Support helped me beat cancer
Radiation has been a breeze. Having already gone through surgery and chemo, radiation seems just like a bleep on radar. While I do get tired of having to go everyday, getting radiation is a breeze comparatively.
My skin has slightly started to turn red and it itches here and there, but over all, I think that I am in good shape halfway through treatments. I'm beginning to get tired more easily than normal, but I'm not sure if that is because I'm waking up early each morning for treatment or if it is the treatment itself making me tired.
Only a few more weeks left to go and I can't believe that I have made it this far. I can't believe that I am already cancer free. I just have to hope that I stay that way.
Looking back over the six months, I would say that my worst moment (besides being diagnosed) was when my hair fell out. I just wasn't ready for it to happen and I thought that it would be a more gradual process, but oh well I'm over it and my hair is well on its way to returning. In contrast, I think the best thing about all of this has been the overflow of support that family, friends and blog readers have shown me. My positive attitude isn't because of me, it is because so many people support me. My strength comes from others.
Before I was diagnosed, my husband and I were debating leaving Michigan. Most of our friends had left the state already and we were wondering why we were sticking around. I know now that it is because we still have so many friends and family members here that truly care for us. No one ever wants to go through this, but it is truly humbling to know that people care for you. I can't say that I am glad that I have cancer, but I can say that I am glad for the best and even the worst moments and everything in between during all of this. I have learned a lot about myself and those around me.
Spring has sprung, treatment is almost done
Life is great. I really think that the only purpose of winter is so we appreciate spring and summer more. I'm in my last treatment phase. Only a month left to go and while I am still feeling uneasy about ending treatments, I cannot wait to be done. Just like winter, cancer has made me appreciate my life more.
I cannot wait for the day when I look at my calendar and there isn't a single doctor's appointment listed. I cannot wait for the day when I pull my hair back into a ponytail. I cannot wait for the day when my breast isn't hard as a rock. I just can't wait.
For everyday that I worry about my future, I have five days that I get really excited about living. Bob and I are ready to get on with our lives. Breast cancer will always be with us, but I hope 50 years from now we barely remember this time in our lives. It will be a story to tell our children, but not a way of life.
I was asked by a friend last weekend what grand perspective I have gained from my experience and all I can say is that I really haven't gained any new perspective, just determination to live my life. Spring is here and I can't wait to get outdoors and breathe the fresh air and to have one heck of a fun summer! I'm kicking off my summer this weekend with a quick trip up to the Upper Peninsula to visit my mom for Mother's Day, which is Sunday for anyone who has forgotten. I always hate the 5.5 hour drive, but it is amazing how quickly you forget about it once you are up there. Curtis is a great town with great people. I can't wait to get up there and relax and have fun with my mom. While I have seen her a lot this year, it has always been because of my treatments. This is just a fun weekend. My brother will be there too. I'm excited.
I'm feeling uneasy about ending treatments
I'm beginning to think I'm going to be lost once all my treatments are over. Since October my life has been full of doctor appointments and treatments and in a month everything will be over. While I'm treating cancer, I know that I am not dying from cancer. I am nervous to be done. While I know that worrying won't consume my life, after I'm done with radiation basically life becomes a waiting game. I'll just be waiting to see if cancer comes back.
Last week I met with my breast surgeon who said she didn't need to see me again for three months. I left her office feeling uneasy. She has been with me since October. She is the one who referred me to all my other doctors. Now, I won't see her for three months. The next time I see her I will once again fear her telling me that I have cancer again.
After I am done with treatment, there won't be any regular tests that my doctors put me through to see if my cancer has returned. Basically, it will be just me knowing my body and noticing anything different, like my bones being sore. I think that I'm going to become a hypochondriac post cancer. Everything will be, "Is this cancer? Is that cancer?".
Don't get me wrong, I am excited about being done with treatments and I will do a little happy dance once I am done. I just worry what my life will be like post treatment. Obviously, I cannot control cancer and that scares me. I will never have a life cured of cancer. Cancer is my new normal and I just wonder what kind of role it will play in my life.
4 four radiation treatments down + 1 case of the flu
I am so sorry it has taken me so long to blog about my radiation treatments, but oddly enough I have been pretty sick. It was an interesting week to say the least and here is how everything went down:
All I can say about Tuesday was that it was a debacle. I thought my first treatment would be Tuesday, but it ended up just being more pictures and adjustments by the radiation technicians. The morning just did not turn out like I had expected it to. From waking up early to difficulties drawing my blood for a pregnancy test to having to drive 30 minutes to the Alice Gustafson Center to having issues with insurance, Tuesday morning was just miserable.
Wednesday, I woke up ready to have my first radiation treatment. Everything went smoothly from what I could tell. It isn't hard to just lie there. The technicians are really nice and completely accommodating. During my treatments, I feel a slight pressure but barely anything. I just lie there and let the laser beams to do their job.
Wednesday evening took any interesting turn when I started having a headache and running a fever. My doctor swears it was a coincidence and I'm sure it was. However, I ended up having a fever of more than 100 degrees and feeling pretty horrible till Saturday evening. I barely moved while I was sick. I still had radiation treatments Thursday and Friday and some doctor appointments, but other than that I was horizontal for three days.
Everything seems to be going well now though. I can't really tell you if radiation is making me feel any different because I have been so sick with the flu so far. My skin is maybe a shade redder, but it could just be me thinking it is redder. It feels a little sensitive, but once again maybe that is just because I am getting some feeling back on my skin. I'm sure I'll figure it all out.
I have 26 more treatments to go.
Radiation treatments to start
When I had surgery, I was completely nervous about choosing the right surgery for me. And now, radiation is here and I am not nervous or anxious about anything. I'm just ready for it to get started so that in six weeks, I will be done.
Radiation therapy is basically the same idea as an X-ray, but it will be given in the correct dosage and frequency so it will kill away any leftover microscopic cancer in my breast. Many women who have a mastectomy do not have to have radiation. When tumors are 5 cm or larger, radiation is recommended. My original tumor size was 4.8 cm, so I was right on the cusp of the 5 cm mark and radiation is a must.
Radiation must be given five days a week for six weeks in the exact same locations every time. To ensure that this happens, I've gotten five tattoos on my body. They are only small dots, but they are real tattoos and will never go away. The doctors have also created a mold of me lying on my back, so that I lie in the same place each time.
There are a few side effects, but not anywhere near as many as with chemo. I will be fatigued and my skin will be tender like when it is sunburned. There may be some swelling or shrinkage. Only time will tell how much pain I will have.
So, tomorrow I will be up early and ready for the beginning of the end of my cancer treatment.
I'm feeling great
I can't believe that it has been 2 months since my last chemo treatment. My hair has started to grow back. I have eyebrows and eyelashes again. I have even had to shave my legs. My energy level is up. I'm feeling pretty good. Spring is in the air and I am ready for my last leg in my treatment race. I'm ready for radiation.
Tomorrow, I meet with my radiology oncologist once again to decide my course of action. I thought that since I was cancer free, I'd be able to have fewer treatments, but my hopes were squashed when my doctor started drawing line charts to show why I still need to have six weeks of radiation. I will have radiation five days a week for six weeks. Radiation is not like chemo therapy. Each treatment lasts more like 30 minutes rather than 4 hours and you do not have the same side effects. During radiation, I will probably feel tired and it will cause a sunburn-type effect to my skin. After the redness goes away is when I will have my second surgery to have my final implant put in.
I'm still feeling some pain from my mastectomy. I met with my plastic surgeon yesterday and he felt that I was done filling up. My fake boob has to be bigger than my real boob because radiation will shrink the fake boob done. My fake boob feels huge. I still have pain around the edges and I find that when I am lying on my back I have upper-back pain, which has made sleeping uncomfortable. Fun stuff, right? My arm range of motion is getting back to normal. I still feel a little tight, but it is improving on a daily basis. Soon, I'm not going to have any reasons not to exercise.
So life is slowly returning to normal, or whatever normal is. I'm feeling happy.
I've become a chronic flasher
If I had a beaded necklace for every time I have flashed a doctor in the last six months, I'd be rich.
I have become so detached from my breasts that I do not even feel like they are a private part of me anymore. They feel as common as an arm.
Today when I was visiting my radiology oncologist, he had his son, who is in med school, shadowing him. While I was not going to get undressed during the visit, I ended up being a kind of show-and-tell about mastectomy reconstruction. The weird part about it to me was that I completely didn't mind.
My right breast may look like a breast, but it is far from the real thing. It is as hard as a rock. There is only an incision across the front that reminds me of everything that it is missing. It is painful, yet numb on the surface. It may be where my right breast once was, but it definitely is not a breast.
Don't get me wrong - I am very happy to have something. I just wish the process was over and I could skip radiation and have a real implant put in so I can start to heal and officially move on to the next milestone in my life.
Back to work
It is amazing. No matter how much time you have off from work, the second you are back it feels like you were never gone at all. Well, at least that is how I felt Monday when I came back to work after being off for 3.5 weeks.
After many welcome backs, I was off and rolling designing pages again. I missed work while I was off and now that I am back, I miss my couch. My first day back could have been much worse. I was originally scheduled to do one of the most challenging pages in paper, which is the front page, but luckily one of my bosses had his first child over the weekend and I had to cover an easier shift instead. Thank goodness for Olivia Marie.
Today will be a little more challenging because I am battling pain from a saline fill this morning, but I'm making it through. In case you want to see what I do, pick up tomorrow's paper and check out the Drive section. By no means is it an award-winning page, but nonetheless, I'm back being creative instead of being a hermit at home.
This morning I met with my plastic surgeon for another wonderful breast fill of 50cc. I will need another fill next week. I could have gone for a 100cc fill today and would have been done, but after the pain I felt last week, I thought splitting it up was much better for me.
The latest decision I had to make was my breast size. Before cancer, I had never thought of getting a breast enhancement. Lipo maybe, but bigger boobs never. Now faced with the decision, I still do not want bigger boobs. I just want to go back to what I was before cancer. And that includes maintaining my breast size.
However, anyway I slice it, my fake boob will never look like my real boob and as the years go on, the differences will only increase. That is why I have decided to slightly augment my left side. My breast size should stay basically the same size, but the look will match my fake boob better. This will probably be done when I go back into surgery months from now to get my breast expander taken out and a real implant put into my right breast.
'Last Lecture' inspiresAlso, for those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" on YouTube. Pausch has terminal pancreatic cancer. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and his "Last Lecture" is wonderful and an inspiration. He has been on "Oprah" and Diane Sawyer's interview of him airs April 9 at 10 p.m. on ABC. Check it out.
Just not feeling normal
I'm still in pain and still recovering, but I am getting there.
Monday I was able to go to Opening Day and had a great time with my husband and friends. But I felt weird being there. I am finding that I am really starting to isolate myself, so it was nice to get out of the house and see several of my friends yesterday. I am finding it harder to go out because I just don't look or feel like myself. It is easier for me to be by myself than it is to be around anyone.
Since my last day of work on March 11, I have lost basically all of my eyelashes and eyebrows. I wear my glasses basically all the time because when I wear contacts my eyes become all red. I just don't feel like myself.
I am finding myself telling complete strangers that I am battling breast cancer. Not because I want attention or to spread awareness, but because I don't want people to think that I normally look like this. I do not usually have penciled in eyebrows. I usually have real hair with great blond highlights.
It is a lot easier to be by myself or to just be with Bob than it is to be surrounded by friends or even worse to be surrounded by strangers.
I'm beginning to forget what I was like before breast cancer. I'm forgetting what I looked like before cancer. I need to look myself again. I need eyebrows, eyelashes and hair. I can't wait to look in the mirror again and see me.
Still recovering
I know that it has been awhile since my last post, but very little is going on in my life right now. I'm basically just sitting at home recuperating. I have good days and bad days. Good days are when I feel up to going out and spending time with friends and family. Bad days are like today when I am feeling sore and tired.
On Tuesday, my doctor added another 100cc to my breast and all I can say is that I am really feeling the pain today. Lately, I had just been taking Tylenol for my pain, but today I had to once again up it to the Vicodin. Most of the time, the pain I feel is a consistent dull ache, which can best be describe as an inconvenience. Today, the pain was much stronger and I could feel where my skin is stretching around the implant. I cannot wait for the pain to be over.
My biggest hurdle is the limited arm motion that I have. During a mastectomy reconstruction, surgeons place the spacer under the muscle, so there is skin then muscle then implant. Therefore, I am continually struggling with my abilities to do things with my right arm. I am surprised at how much I use my pectoral muscle. I feel it every time that I over extend myself. I cannot wait for the pain to be over.
My mom is officially leaving me tomorrow. She has been amazing and very helpful. I am a pretty independent person and it has been hard letting my mom do things for me, but she has done so much from cleaning my house to being my chauffer to being my friend while I sit at home being bored. I was hoping to be able to drive her back to the Upper Peninsula this weekend and then drive home by myself this Sunday, but our plans were foiled because I still can't drive. I still have a drainage tube that won't be removed till Tuesday. So, I am going to have to say goodbye to my mom and her wonderful care tomorrow. I am truly luckily that she was able to come and stay with Bob and me and help us out. For any women having a mastectomy or any major surgery for that matter, make sure to let someone come and help you. It just isn't worth it to be strong and go it alone. My recovery has been easy because of my mother and husband.
As for the rest of my recovery, hopefully next week will be my last fill on my breast and I am planning to be back to work April 7. I have actually missed work. Sitting at home just watching and reading the news is not the same as being in the newsroom. I'm ready to be back and to start the last leg of my treatment, which is radiation. I am almost done.
