Too busy!

Too much I want us to get done this weekend!

Yesterday, we stopped at a couple of thrift stores, Bed Bath and Beyond, visited Dave's dad, went to a movie at an actual theater, stopped at a restaurant supply place, did laundry, and cooked a somewhat involved meal for dinner.

THEN, Svengoolie had Dracula on last night, so we stayed up until 11.

But my energy held out, and I felt great all day!

(no treatment on Friday.... so now I know that my recovery from Abraxane treatment will be quick at the end, coming up in November.)

Today, I want to hit a bunch of thrift stores and really work on this new wardrobe idea that I have been percolating since surgery in April.

Also, the steroids I get with every treatment have put me up to 150 pounds, and I can't fit into my jeans.

I need some "fat" jeans to wear until the steroid weight comes off again.

I HATE being this fat.

Okay okay...I know there are readers out there who will say "fat?  You're not fat, and you shouldn't judge fat people...."

Well, here's an alert:

You go right ahead and judge me if you want, but FOR ME, on this frame, 150 pounds feels obese and uncomfortable.

My clothes don't fit, and I don't like what I see when I look in the mirror.

Also, if you think I am a bad person for saying that I feel fat, and that I don't like it.....well, I have decided to let go of the impact on my body when others judge me, or accuse me of being something I am not.

(it's really quite amazing to me what people have accused me of being and doing over the years!!)

Wow, where did that rant come from?  Just putting it out there that it doesn't stick in my craw like it used to tells me that it still does.  Interesting self observation.

Oh well, it's all a process, and letting go of the bullshit is a process, too.

Anyway, I had also planned to cook two main dishes for dinner tonight and lunches this week, but there just won't be time.  I can do a double cooking thing tomorrow after work.

If the thrift store outing is a success, there will be more laundry done, and sorting through the clothes I have to donate the stuff I don't want anymore.

And then, I am supposed to get my office cleaned up for an actual, living, breathing massage therapy client who is coming on Tuesday after work!

But first things first....off to the shower.  Happy Sunday, gentle readers!

OH, and p.s.  The Cubs blew it.

Addendum:  the thrift store shopping was a TOTAL success!  I have purged the clothes I had, and am currently making both dishes I had planned to cook today.  I call it all a WIN!

Pennant playoffs

The Chicago Cubs are trying for the National League pennant.

Last night's game didn't go their way.  We'll see what happens tonight.

I have lost my sense of taste again, mostly.  Chemo mouth is back.

Oh joy.

At least I could taste during the Adriamycin cycle of four treatments.  It's these drugs that are made out of yew trees that wipe out my mouth.

Still can't feel my finger and toe tips, and have more nausea than I have had to date.  Oh yay.

More fatigue, too.

But what the f*ck ever.

As I have stated before, I can't express how very tired I am of this process.

They could not get my lab draw to come out of my port on Friday.

Tried and tried, which was LOVELY, I have to tell you. Have you ever experienced the AWFUL taste/smell that comes from INSIDE OF YOUR OWN EFFING HEAD when they flush a chemo port with saline?

It's HORRIBLE.  I have nightmares about it. No, really, I DO.  If I think about it during waking hours, I physically shudder.

It's like having a head full of paint thinner.  It's so bizarre.

So, they couldn't get blood out of the port, so I had to leave the treatment room, and go to the lab room and get poked in the arm anyway, which was what we were trying to avoid by using the effing port.

The other thing that seems to be happening with this chemo protocol is sleeplessness the first night or two after treatment, no matter how many drugs I take.  Up all effing night on the night of treatment.  Literally.

What the hell IS THAT?  When rest is THE MOST important thing for me to get, and I can't get it?

At least now I get a little break.  My three weeks on, one week off is upon me....so NO appointments this coming week.

No treatment until 10/30, so it's actually almost more like 2 weeks off.

What a gift that will be.  Maybe by the time we start again, I'll be able to taste things again.

In happier news, it's been a pretty nice weekend.

Yesterday was Pagan Pride day in OKC.

The last time we went to that was 2012, and I was one of the dancers, both solo and with a troupe.  There was NO ONE there in 2012.  By that, I mean that when I was on stage, there were 3 or 4 people in the audience.

As far as I know, the event had not happened again since.

There was a pretty good turn out yesterday!  It was fun.

Today was bright and sunny and 75, so we did some errands, and some house cleaning, and bought some mums to put on the porch and patio.

The game comes on  shortly, and of course we can't get it on OKC unless we use someone's on line log in to watch it....which is exactly what we're doing.

Go CUBS!

Six boobless months

The last night I spent with my breasts was six months ago.

It took me many weeks after surgery to be able to raise my hands up to my shoulders, and more to raise them over my head.

It took months to be able to move, and stretch, and reach like a normal person.

But I did it.

Because I worked hard, every day, and made it happen.  Pure force of will, and overcoming pain and physical limits.

I have continued to work hard, every day, to exercise ( no matter how shitty I feel), and eat right, and drink my water.

Just like I did for a lifetime before I was told that my body was trying to kill me.


Six months ago, I had only had four chemotherapy treatments.

As of tonight,  I have had twelve, and I still have a few more to go.

I am &%$ing sick of it.

Trust me.

I am also BEYOND sick of having no eyebrows, or eyelashes-- or freaking pubic hair.

You may not think about your pubic hair, but you can take my word for it:  pubic hair serves a purpose!



Six months ago, my overwhelming will to live, and my attitude about fighting for my very life, had not yet been fully formed.

Tonight, I reflect on the fact that my fight for my life is one of the only things I think about on a daily basis.

Any time that I am not thinking about or focusing on something else, I am thinking about that.

How many of my readers have ever been in this position and can relate?



So, I sure hope we win this.

Because if we don't, then why the #$%@ did I let them cut my breasts off?

Why the $%#@ have I put myself through this living hell?

I mean really.


That's just where I am in my head tonight, after six months without breasts.

Something to talk about? Well, no, not really.

Happily, there is nothing much to report after round 11, phase 2.

I had no pain, no nausea, and am just a bit tired because of insomnia Friday night, and the neighbor's dog barking last night until 2 am.

There seems to be a slight improvement in the feeling in my fingers and toes.

That's it.

Nothing else cancer-treatment related to talk about.

What I have been thinking about, however, is how I, as a person who has focused on health and wellness for a life time, ended up with cancer everywhere in my body.

Well, maybe not EVERYWHERE, but a shit load of it scattered around.

I am wondering if there is something to the theory about highly sensitive, empathic people picking up the pain and suffering of others and carrying it in our bodies.

I spent most of my adult life holding my clients' pain in my hands.

Wiping their tears as they wept on my massage table.

Holding their heads in my hands while they sobbed.

Feeling their pain in my body, and riding it out with them.

I THOUGHT I was letting it go.

I THOUGHT I had adequately protected myself from absorbing all of that "energy," but maybe I didn't.

It's just something that's been on my mind.

Worth it?

So.  My first "modified" treatment, with the smaller dose and the different medication, was Friday.

No shooting pains this weekend, so that's a plus.

Feel fine.

Thinking it will be worth it to extend my treatment-end date, and take the smaller but more frequent treatments.

Still can't feel my fingers, but whatever. Just have to keep hoping that I live longer than the numbness does.

Yeah, I've been going there, lately.

Hard not to, though 90% of the time I remain positive and hopeful.

Let's see, what else?

I was misidentified as a man for the first time.  Oh, yay.

Took my 6 string older guitar to a privately owned shop to get some maintenance done on it, for a reasonable price...and when we walked in, the guy said "Hello, gentlemen."

Oops.

Then he said "OH, and lady."

Too late!

It's been a nice weekend.  Today's weather has been perfect.

Stuff is cooking.

We took a walk up by the lake.

The lymphedema in my arm  and hand doesn't seem to be getting any worse.

The Cubs won their last game of the regular season on a high note, and are going to the wild card game to see if they can go to the play offs this year.

That's fun!  Painting my nails Cubby blue!

My contribution to breast cancer awareness this October

Cross posted  and edited from FB...sorry for the repeat.



Not enough people saw this yesterday when I posted it... Posting again, with a more detailed personal story attached....

IF YOUR BEASTS are DENSE AND LUMPY, you can miss ANYTHING on a self exam. See your doctor. Ask for a breast MRI to be approved. If you have a good doctor with a good support staff, they will get your insurance to pay.

 Mammography can't always find cancer until it's too late to stop it. Believe me, I am a living example.

I went every year for my exams and mammos, and could not tell by feeling my breasts myself that anything was amiss because they were lumpy with fibrocystic breast disease. 

My own doctor examined me last year, looked at my dimpled, somewhat enlarged right breast (again--enlargement was normal with my hormone cycles, my boobs waxed and waned like the moon), and said it was just my cystic breast disease.

 She said just wait until your annual mammogram in November. 

In the meantime, my nipple on that same breast started to retract, so that by the time I saw the mammo tech, she said there was no doubt the films would come back abnormal. They did.

My doctor had said in July that it was just my cysts,and advised me to wear good bras to keep the heavy tissue from dimpling like that.

 My biopsies in December (6th and 29th) said :

It was not my cysts, it was ductal carcinoma, invasive, and tubular lobular in situ. 

 Yes I had two kinds of cancer in my breasts (one in each side, and both in the right side---the tubular had traveled left from its primary location on the right), and likely HAD for a long time.

In fact, it had possibly been there for years before external signs of dimpling and flattening nipple began to appear. It was there for years.....tucked into the cystic tissue, invisible to mammography, or sometimes seen as an asymmetry in mammo, and presenting as a cysts during follow up ultrasounds.

 If you read no further.....Ask for the MRI.  ACCURATE early detection is the key if your tissue is dense.

 I had a PET scan on January 6, and at the beginning of the new year, I learned that the scan found that the cancer had traveled into my bones and liver.   More evidence that it had been hiding in my breasts for a long time.

 I was completely devastated, for about 5 minutes.  Literally.  Then, I decided to fight with everything I have, and have continued to do so.

 
First chemotherapy treatment was January 16...the day the Dead announced their Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago. 

 After 4 rounds of chemo, which were 90% successful at eliminating the primary and the mets, I had a double mastectomy on April 15th.

The breast surgery was completely successful, having taken all of the cancerous tissue out on the right side, including intramammary lymph nodes, and all of the tissue on the left not much of which was cancerous, but which stood the chance of becoming cancerous if only lumpectomy had been done.  The sentinel node was also on the left, and removed. 

 As of today, I am on my 11th treatment, fighting for my life.  5 more to go.

 2015 has been a rough year...but if I can get this message out, and help just one person to make the decision to talk to her doctor, this rough year will be worth it.

 Save yourself the experience of going through chemo treatments.  

Of losing your breasts. Losing your hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. And pubic hair and nasal hair....Being mistaken for a man (it happened today, someone called me a gentleman, and then quickly corrected himself). Being stared at by adults AND children, and having to hear them say things to others about your appearance. Losing the feeling in your fingers and toes.  Nausea. Insomnia. Pain. Lymphedema in your arms and hands from the surgery.  Weight gain from the steroids in your chemo (for me anyway).

 Save yourself from being told, when you are strong and healthy and happy all at once for the first time in your life, that you may only have about 5 years to live.

Ask for the MRI. Don't wait.

Please.