Wouldn't Ya' Think!

     Here are a few observations I've made since I have started on this cancer venture. Some are funny, some are distressing, and some just make me shake my head!

     Wouldn't ya' think that new eyebrow hairs would have the good sense to grow where they belong rather than where they are sure to be plucked out! Ditto for nose hair!!!

     Wouldn't ya' think you'd get used to seeing your bald reflection in the mirror after five months?

       Wouldn't ya' think people would think twice about smoking cigarettes in their car as they drop someone off for treatment at the Roger Maris Cancer Center????????

    Wouldn't ya' think that if Taxotere (one of my chemo drugs) is strong enough to make toenails fall off, it should surely be strong enough to kill cancer cells!

    Wouldn't ya' think lumps should stick to muffins?

    Wouldn't ya' think the hair growing back on your head SHOULD be kind enough to return the same color as when it left???

    Wouldn't ya' think doctors, nurses, and radiation technicians should be required to use hand warmers before they touch a bare-from-the-waist-up-body?    :-)

     Wouldn't ya' think the SUPER GIANT SIZED burgundy colored hospital gowns could be "cute-ified"!

    Wouldn't ya' think I'd be almost glowing after 25 radiation treatments? I won't even NEED a costume for Halloween...I'll just glow in the dark!!!

    Wouldn't ya' think ghosts and goblins would scare me? Nope, nothing scares me now. I'm surviving breast cancer!!!

    Wouldn't ya' think breast cancer would have picked someone who wouldn't have fought so hard against it??? Guess not! Breast cancer...you picked the WRONG chick (or old hen!!!)

                                        My superpower is HOPE.

                                     I Hope, I Fight, I Am Winning!

I'm On The Downside!!!

     First, the good news! I am over 1/2 done with radiation!!! Today I had radiation treatment #20 out of 33. My side effects are similar to what I had written about last time...itching, redness, and some fatigue.

 

    Every Monday, I meet with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Foster. He says I'm doing ok as far as the amount of redness I've got. He suggested Benadryl for itching. I'm thinking I'll PASS on that!!! If you read the entry I wrote about the night I took Tylenol PM, you will know why I'm bypassing the Benadryl!!!  If you don't remember that entry, the long and short of it was that I was soooo incapacitated by the Benadryl that I walked into the wall, hit the chair, missed the bathroom doorway, and staggered and stumbled around like someone who had been drinking heavily! I didn't know that Tylenol PM had Benadryl in until my PA cousin Joan told me about it. I surely felt the effects of it that night! Like I said, I think I'll pass on the Benadryl!!!

 

    

 

 

 

   We had an apple-picking day Monday because it was such a warm day...70 degrees and no wind! Brody (left) and Logan (right) came over after school and we picked apples galore! The pictures show how we got all those apples picked.

  

     Last week, Arland, Bob, Olivia, and I went to the lake to turn off the water and get the water lines blown before it got too cold and froze our pipes or our pump.

 

Olivia LOVES books and I forgot to take some along for her to look at during our drive. I had a couple of magazines along that I had been looking through. When she saw me reading them, she wanted my "book" so I gave her the magazine I was reading. Here is what she did for the next 20 minutes!!!

 

       As I said, Olivia LOVES her books, even though they are magazines!

Radiation is 1/3 Done!

     I have passed the one-third done mark for radiation! Last week Thursday, I had radiation treatment # 11 out of 33. Radiation has been a cakewalk SO FAR when compared to chemo!!! That is a Golden Thread in itself!

 

     My side effects from radiation are redness (which is becoming very obvious now), itching in the radiated area, and tiredness. I am tired but manage to retain my regular routine, which included having the boys and Olivia at different times this week. Love that part of my routine!  :-)

     Something really funny (and a bit embarrassing) happened on Wednesday. When you go for radiation, you change into a hospital gown (think the tying kind. CUTE...not!) in a very small room. You leave your clothes in the tiny room but take your purse with you because the small rooms do not lock.

 

As I walked into the radiation room with my purse, Pam and Mary Jo, the radiation nurse technicians, were there waiting for me. Mary Jo remarked, "That's a Pam purse!"

 

All I heard was, "That's a Pampers!"

 

Because I had taken care of Olivia the day before, Pampers was what my brain IMMEDIATELY heard. I froze in my tracks, glanced down at my hospital gown, and TRIED to figure out WHERE in the world she saw a Pampers at!!!

 

Mary Jo then told me that Pam LOVES the bright green color so she thought it would be a perfect "Pam purse". A few seconds later, it dawned on me that Mary Jo had said "Pam purse", NOT "Pampers"!!!

 

Needless to say, we all had a good laugh about it!!!

 The infamous "Pam purse"!!!

My Radiation Routine

     I am settling into a radiation routine now that my appointments are at the same time each day. My time for each radiation for the next month and a half is at 10:10am. Last week my appointments were all over the place so planning anything else was challenging.

 

     Each Monday, I see Dr. Foster, my radiation oncologist. When we met today, I reported that I had not seen any skin changes yet. When he looked, however, he pointed out an area where my skin was beginning to change and become reddened. Obviously, he knew what to look for and I am still learning.

 

     The areas that are usually problematic for breast cancer patients are the collarbone, upper front shoulder, the breast, and the top of the back. The area he noticed redness was on my collarbone. I'll have to be religious about putting the Vanicream on to help keep the skin soft and prevent blistering later on. Redness usually doesn't appear until after about radiation #15 on most people so I guess I'm an early starter!!! Darn! Not a race I wanted to place early in!!!

     I have had several "left over" chemo issues these past 2 1/2 weeks. My immune system is very weak so I have had two UTI's within days of each other. I had finished all my antibiotic from the first UTI and felt good for two days. Then I started feeling crummy like I could be getting another UTI but ignored the symptoms for two days, thinking I COULDN'T be getting another one since I had just finished my meds. Unfortunately, I was wrong! Yup! Another UTI so I am now taking the second round of antibiotics. Hopefully, this time the antibiotics will do the trick and completely cure my symptoms. If you're a guy and don't know about UTI's, just trust me (or ask your wife)...they don't feel very good!  :-(

     The next two paragraphs are sort of icky so "ye of weak stomachs" might want to skip the next two paragraphs. 

     The second side effect of chemo I am learning to cope with is loss of some of my nails. The Taxotere chemo drug that I had during my chemo infusions is very hard on fingernails and toenails, causing them to loosen and fall off.  Since chemo has been done for several weeks, my fingernails look better now than they did while I was on chemo. They are very weak and brittle but I can live with that. I do not think I will lose them but I won't know for sure for a while yet.

 

     Taxotere wasn't as kind to my toenails. I have lost one toenail so far (yucky, gross, and disgusting!!!). I anticipate another three will fall off within the near future. When I was receiving chemo, four toenails had at least a third of the toenail turn black. Those are the other three that I'm sure will be detaching soon. The Golden Thread here is that summer is over and I won't be wearing sandals or toeless shoes anymore this fall so no one has to see my toenail-less toes!  :-)

     Ok, "ye of weak stomachs", you can start reading here again!

     Two weekends ago, we pulled the docks out. Our son, Bob, came down to help. Since he brought Olivia along, my job was to take care of her while Arland and Bob worked on the docks. I LOVED that job!!! Here is what Olivia and I did while they worked. She loves, LOVES, LOVES to swing! She is 17 months old.

I was packing boxes to take home the left-over food from the lake since we don't heat the cabin during the winter. Here is how we filled the boxes! She is such a sweet, good natured little girl! We had so much fun!!!

She is one of the three "little" reasons (Brody and Logan being the other two) that I can stay positive through this whole venture! 

Radiation... 6 Down, 27 To Go!

     Radiation has been a cake walk so far compared to my chemo experiences. Because it is so early into radiation, I have not yet experienced any side effects. I know they will come within a week or so, but until then, I can smile knowing that I have a little more time to get stronger before I need to deal with the fatigue that I have been warned about.

 

    The last five days, I have had lots and lots of bone pain in my legs, back, and shoulders. I THINK it was because my platelets and hemoglobin were still very low and my poor bones were working "double time" to try to get all the necessary rebuilding done since my last chemo really brought my counts waaaaay down again. To help the "building" process, I take my prenatal vitamins and a B12 supplement. One Golden Thread here is that for everyone else taking prenatal vitamins, they are probably fighting off morning sickness...NOT me!!!  :-)

 

     Radiation is every day, Monday through Friday. It is a quick, painless process. I get my own hospital gown from the cupboard, go into a dressing room and undress from the waist up. I put on the lovely rose colored hospital gown and wait in an a sort-of-private area (not out in the general waiting room) until the radiation technicians call me. I really shouldn't say "wait" because as I come out with my gown on, the two technicians are almost always standing there waiting for me.

 

The technicians and I walk into a huge radiation room that has a VERY large machine in the center of the room. I lie on a hard plastic bed/board/table and get into position for radiation. My right arm is up over my head holding on to a peg, my left arm is at my side with my hand under my hip, and my head is turned (or more accurately..."cranked") to the left.

 

The technicians move the machine into place above me and line up all the markers with my lovely tattoos to make sure the radiation is going to the right spots. Then the technicians leave the room so they are not exposed to the radiation. They can see and hear me on their monitors so if I ever needed to stop the process for any reason, they could stop it.

 

     As soon as they leave the room, the clicking, whirring, and buzzing begins. The machine delivers the radiation beams, rotates over me and to my sides, clicks, whirrs and buzzes again several times until all the fields on my body have been radiated. I feel nothing during the process. That's a Golden Thread for me! It's painless!

 

 I have counted several times and the actual "radiating" is about 15 to 25 seconds. That's not very long! It is repeated several times at various angles.

     The technicians then come back into the room and tell me I am done and am free to go. The undressing and redressing probably takes longer than the actual radiation process!

 

     My first radiation was on Sept. 25th. That one was scary because I had never had it done before but now, after five treatments, radiation is becoming routine too, just as chemo had become routine. Crazy how life changes...saying that radiation is now a comfortable routine!!!

 

     I am thankful for the fact that radiation decreases my chances of cancer recurrence in the radiated areas. For people like me who have cancer in a breast and a lymph node, the chance of local recurrence (same breast) in five years is about 16%. Radiation therapy can reduce this risk to about 2%.

 

     I hope you have learned a little about the radiation process.

Thanks to all of you for your continued thoughts and prayers. They sustain me.