Monday, February 23, 2009

Land legs

It is taking a while for me to get my land legs back after being on the boat for 7 days. We got home yesterday from our week-long cruise. It was so nice to be gone from all this non-sense for a week and spend time with family. The boat we were on was beautiful and the food was really good – although, I can say I am tired of eating. There wasn’t too much to hold Ian’s attention on the ship for long (which there isn’t too much in day-to-day life either) so we spent a lot of time either chasing him around or pushing him in his stroller where he had an audience everywhere we went and he ate that up.
I will post more about the trip and hopefully some pictures later (the camera was dropped in the ocean so I am not sure what all pictures survived). I am really happy to be home and ready to start radiation tomorrow or Wednesday in order to be done with it.
More in a bit – just wanted to say hi and let everyone know we are home.

Friday, February 13, 2009

One month later –

Since my very last chemo ever! I continue to feel a little better every day but then I do too much and crash again. I had a crash Wednesday and Thursday night – I went to bed right after I put Ian down both nights, so around 7:45.
And my skin is flaking off and I have a few mouth sores – which suck big time. I am assuming this is happening because the dead skin is coming off but I don’t know for sure, I do know it isn’t fun. Even my lips are peeling – really, my lips, oh yes! Oh, and my eyebrows and eye lashes are falling out now. My Dr. did say this was because they are slowing growing hair follicles; it takes longer for them to fall out – nice. I am not too concerned about the eye lashes, it is the eyebrows that I don’t want to go – I guess I can start penciling them in with funny expressions – like arched if I am feeling inquisitive one day!!
After seeing my oncologist last week I realized more of the impact of me being 100% pathologically recovered. She said it is something for me to be very grateful for being as only 20% of people responds that well to chemo – she gave me an A+! I am also going to be seeing a nutritionist to figure out how to get sugar out of the ole diet. I know it sounds easy but man alive, anytime I tell myself I can’t have xyz, I SO want xyz. She was saying keeping my weight where it is or less – like 10 pounds less is where I need to be. Eric read something to the effect of someone who is obese has a 40% higher chance of developing cancer of some sort. Not that I am obese, I do recognize I have belly fat which is the worst kind of fat to have. But I did get doctor’s orders to not even think about this aspect of it until after we get back from the cruise. She told me to eat and drink until my heart’s delight – um, OK!!
I go see my radiation Dr. on the 24th. I am not sure if I will start radiation that day or soon after. Honestly, I hope I start that day to get my 6 weeks rolling and finished. I have to get radiation still to "mop the floor" of any possible lingering cells. And no I don’t want to get radiation for 6 weeks but I would so much rather do this now then have to go through all the other stuff I went through again.
OH and on a very happy note – no squirrels heard last night!!! I guess those b*stards recognized this household is NOT squirrel friendly!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

DRA-MA

Honestly, I thought our drama was going to be over for a while – in my opinion, we have had our fair share for at least 6 more months. Well, the nasty squirrels in our neighborhood don’t feel the same way. Apparently, they have decided OUR ATTIC would be a good place to set up a home – um, no. We, or me, had been hearing stuff on the roof around midnight for a while on and off for about 2 weeks. We did find a place on the overhang that the mess was gone, so Eric boarded that up and I thought our problem was solved. Again, um no. Monday night I woke up to loud sounds on the roof, seriously, I thought they were coming through and the mere thought of this really freaked me out. For the record, I don’t like squirrels; I find nothing cute about them at all – NOTHING. So, I kicked Eric to wake, and he didn’t. In hind sight, I should have shaken him to wake up but I didn’t. The following morning we went out back to see what was happening and the siding on our chimney was torn up. Of course at this point, I am seriously freaking out. Eric was kind of enough to come home at lunch to patch the chimney and he ASSURED me the squirrels wouldn’t be able to get into the attic from here and silly me, I believed him. Eric decided that we needed his B.B. gun to help with the situation. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t like guns, even this thing made me a little edgy. So, B.B. gun out, lock and loaded, we went to bed just daring them to get back on our roof but I didn’t hear anything Tuesday night so I thought we were all in the clear. Then it happened, I heard something Wednesday morning and it was not longer just on the roof. At this point, Eric grabs the B.B. guns and takes off out the door and I can’t help but laugh out loud thinking of the absurdity of this whole situation. But then a few seconds later, I decided if I thought about it too much more, I could have literally made myself vomit.
Then, I had pest control come out yesterday to take a look and he said a ton of houses in our neighborhood have had squirrels in the attic. All I can think about at this point is one of these nasty little things coming through the ceiling. Well, Eric tried to ASSURE me that won’t happen but I told him I no longer believe him – he is not a squirrel expert. Back to pest control, they wanted to charge us $650 to patch whatever possible holes these nasties could be coming in from. $650 – um no – Eric can get himself up there and do it for less than $50. So, he did – last night was spent with him finding and patching the smallest opening and Ian desperately wanting on the roof with Eric (that didn’t happen). So far so good this morning.
Besides that drama, things here are going good. I have been walking at least 2.5 miles a day and that all caught up with me yesterday – I was exhausted. I am so ready to be able to run that and more. I have to remind myself daily, just do a little more than the day before and don’t get discouraged that I am not where I think I should be – where that is, well, I am not sure!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Drum roll please….

The results of the all the pathology is in AND, I am FREE AND CLEAR – FREE AND CLEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing was found in the lump nodes and the margins of Bill were clear. She said this is the best possible outcome we could have hoped for. HELL YES it is! She, my breast surgeon is pretty sure I will still need radiation but I won’t know that for sure until tomorrow – my appointment with my oncologist. And, I am able to pick up Ian!
I am really thankful this chapter is coming to a close and so ready to move on from it. It has consumed my life for the past 4 months and I am over it. I don’t want to forget it though – I have to remind myself of what I have gotten through and how I have grown from this.
As odd as this sounds, it is kind of a hard for me right now – before this happened, it was my “normal” life of family, friends, work, etc. then it was trying to figure out what was going on with me – the testing, the waiting, the decisions of everything that was being thrown at me and that consumed me for a month but it seemed like forever and then it was cancer, and the dealing with it and the side effects of the treatments – all while trying to hold it all together for myself and more so for Eric and Ian and now in a blink of my eyes, it is gone and I am now a cancer survivor but now what? This is so hard for me to articulate and describe my feelings of what is going on now – my life was flipped upside down and now it is being handed back to me but I have ask, do I want it back the way it was – I don’t think so. I don’t want to live blindly and take simple things for granted – like holding Ian – I remember thinking before any of this happened, I would think, my goodness, he is so heavy, or exercising – when I didn’t do it when I was perfectly capable but I didn’t “feel like it” because I was being lazy, not telling people in my life why I love them or why they are special to me – I don’t want to go back to that person. But how do I remember that without rehashing the hard times of chemo – which I don’t want to do – but how do I come into this “new life?” It is scary for me in so many ways and it is odd and empowering at the same time.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

One More Chapter…

Has come to an end! I am one step closer to being done with Bill and getting back to my normal life – although, I think my normal has changed a bit and I now want completely different things out of life than I did before I knew I had cancer. I want deeper relationships with those around me, I want to learn to be in the moment, present and aware – and let me tell you, that is much harder said than done – to shut off my brain from having gibber gabber run through it all the time, I want to be able to wake up in the morning and go pick up Ian – this is only recent that I can’t pick him up and will last another 5 days, but it is killing me – I so want to pick him up, I want to be free of the cancer thought – and I almost am!
I am recovering nicely. I am sore where they removed 2 lump nodes but not too sore elsewhere. I am still tired and feel groggy still but other than that, I am getting back up to speed. From what my Dr. told Eric, mom and Rachele, the preliminary biopsy looked clear and there was hardly any of Bill left to remove – that is right, I told him he was going to die a miserable death – I can’t imagine dieing from chemo could be fun?!?! They are going to do a more in depth look of the lump nodes, but my dr. said usually if there doesn’t seem to be anything to see on the initial round looking, there usually isn’t anything else. I will find out the results sometime this week. I have a follow up with her Thursday and need to figure out when my follow up with my oncologist will be – maybe, just maybe I won’t have to have radiation?!?!
Other than that, things are pretty boring around here. Well, Ian is a grump butt today and Eric is taking wonderful care of him because I am of no help. And Kittie is on her way over to bring some soup – which sounds yummy and I can’t wait to see her.
Happy super bowl day – well, that sounds silly – for those of you who enjoy football, I hope you enjoy watching the super bowl today.