Anticipation

I really can’t believe my last treatment is just 4 days away. I am so excited I can’t see straight. I am really over this whole cancer bit and it running my life. I now have to get through my mind that just because I had my last treatment, I am not going to miraculously feel better the following week and be back to normal. My oncologist told me that it usually takes up to a year to feel “normal” again, but in my mind, I am not sure what normal is so it might only take me 6 months. J

I have an appointment with the surgeon on January 15th. I am not sure if I will schedule my surgery or just talk about it, but I will keep everyone posted on that. I am 99% sure I am going to get a lumpectomy due to the fact the tumor has responded so well to chemo. I will also have to get some lumpnodes removed and from what I have read, this might be the most difficult part because I won’t be able to raise my arm above shoulder height. Now for how long this will last, I am not sure.

So that is my next step. I will finish this step and then start thinking about radiation – they say this is so much easy than chemo, so yeah!

This last week has been okay. I have had an odd issue – itchy hands. This is the 3rd time this has happened so I know it is to due to taxol. Of course, when I am in the midst of the itch, I think it is the worst side-effect possible, but I think that when I am in the midst of any side effect. Here is how the itch breaks down – it slowly starts Thursday or Friday after chemo – just a little itch here and there on my hands, fingers and wrists, Saturday it starts to get worse and I have to itch my hands on my jeans, Sunday, I feel like I am itching my hands all day on anything I can get my hands on and by Monday, I pretty much want to cut my hands off because the itch really starts to make me a little CrAzY. And of course there is a medicine for this itch – as there is a medicine for everything, but this said medicine makes me drunk – literally, I am drunk about 30 minutes after I take this stuff. So, I try not to take it expect at night, where I proceed to lay on the couch with Eric and he laughs at me because I guess I say some pretty funny stuff?
And when the itch is in full force, getting my hands wet or putting lotion on them makes it so much worse – odd.
Back to me and the medicine. As most of you know, I have had to take ambein to sleep at night. Well, some nights I just go to sleep peacefully and no one would know I had taken them but some nights, I talk complete non-sense to Eric and then in the morning I only vaguely remember the conversation or even going to sleep. This morning I asked him if I was talking about chi lattes from Starbuck’s last night and yeap, right before I feel asleep, that is what I was talking about.
All in all, I am doing really well. The thought of the cruise in February is really keeping me going. I simply can’t wait to get away from this stuff for a week, and then I will come back and be ready to throw the final punch and KO Bill.