it's hot enough to fry an egg on just about anything outside. Well, it's actually cooler today by about 10 degrees. But I've found that my tolerance of heat is greatly diminished lately, so I have hardly spent any time in my gardens for the last month and I hate it. (I may have mentioned that weeding is like therapy for me.)


And with all this hot weather, it seems like the only thing growing well is the weeds... except for these tough petunias that are really growing tall this year for some reason...

And my volunteer Golden Tickseed (or Plains Coreopsis)! A bunch of new blooms should be coming soon!

A nice shot of rain would not only make my flowers happy, it would make a lot of farmers and ranchers happy too. But it doesn't sound like anyone is going to get much in the way of relief any time soon.

In the meantime, I guess all we can do is pray.

Chemo curls

After a couple of friends told me that their hair came back curly after chemo, I decided that maybe I needed to do a little research. So I "googled" chemo curls.

Turns out it happens enough so they have websites about it.

So will I have chemo curls? Probably. For the rest of my life? Maybe.

This will take some getting used to for me. After my Julie Roberts hair phase, back in the late '80s, I went to straight and never went back. My mom always wanted curly hair. I sure don't.


But like my kids' daycare provider used to say, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

Seems like good advice, BEYOND chemo curls, don't you think?

Port authority

As I was being wheeled into the surgery room to have a port installed for chemotherapy yesterday morning, the song Highway to Hell was playing. As one of the nurses turned it down, I laughed and said out loud, "Highway to Hell...That's kind of funny." The nurse who turned it down came over to me, introduced herself and said, "I'm not on that highway today!" And I said, "Well, that's a good thing!" And we giggled a little more.

Still, I couldn't help wonder if the song had significance.

Shortly after that (after they put an oxygen mask on my face, strapped me in and bound my arms so I couldn't "help" if I happened to be awake enough) I was in total la-la land.

When I woke up, the portacath was installed right below my left collarbone and they were ready to wheel me back to my room.

When another nurse set up the surgery a week or so ago, she warned us that the port might be painful. In fact, the nurse told me that one lady recently commented on how she wished they had told her how painful it would be so she could have prepared herself a little better. So this nurse wanted me to be prepared for pain.

I thought I was prepared. In reality, not so much.

I like to think I have a high tolerance for pain. In fact, I kind of prided myself in being tough.

Turns out I'm much more a glass house than a tower of strength.

After we got home what felt like an eternity, but was actually only about an hour of spasms that basically felt like someone was using my pectoral muscle as a trampoline, I gave in and took a pain pill. Then I took another one four hours later than another one four and a half  a half hours after that, so I could get to sleep. I hate pain pills

I'm happy that the spasms are gone today, but it still aches, and it itches.

Most surprising to me is the pain that shoots through my arm when I pick up relatively light things (I'm talking about my purse, here, so I guess "light" is a relative word).

Thankfully, my coffee mug ISN'T too heavy. Things would not go well if coffee could not be consumed!

So at least this port doesn't have complete authority over me!

You gotta take every little victory you can!

Flower Friday: Monkey painting

My daughter painted this at an art camp last summer. I have no idea what kind of
flowers they are, but I thought they were worthy of a Flower Friday post!

Morning, Glory!

From this....

To this in a few short months. My new morning glory has really taken
off! I planted it from seed in late May. I can hardly wait until it
starts to bloom.

My, how you've grown

My volunteer Indian corn plant then (6/21/12)

My volunteer Indian corn plant now. (7/11/12)

Me, sporting Scottish as a kid, with one of my brothers. (circa 1967)

Me, during chemo! (probably sometime in August, 2012)
Okay! Bad joke! But if you can't laugh at yourself
and big-headed people from Star Trek, who can you laugh at?

Here sits his birthday card

It's my dad's birthday today. His birthday card sits on my desk because I have been so scatter-brained lately, I can't seem to remember simple tasks. I need an excuse, but really, I don't have one. I am mostly just overwhelmed by myself right now.

I had an ultrasound of my heart today to determine if it's tough enough for chemotherapy. I don't know how tough it has to be, but it sure doesn't feel tough to me right now. I am actually not used to spending so much time thinking about myself. Most of the time, it's the last thing I think about. But that was because I thought everything was in good working order!

Now, that I realize it's not, suddenly I'm wondering what ELSE is wrong with me.

That may be natural. Or it may be slightly hypochondriatic (I just made that word up, by the way. It has a nice ring to it, even though I really don't wish to be identified as such!)

I don't shrug off my aches and pains like I did a few short months ago. And I really don't like that I don't shrug them off. Because I think that makes me weaker than I want to be, or more importantly, than I expected I was. It's easy to think you're strong when you haven't had a lot of crap thrown your way.

In reality, I have had a pretty uneventful, easy existence. Yeah, I wear glasses. Yeah, I have heartburn once in awhile. But not having any kind of surgery until you are 50 years old is kind of unusual, I guess. I could have easily been happy with another 20 years but I really can't complain, even if I still do.

So, even though my dad will not get his birthday card on time, it's not because I wasn't thinking about him often.

The real problem is that I just couldn't seem to remember to put stamps on the darn thing so I could mail it!

Happy birthday, Dad!

Dawn

Moon faced and bald

So let me get this straight....In addition to having chemo, which will undoubtedly make me lose my hair and eyebrows and eyelashes, I'm also going to have a big-old moon face because of the steroids I will be taking to make me NOT get nauseous from the chemo? How did I NOT get that memo until now?

I didn't understand why so many women felt unattractive because of hair loss. Well, that's because I didn't have the complete picture.

Why don't most people mention the moon face? Maybe it's not a big deal to most people, but I have always had chipmunk cheeks and FINALLY, in my old age, I was starting to lose the moon face. 

I mean, I was prepared to be a Walter White from Breaking Bad chemo patient. Bald? Yes. Moon faced? Hardly! In fact, he got gaunt and bad-ass.

I realize now I was deluded with television chemo. I will be nothing like Walter White and very much more like the Pillsbury doughboy without the chef's hat.

Reality check! Balloon busted!

Not much I can do but roll with it. Much like the Pillsbury doughboy would do!

Now, I just have to get down the giggle if anyone pokes my belly!

Dawn

What should you feel?

My surgery is over. I am back at work. In the grand scheme of things, the whole process has, to date, felt like it was happening to someone else. And I'm still wondering what I should be feeling.

I mean, I feel the results. I see them. I even smell the results.

Yes, it's true. When you have a breast removed, and some lymph nodes, they don't want you to use powder or fumigants or any other thing (like deodorant) that might clog your underarm pores. Needless to say, I can smell myself and to be honest, I am not fond of the smell of my underarm! TMI, as my daughter would say?


I really don't know if the feelings I have are healthy or not, because of how distant I seem to be from most of them.

Maybe the healing process doesn't really begin until you have received the "cancer-free" seal of approval. I don't know. I do expect to get to that stage. But until I do, I wonder if this feeling of NOT feeling like it is happening to me is a defense mechanism -- that state of denial in the stages of grief -- just to get through it?

Of course, I would like to think that I am just totally well-adjusted and able to take anything thrown my way. But I'm also smart enough to know that I am not as well-adjusted as I like to pretend I am.

But maybe the pretense is half the battle?

That's my theory today, and I'm sticking with it, until it doesn't work anymore! (That's the beauty of these personal "traumas." You can play a role any way you want, as long as it works for you.)

And I'm going to reiterate my yearly mammo plea! I AM THEE yearly mammo poster child. I mean, I went from a "good" mammo last year to,  "We're gonna have to take your boob because you have three cancerous spots" status this year. (Although that last cancerous spot we did not KNOW to be cancerous until AFTER the removal.)

If I can help just one other person with my yearly mammogram plea, I will be happy.

Get 'er done, ladies!!!! Your life may depend on it.

Dawn