This week came another milestone in recovery. Passing along the bear. Unfortunately, another young woman who works at the hospital is in the midst of her breast cancer treatment and needs the courage and good fortune that the bear has brought through 4 cancer battles. The bear originated with a Nurse, KC, in the MICU who had breast and then ovarian cancer. Both primaries, as she says she was just one of the lucky ones to get cancer twice. She held onto the bear for 7 years until she passed it onto Stacey. Stacey who was finishing up her herceptin treatments when she passed him along to me. My mother said she had hoped the bear's travels ended with me, but we don't yet live in a cancer free world. Having the bear was so important to me and it represented so much. First, it let me know that I would get through treatment and come out the other end. Second, it let me know that there was always someone who understood exactly what I was going through. Third, it was just so darn cute. He is now passed along with a book. Each of the us wrote a couple of pages about our story and how we got the bear and what it meant to us. He is a physical representation of all of our good thoughts and well wishes and I know he'll continue to spread joy and luck.
In my head this was what the bear was singing to me as I packed him up. Go get' em Bear! Keep kicking cancers ass!
and right now I would say I'm happier than a camel on Hump Day.
Today was round 5 of clinical trial vaccine injections! Yes. And the day did not go so well, but still riding the NED (no evidence of disease) high from the clean CT.
I started off today's appointments with the longest blood draw ever. We are talking 15 minutes for the 4 tubes they wanted. And two sticks. First stick in the elbow was followed by a hold on I'm just going to fish around a little. Yup, nothing I love more than needles in my arm fishing around for veins. No luck in the elbow crease so then my least favorite vein of all time was selected. The big one on top of my hand that runs over the middle finger (did refrain from using the middle finger). In fairness to the tech, who was very nice, I ate my weight in pizza last night. Fried eggplant and cheese pizza. For a person who doesn't usually eat that much sodium my veins were not happy. The nice tech did get the hand vein to work and then my blood dripped/trickled out at what my have been a new slowest land speed record for blood filling tubes. She was amazed and asked me if this was the longest it had ever taken for my blood to be drawn. I told her it was. She apologized. I let her know it was my fault (maybe should have stopped at 3 slices of pizza).
Meeting with the oncologist, NP and research nurse was good. Only major side effect from tamoxifen is my face looks like it did when I was 14. Yup, acne. However, unlike when I was 14 it takes forever for a zit to leave my face. I'm talking weeks. I'm pretty sure that I will take acne over muscle pain and joint stiffness and definitely over hot flashes. You know as if I had a choice in the side affects...
I also mentioned to the Research RN that while here colleague was nice enough who filled in for her last time, the engineer in me was really bothered by the lack of symmetry in the 4 shots. She made certain this time to make sure they were symmetrical. It's a small gesture, but when it's your thigh getting intradermal shots I feel like I can let the engineer in me get what it wants. Plus, if I have to measure them with the tool this just makes it easier.
The shots themselves hurt more than they have before. And the last shot hurt the most. Both the RN and I thought maybe outside thigh would hurt less so she did the inner thigh before the outer. But wrong-o. Last one felt like being stabbed with a pencil in the thigh. Went away after 30 seconds, but that was a little new.
Right now it looks like I have 4 (but thank god symmetrical) mosquito bites on the thigh. I am going to blame my heavy legs that I had during my run and weight lifting on the shot (and maybe a lot on the pizza). Last time I had to take some benedryl because these suckers itched like mosquito bites, so we shall see what round 5 brings.
Next up, return visit to the dentist. One of my fillings still isn't right. Part of me wants to use a Ginger Chew just to rip it out, but I'm pretty sure that would be counter productive.
Thursday, when I woke up I was in a great mood and was on a mission. I was healthy and felt the need to prove it all day long.
First up, a 4 mile run. With hills. I picked the least hilly run available but still ended up with 6 or 7 large hills. Thankfully, the first half was mostly uphill and a bit difficult. The second half was mostly flat or easy cruising downhill, kinda like the last year. I wore my favorite hot pink breast cancer gear and ran it in about 30 minutes (really picked it up while going down hill).
Next up, water skiing. A little bit of a rough start, but after some coaching from my Uncle to stay in my crouch longer I ended up with this (I hope you can see the ear to ear grin I was sporting):
Victory! Until the boat needed to turn and then I fell off the wake and wiped out. But, I got back up and went for a nice long (well for a newbie) ski. Another great analogy for the last year.
At 3:30 pm I found myself a year later again sitting beside my mother. This time it was not in a dark room, but out in the sun on a dock at the Lake. At 3:30 pm I played this song for the two of us to listen to:
as we both agreed, the best is yet to come.
Then because my quads were dead from running and skiing, I kayaked down part of the shoreline of the lake. Just because I could.
August 8th, 2012 at 3:30 pm was the official phone call from the Nurse Practitioner to tell me that I had cancer. The words were foreign and scary. Breast Cancer. A year later and I am cancer free and no longer scared by the word cancer. What a long strange trip it's been.
There are many lessons learns, but first and foremost Andi Dufrane was right:
I learned is that people in general are good. There are a few Sh*theads out there, but the majority of people are kind and generous. I learned that when the chips are down my family and friends rally and give support, even if your not sure what you need. Having cancer has brought me closer to all of them and it's nice to see people who are generally excited to see.
One year later instead of a lump I have a dimple in my right boob. I have a four inch scar with about a cm thick layer of scar tissue. I have a 0.5 inch scar under my right arm pit and a thick tendon that moves around sometimes because there are two lymph nodes missing. When I do any hanging exercises there is still some soreness, but nothing more than a little "hello" from the removed pectoral fascia. From radiation I have 3 blue freckles, only half my axilla grows hair and some of the sweat glands have still not reactivated (I'll take it). From Chemo I know I have a pretty sweet head shape and now have thick, fluffy hair. Yes, fluffy.
After being a Cancer Kick@ss Machine for 7 months I have fully transitioned into Recurrance Prevention mode. Scrutinizing everything that goes in my body, on my person or used to clean my environment. I have changed toothpastes, hand soaps and now actively by organic foods for the dirty dozen. I occasionally put on my crazy pants and get into intense research mode and spend late nights on my computer looking at endocrine disrupters. Things I never new about before August 8th, 2012. I continue to get injections monthly in my right thigh that may or may not leave permanent discoloration and may or may not be a cancer vaccine. I will never know the truth on that, but thankfully in the past year I have learned to accept some things. I take tamoxifen daily, my handy little SERM which in reality is daily low dose chemotherapy. I am thankful that the major side effect that I have is calf cramps and not hot flashes or more major joint stiffness.
I am not afraid of recurrance. I am a little more of a hypochondriach, but from my cancer friends I know that that's normal. "What's that ache? What's that lump? Why am I tired? What is that bruise from?" Nothing like a constant internal dialogue question everything that used to be shrugged off as it's probably nothing. I have seen and lived through the other side and know that it's not always nothing. The more time I put between me and cancer the quieter the inner dialogue gets. Eventually, I know that I'll forget (or hope I'll forget) the anniversaries; August 8th, September 11th, December 10th, February 27th. [Diagnosis, Surgery, Last Chemo Infusion, Last XRT-treatment complete]
One thing I don't think will ever go away is taking it personally every single time I hear that someone else has breast cancer. It's a sisterhood and everyone I've met will share their story and we root for those battling. I have a collection of breast cancer gear and I wear it proudly.
Last year, my mom and Aunts were going to spend time up at Lake Sunapee. A well deserved vacation for all. Instead I filled it with biopsies and anxiety. My mother swore she would never go on another vacation with me. This year, with clean CT in hand, we are headed up to the Lake. No cancellations this year!
August 8th 2013 is a great cancer free day. Not bad for a Thursday.
This time a year ago I was waiting to have my biopsy. I had had the ultra sound with the radiologist who had zero sense of humor and was attempting to enjoy the summer olympics during my sleepless nights. This year I am not waiting on any test results, I am basking in the glory of being cancer free (with a clean CT) and I am making the most of my free time. Last year while waiting for the biopsy I was the MC at our track club's fundraiser. While happy to have the distraction I know I had a short temper that day and was easily annoyed by anything that didn't go well. This year, I spent the weekend at a Bachelorette party for my friend who ran with me through chemo and am tired from the festivities (and squeezing every last moment of fun out that I can).
Curly Hair
Right now my biggest adjustment is my hair (which I am aware is very vain). I sometimes don't know who the person in the mirror is and I can't get it too look similar from one day to the next. I am very thankful to have hair, however and I think having the 2nd post chemo haircut might help my hair anxiety. But, lets be real, how nice of it a year later and my biggest issue is curly hair? That's straight up awesome.
This time instead of having "Waiting is the Hardest Part" stuck in my head I have this version of the most popular song in America:
My oncologist walked into my office to give me my CT results in person. She said she rarely gets to do that with good news. Here is part of the report:
There is an arrow to the point on the CT results where it reads clearing of right nodule. That 4mm bright spot on my lung that was probably from XRT is totally gone!!! The other bullet point on the results says right breast with surgical changes and lots of metal clips. Yup I got a couple of markers in the left and multiple markers from where the tumor was removed in the right. But, thankfully, that is all that is there.
When I finally get my room set up I will have 3 items hanging up: Radiation Oncology Certificate of Completion, Clean Right Mammogram, Clean CT. Some people hang pictures, I like to hang negative medical test results. It's a cancer thing.
To celebrate I did a little baking (which follows a little booty shaking). I came home and baked some cookies while rocking out.
The yellow arrow demonstrates my quality control. It's important to test your work.
For the record, I wasn't worried about the CT scan. I forgot I had it until Sunday night when my roommate asked me what time I would be home from work. I forgot to tell my parents that I even had it done. However, when my oncologist gave me the news I am pretty sure this is how I responded:
When I last visited my college friend and her husband we went to the Ohio State's Football game. It was a lot of fun. I also noted how often they spell OHIO. The love to do it. The pace of this visit, however, was quite different and wonderful. My college friend has the most adorable 10 month old and we did lots of activities revolving around him. We went to the park to swing on the swings, we went to the zoo and he totally loved the kangaroos (one hopped onto the sidewalk, it was pretty cool), and we just hung around and played legos. It was a fantastic change of pace. We did adult things too, like ate our weight in Jeni's Spendid Ice Creams and go to the AAA baseball game. But mostly we ate Jeni's ice cream. When I was diagnosed with cancer my friend sent me four pints of the ice cream and I ate an entire pint of the salty caramel for dinner. My mother thought this was a sign of depression, but I explained I just have a hard time with portion control and Jeni's. It is a good thing they are only in Columbus or the dreaded tamoxifen weight gain really would happen.
Because I like to schedule my vacations with wake up calls to return to normalcy quicker at the end of the work day I had a follow up CT. Just checking on the 4mm of inflammation from April to see what it is up to. They have been waiting to see if the follow up could coincide with any
other testing in the study to decrease my radiation exposure, but
nothing panned out. There was a gentlemen sitting next to me in the waiting room with a PICC
line that he needed for his chemotherapy treatment tomorrow. He was not
enjoying his mochachino shake. This encounter left me grateful x 2. Thankfully, I didn't have to have any mochachino flavored barium or iv contrast that makes me feel like I peed my pants. It made for a very quick scan. They asked me to hold my breath twice and we were done. Piece of cake. Will get the results tomorrow.
I woke up singing this song today. If you've ever been to an OSU game, in the middle of the chorus they spell out OHIO. No idea why. I guess I still have Ohio on the brain.
This week came another milestone in recovery. Passing along the bear. Unfortunately, another young woman who works at the hospital is in the midst of her breast cancer treatment and needs the courage and good fortune that the bear has brought through 4 cancer battles. The bear originated with a Nurse, KC, in the MICU who had breast and then ovarian cancer. Both primaries, as she says she was just one of the lucky ones to get cancer twice. She held onto the bear for 7 years until she passed it onto Stacey. Stacey who was finishing up her herceptin treatments when she passed him along to me. My mother said she had hoped the bear's travels ended with me, but we don't yet live in a cancer free world. Having the bear was so important to me and it represented so much. First, it let me know that I would get through treatment and come out the other end. Second, it let me know that there was always someone who understood exactly what I was going through. Third, it was just so darn cute. He is now passed along with a book. Each of the us wrote a couple of pages about our story and how we got the bear and what it meant to us. He is a physical representation of all of our good thoughts and well wishes and I know he'll continue to spread joy and luck. 
