I figured since it is still December for a few more days I better get my butt in gear and get blogging about this month. I am happy to say that this month was much like Decembers of the past. I get crazed and overwhelmed thinking I can't do it all and then I do it early and keep shopping and then everyone says I over do it.Well, as I told my sister in law, it was good to be alive and be able to over do it this year, so deal with it.

I had two follow up appointments this month. The first one was with Dr. Gil, my Plastic Surgeon, who started all this trouble this year. He says the boobies look and feel great. He says it doesn't even look like I went through the radiation as they still look so good. I will see him again in March and we'll do an MRI then.
My second follow up was my 6 month post Chemo. with Dr. Lemke, my Oncologist. She did some bloodwork and an exam and all looks great. She also said I was looking great. I will see her again in 3 months.
I have a follow up with Dr. Shapiro, the Radiation Oncologist in a few weeks, but I am feeling great, staying up late, no naps, and doing way too much again.

My hair is coming in, slow but sure. When I look back to last month and look at these pics, it looks like it is coming in a lot, but I am not a good waiter and I want it longer NOW! It has been coming back in black and gray, so I colored it. I figured if I heave to deal with it short, I could atleast do something about the color. It is also coming in very curly. The top and front is almost like an afro.
You know, you think when the treatment is over, all is back to being good and for the most part it is, but I really miss my hair and it is amazing how much your hair can impact your confidence and self esteem. I feel like I have to explain to everyone that this wasn't my hair choice and I know I look better with long hair.
I finally took the work wig off at work and everyone there has been very kind about my hair. Some still couldn't believe the wig was a wig to the point that one of the ladies said "why did she cut her hair, it looked so good long" GROW!

Since we are talking about work, let's talk some more. I love it! I love the students, I love my colleagues, I love it all. It  has been busy and I am sure it will be busy again, but I am OK with that because I have the time I need with each student to do some quality work. 

I went and saw Jason again! It was his last US show of this tour and his first time @ MSG. It was amazing , as usually, and just what I needed in the middle of all the holiday craze. Ruby & I went down to NYC for 2 days and stayed with our friends. We did some shopping, had some great meals, and saw the show. It was a quick trip, but well worth it.

 

and here is our XMAS 2012 card.

                                     
We are Om for the holidays & taking it easy. Andy is working lots, but the kids and I are hanging out at home together. It's nice the kids are such home bodies and like just sleeping in, watching movies, and playing games. We got to have three very special christmas celebrations with our families, I only drank too much at one! It was great being together with everyone.We might venture out into the cold this weekend and go skiing.

So that is it, I told you it wasn't that exciting, but that is OK with me, we had enough excitement all Spring and Summer! So ..........

talk to ya next year! 

November 2012

I am here and doing well, no worries Jeff, my blog friend who emailed me this week and was hoping all was well and missing the updates. I have actually been too busy to blog and not with medical things.

First, we have need to cover the matter of hair growth. Here it is, the past month's action on my head.

I

You can see in this last picture that it is getting thick. I have been massaging in Euphora Hair Thickening serum twice a day. There appears to be more black and less gray too.

We had Halloween this past month. We went to a friends party and I took the opportunity to pull out my mother's day Chemosabe headress for my costume. Andy, is of course, a classic Lone Ranger. he didn't break character all night, I think he missed his calling as an actor, he really loves getting dressed up and into character.

Doesn't this look inviting? This is my new office @ Syracuse University Health Services Psychiatry. I started working full time again on October 16th, so it's been about one month and I am surviving and loving it.

This is my work wig! Don't want to freak the students out with my extremely short hair at this point. I am hoping my January that my hair will be log enough to do away with the wig cause it gets kinda itchy under there.

Brand new Couple - my bestie Janet, from college, got married last weekend. yeah Janet and Chip, aren't they so cute and happy. It was my first wedding in a long time and I did not disappoint, I cried the minute she entered the church!

Old couple alert. here are Andy and I at the reception. It was great getting together with friends from college again, but we learned things are different when you wait to get married. Such as, no tail gating in the church parking lot before the ceremony and being ready to go home to bed by 9:30pm. Yes, we are getting old people.

 So, Thanksgiving is next week and we obviously have alot to be thankful for. I have made it through yet another battle with breast cancer, so now we can all move on to the real breast of the moment, Mr. Turkeys!

Happy Pink October

Some see the leaves falling from the trees in the fall, but every where you look, whether you are a thriver or not, is a sea of pink in October. My first bout with breast cancer started in the fall of 2008 and Pinktober was a bit much to process with everything else I was going through. I obviously made it through then and now I am ending my second bout of breast cancer in Pinktober. Let's hope that that starting and ending, in what was already my favorite month, is enough & the last I have to hear about this as far as my own health.
I know my job is not over. I have already received the dreaded phone call from a friend who just heard she has breast cancer and I will be right there by her side through this. Educating her, supporting her, crying, laughing, drinking, whatever she needs because that is my new job, well atleast another of my new jobs.

So I have been resting alot the last three weeks, Fall cleaning and organizing, and going to all my follow ups. My surgical follow up went well. The scars are healing nicely, no new lumps were detected in a very thorough breast exam, and I am tolerating the Tamoxifen just fine. Sure, I had the headaches & nausea the first few days, but you get that most times you start a new med. Now I just have the hot flashes, clothes and hat on, clothes and hat off.

My Radiation follow up went well. No more burn and skin is healing well. See. I saw a friend out recently and she was really disturbed by my last radiation picture, so I thought I would leave you with this one, which as you can see, is perfectly normal, no redness, swelling, or burning. I told you that Lucky Goat lotion was great and even my Doctor said that Lucky Goat is really doing a nice job! I was also instructed to massage my breast.I think I mentioned before that radiation can cause adhesions to the implants and those effects don't set in until after radiation is done, so massage helps prevent that from happening, Andy was happy to hear about this new job he is taking on for me.

Happy be free and Go Bald Day. 

There is a discrepancy on the internet as to the exact date, but it is sometime around now. A day to take off those hats, hair pieces, and scarves and be free!

 Hair update.

 I have more, as you can see here. I went to my hairdresser friend yesterday and she gave me a secret hair thickening solution for a hair welcoming gift, thank you for that by the way! Apparently if you put this serum on 2 times a day and massage it it, along with brushing your hair for 100 strokes, it stimulates the hair follicles and helps them grow faster and stronger. 

I  got what should be close to the last bill for my treatment yesterday. I thought it would be interesting to go back and see how much the price tag for breast cancer treatment is and this is what I found. For all the surgeries, doctors appointments, chemotherapy, and radiation the total cost was $130,000. Luckily, we have health insurance and the cost to us was $3,000 in bills, and of course the past 25 years we have paid into the health insurance. Point being is that we have lots of money going into finding cures and lots of money going into the latest advancements in treatment, but if people can't afford health insurance and don't have access to care, what good is it. Give to organizations that provide money to the uninsured to get the care they need. 

So I am starting my new job at Syracuse  University this coming Tuesday. I am excited and nervous. Excited about the job, nervous about the changes it will bring to the rest of my life, but I have a supportive husband and children, supportive family and friends, and I can do this with their help. I hear through the grapevine that the new office is also going to be watching out for me to make sure I don't over do it, I guess you would hope that is the case in a Health Service Center, but it was nice to hear because we all know I sometimes try to do too much and forget to stop and take care of myself.

So, yes I have been wearing lots of hats this summer, one at a time, but now it is time to put back on all my hats and get back to being just another working mom and wife trying to do it all.

I am grateful that there is so much support, awareness, and funds going into finding a cure this month and it is great that people who might feel like they can't make a difference or contribute otherwise have so many ways to participate, but let us not forget this doesn't stop on October 31st. Not for the ones who are newly diagnosed, not for their loved ones and friends, and not for you or people who have never been touched by this.
                               Keep becoming aware, keep getting involved, and keep fighting!

Finish Line

  

I crossed another finish line on Friday when I finished radiation treatment, but it was not without drama. Let me take you back to my first week in radiation. There was a woman finishing her treatments ahead of me and she was so excited as it was her last treatment and then the technicians come out and say the machine is down and she has to come back on Monday. I said to myself, that would suck to be so excited and then to have to wait a whole weekend. So I kept this in the back of my mind and when everyone around me was getting excited, I just said it ain't over until it is over and wasn't I a smarty in doing so cause there I sat on Friday when the technician came out and said the machine was down. I just laughed and said, "of course it is". However, they were able to squeeze me in at another office an hour later, so I did finish and had the weekend to celebrate! 

Yes, I am still burned, but it is getting better. Every now and then I feel pings of pain and tingling, but nothing horrible. I probably look funny though when I get them cause I make a funny face and grab my boob.

I went to the Lucky Goat soap shop here in town to get little gifts for the technicians. While there I was talking with the owner and master mixer of the soaps, who is a good friend of my friend. She gave me some things to try on the radiation burn. I have been using the goat milk soap daily in the shower and the Mama and baby butter lotion and I gotta say I can feel the difference. My skin feels better and after I put the lotion on I can feel less pain within 10 minutes. Once I am healed better she also gave me some JuJu lotion to help me heal. You all know me, when I find something I like, I tell everyone about it, so get out there and go get some Lucky Goat. Her shop is right behind Doug's Fish Fry. Thanks again Amy for the gift bags & for hooking me up! 

My hair continues to grow pretty steadily, so much so that I had to shave my legs! I looked just like this pin up except I don't need the towel for my hair on the head yet, I had on higher heels, and Matthew McConnaughey was holding my towel. Seriously though, my eyebrows are back and I can see eyelashes. 

I now have more hair on my head than my tanned Dad and about the same as Andy, although my hair is coming in soft and peach fuzzy so it looks like Andy has more hair in this picture. 

here is the cute bald couple now! 

When I got home from radiation on Friday there was this balloon flying in the wind on my front walkway that said, "We Love You" It was a very sweet gesture from my girls to mark the end of radiation. Love it and thanks! Ruby thought it would be a good idea to bring it to the castle and let "cancer" go off of the roof top, so we did.

Here the cancer tried to come back and kick me one more time, but I said no, get out of here and gave it a good punch.

Then off it went, out of my life as quick as it came. Bye Bye Cancer!

So now I have started the Tamoxifen, a daily pill for the next five years, along with my cancer fighting Pro Pack vitamins. Just a spoon full of pills makes the sugar go down.

 My previous three years of cancer free is wiped clean, I start again, aiming for that five year recovery date when I can say I am cancer free. Until then,  I start the post cancer regimen of eating healthy, exercising, getting my rest, going to follow up appointments and living each moment with gratitude & love.

Thank you to all my friends and family for the many cards, gifts, meals, love and support you have given me and my family through all this.(Janet wins the card giving having sent 30 cards since my diagnosis!)

 We could not have gotten through as well as we did without all of you! 

Now stop worrying about me and get on with your lives, I am.

120 Seconds

                               

RADIATION 

        120 seconds is the amount of time I have to do radiation next week to be done with treatment.
I completed the last of the wide radiation coverage today and then my Doc came in and she and the technicians elevated me, spun me around, and drew on me, all while I laid helpless on the table, the spinning part was quite fun as I had never done that on the table before.
        As I said in last blog, the boost is a bit different in that they are isolating the treatment area to my incision which is the most likely site for cells to be hanging out at if they didn't already get them with the surgical removal, chemotherapy, or previous radiations. It also involves a cone shaped attachment onto the machine which gets very close to me, but does not touch me. The other difference is instead of 10-15 mins, it is only 30 seconds, so 5 days of 30 seconds gets me 120 seconds left!

This is 28 days of radiation and what it did to my skin. looks yucky, but there are far worse out there and I luckily got no open areas. It is sore, but I will continue with the creams and it will be better in no time. The blue mark is the boost site, so that area will get a bit worse over the next week.

                                     
                   This is the radiation machine with the cone attachment which will deliver my boost.

HAIR

Can you tell which one is the peach fuzz on my head and which one is the real peach? They look and feel pretty similar right now. It is very exciting to be feeling something on my head again. There are some longer darker hairs in the back according to Ruby which see says are growing very fast. I did alittle research and apparently your hair only grows about a half an inch a month, so this is going to take awhile, but it is exciting all the same.

NEXT STEP

I had my 6 week follow up with the Oncologist. My labs were OK. I am still anemic and my white cells are on the lower range of normal, but that is expected. She said I look good and we talked about the Tamoxifen.  This is a pill I will take once a day for the next five years which also helps decrease the chance of reoccurance. Yes, as with any medication there are side effects, but the benefits of taking it outweigh any of the risks. I am not going to drive myself crazy looking at the side effects, if I get some, I will deal with them, if I don't, lucky me! 

I don't go back again to the ROC for three months! but it is back to radiation on Monday, my last Monday!

My sister found this picture for me and thought it should be included on the blog, so thank  you Sis, here it is! 

Ten days to go!

I had my 23rd radiation treatment today which means I only have 10 more to go. That works out to two more weeks and I will finish on Rex's 14th bday! I am starting to burn, which is expected even with all the applications of lidex and aquaphor cream I have been doing up to this point. Having done some research, alot of people burn alot sooner and alot worse, so while it is becoming uncomfortable, it still could be worse. 

It looks like a sun burn, as you can see, but they say it is more comparable to a chemical burn. It still amazes me they are able to isolate so much where the radiation goes. 

For the five treatments next week they will continue to radiate the larger area they have been doing, getting the surgical site and lymph nodes. The last week they do something called a boost where they isolate the radiation to just the surgical site. Research shows woman with early stage breast cancer, over 40, benefit from this boost in that it reduces the likelihood of reoccurance. As I went for a full 8 treatments with chemotherapy, I felt going for the boost was yet another way to try and prevent having to deal with all this again. Aggressive yes, but I am worth it! 

Yes, fatigue continues as everything is accumulating (surgeries/chemo/radiation) and I have not been good about napping and getting to bed early. I am working on that now as I am getting up much earlier to get the kids off to school. 

One thing I was looking forward to all summer was going to the JasonMraz/Christina Peri concert over Labor Day. Well I have some great friends and one of them got me into the sound check for the show and as you can see here, we also got a meet and greet. Music makes me happy, especially from these two people and they did not disappoint, it was a great show and they were very nice.

I have my 6 week post chemo follow up with Dr. Lemke, the Oncologist, next Monday, I'll let you know how that goes. 

Jason said he would send me some extra LOVE during the concert, so I am sending it on to all of you!