Friday, August 12, 2011

Chemo update, and on to the next big adventure

Yes!  I am home from chemo.  It went fast because of only having the Taxol today.  I had a new nurse and she was awesome.  Quick, efficient, and very friendly.  I did get nauseated, but felt better after my daughter  and I ate our wich wich sandwiches.  Yummy veggie with extra  avacado.  It was so good.  Who knew that eating could make you not feel like throwing up? 

So, now I am home and feeling better.  We ran to lowes to buy caulking.  It was a very important home improvement purchase for redoing the bathroom counter.  We live Tx and have enjoyed it for the past 15 years.  But now I am heavy with metastatic bc, and my hubby's dad has bladder cancer.  He has fought a great battle, with two courses of very strong treatment.  Despite treatment his cancer has grown and spread.  So he is stopping treatment to better enjoy his life.  Family is hugely important to us, and that means we are moving back to Colorado.  We are doing it for our immediate family (us) to not have regrets and to also be surrounded by friends and family who love us, and support us.  And so that we can support and love on our friends and family.  We feel more like we are moving towards something than  moving away from something.  Hence the bathroom caulking repair.  If we are going to sell our house, we can't have gross caulk now can we?  

 Moving here was a big adventure.  It brought us closer as a married couple, and made us best friends.  Now it is time to  move on to the next big adventure.  It is exciting and a little scary.  What adventure in life doesn't have a scare factor? 

I will keep you posted on all the adventerous details of our move.
Thanks for stopping by.




Thursday, August 11, 2011

Deeper shade of pale

Tomorrow is chemo.  How can it be that I have a chemo routine.  That just sounds wrong. Chemo and routine are two words that should never go together.  So anyhow, tomorrow is week two of m routine.  I just get the Taxol on the second week.  The first week and third week I get Taxol and Avastin.  Who knows how long I will get he avastin since it has lost FDA approval.  My doc assures me that I will receive it for as long as I had already been pre-approved treatments. 

When you are on chemo life can be so pale.  It looses its brightness and vibrancy.  This can be depressing.  It occurred to me that these moments where life is more pale are the times that we are going through "valleys"  The valley can be more pale, but we have to focus on the fact that it is something that we go Through.  Meaning that there is a beginning middle and end.  When you reach the end, you have  made it through from one side to the other.  So, while things are pale, I will be looking for the underlying colors, tones and textures.  There must be a deeper shade of pale that I should be noticing, learning from and embracing during all of this cancer.  What is it that I should be noticing?  For today I think that it is family.  My family are those hues that add dimension to the whole canvas of this valley.  My husband and best friend are all cool greens of comfort, soft red of consistent passion and the wash of soft yellow that warms me with steady supplies of love.  My daughter and son are the brush strokes of mellow orange that shows fierce protectiveness, the sparkling purple of respect and loyalty, and all of my family, friends, and extended love ones are  the sky blue that holds a banner over faithful love and deep community.  The bright colors of life are wonderful, but are more noticeable when they are surrounded by shades that are more pale and make them "pop".  I will let you know what the "picture"  looks like when I get through this valley to the other side

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Keep your snake oil to yourself!

There is nothing that makes people happier, when they hear you're sick with cancer, than to tell you about their snake oil.  By snake oil, I mean miracle cures.  They have an aunt who had what you have, or what they imagine you have because they don't really want to know what you have.  So, they begin to talk over you and tell you about the miracle doctor in Mexico, or the 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide cure.  Say what!?  Or so many other crazy things that pretty much amount to the snake oil of old.  Today My amazing hubby had someone ( who it didn't come as a surprise to me) tell him about some miracle thing.  Boy did it make me mad.  Just from my end of the conversation it ticked me off.  The people who have no degree of any kind of medicine.  Or ever a degree of any kind.  They think they are so smart. GRRRRR!  I gave it some thought and decided that what I need is a statement.  Something that I can rattle off or train my beloved and my offspring to rattle off, on a moments notice.

How is this?

Thank you ever so much on your advice on how to become cured!  I am going to have to pass on hearing all the details.  I have decided, along with my family that I will rely on the uninformed advice of the so called experts who spent years and years wasting their time in the pursuit of scientific study at America's major medical institutions.


Well folks, what do you think?  I think it sounds just like me.  Having a statement prepared has made me feel so ready for the inevitable.  I think I will print it and keep a copy in my purse so that if I am put on the spot I will have my " statement" prepared.



A Paula Young wig has arrived

Today I received a little package in the mail.  It came from http://paulayoung.com.  I have done a guest blog for their website and it posted today.  As a thank you for the blog that I would have done anyway, they sent me a wig. I got to choose a wig out of any on the site.  It was so great that they didn't limit my choice.  With my daughters help I chose to get a darker one that normal.  It would be my instinct to get blonde.  Instead I went a medium reddish brown.  Here is a photo of how it looks on. 

This is a nice shade for me.  It has a great style too.  


So, what do you think?  Do you like it?  I probably won't be wearing it much until it cools down.  But I look forward to wearing it. 



Monday, August 8, 2011

Picking myself up and dusting myself off

Each day after a chemo I spend my time licking my wounds.  By that I mean, slowly I am recovering from all the chemicals coursing through my body.  I have my treatments 3 our of 4 Fridays a month.  On the days that follow, I feel fatigue, aches and pains, emotional highs and lows.  The fatigue starts slow and builds to a crescendo around day 3-4.  That is when I am at the most tired and sick feeling.  Because I eat a steady diet of anti nausea meds, I never really get sick to the point of throwing up.  But because of those meds I experience the side effects which are more fatigue!  Yay!  ( she said sarcastically) Up to day 4 I also have a lot of pains in all the areas that I have lesions from cancer.  Those are my bones in my right arm, both pelvic bones, and also my lungs and chest wall.  But the pain is mostly in my hips and arm.  So for the pain I take pain medicines, and those too make me fatigued and emotional.   Then after day 4 I stop taking the drugs.  The fatigue gets better and then on day 7 I start chemo again.  Oh what a wonderful roller coaster ride eh? 

Picking myself up isn't as simple as it sounds.    It is really  more of an emotion, physical and spiritual  thing that takes place.  It is kind of like turning myself inside out and then right side to.    First my body and soul physically get so down and tired that it makes me sad and quiet.  I find myself laying around a lot trying to get energy.  At the same time I want to be as normal as possible so emotionally I become sad that I want to lay around because I feel so sick.  So, I force myself to do normal stuff like empty the dishes and run laundry, go to the store with family, grocery shop and go to church.  That is one of the things that leads to a vicious cycle of being too tired and then not recovering from it.  After almost 4 months of chemo I have learned that it is okay to let people help and to rest a bit.  But I still make myself do stuff, so that that remainder of my life as a metastatic breast cancer patient is a full life.  It also helps me to not see myself as a breast cancer patient and as more of a person who has metastatic cancer but is living as normal of a life as possible.  When you have metastatic breast cancer or mets of any type, what is normal anymore though?

Trodelvy trial failed.