I love quotes

Have truer words ever been painted on wood?  : )

Thanks for the new sign Mom.

Heavy Legs Make Terrible Running Partners

I have made a brief attempt at an outdoor track season. One meet and done.  In fairness, because I have too many other awesome plans I am not able to make the rest of the scheduled meets. Also, because the first race went like this (seriously, how white am I?):

This is the second 200. This is the homestretch after I dropped my transmission on the previous curve. See, I forgot that I am no longer a sub 60 seconds 400 m runner. I decided that when the woman on the inside lane caught me in the first 50 m, I would stay with her. Well, we went through the 200 at 28 seconds. Uh, oh. That right now is what I could run for just 200 m. I tried to keep going and my body shut down and I ran a new personal worst. However, season best through 200 m and.....I beat the other Masters runner! Unfortunately, she wasn't in my heat. I was checking the results and found that I had beat her and said out loud "Yay not last!". The dude checking his results laughed and gave me a high five. See people understand, sometimes you just want to make sure your not last! Or as we call it DFL (Dead Expletive Last).

Later, while cooling down ran into the Masters runner. She said "Hey, you missed all of last year, what was going on?".
Me "Oh, cancer" 
 "Wow. Chemo and everything?"
"Yes, but everything is good now"
"Great to have you back. There is a story in there. I feel like I shouldn't complain about my knee surgery"

My body does not enjoy running right now. I feel like my sneakers were gifts from Tony Soprano (made from cement) and my IT bands I swear are getting shorter. My knees are crunchy when I walk up stairs which sounds worse than it feels. But, I am still running. Nothing hurts I am just super super tight.  Lack of flexibility and legs feeling like trash is not new, but amped up another notch since post cancer. Hmm....can I blame this on tamoxifen?

Well rebuilding and getting ready to run the Lahey 5K are the new focus. I'll try again next year. I may be slow but it was still fun to be out there. 

Master of the Awkward Overshare

As I am known for being a social butterfly (as Wayne Cambell would say NOT) attending a bar crawl with a bunch of fellow runners is already a set up for awkwardness being on full display. Add in the fact that I don't drink alcohol, because it raises my circulating estrogen level that the tomoxifen works so hard to lower every day. Now, when out with a bunch of people drinking seltzer water as you travel from bar to bar can lead to an awkward situation when you run into someone who is not aware of the cancer background.

Let's recap the situation:

I run into a friend of one of the distance runners, who turns out to be someone I ran against in high school. She is one of the nicest people I ever competed against. We discuss current jobs, I am introduced to her fiance, we talk about her sister's Celiac disease and that no she will never be able to eat gluten. We are pleasantly chatting when they notice that I have no drink in hand.
 "Do you want a beer?"
"Oh, no thanks I can't drink"
"Oh, alright"

Now, as I haven't really seen this runner friend in 6 years (we have not competed against each other in 10) I decided to make sure that this does not imply that I am an alcoholic.

"I take medication to make sure my breast cancer doesn't return and it interferes with alcohol" 
"What?!?!" (I am now beginning to think this overshare was not the best plan).
"Yeah, yeah. No big deal. Had breast cancer, cancer free now"
"Did you have chemo and everything?!?"
"Yes, had the triple crown. Was bald. Had a great head shape like your fiance" (Attempting to play it off..)

Her fiance complements my current hairstyle and attempt to wave someone else over to make this terrible episode stop. Thankfully, it was time for the bar crawl to move on. Her fiance decides to stay and not come to the next bar. I do not see her for the remainder of the night. Glad to see my super power of taking any situation and making it awkward still exists.

Maybe next time I should just say, "No thanks, I am good right now".

I'm going to start practicing.
 

Mammogram: The New Contact Sport

Upon the insistence of the Research Study I got squished today. Off schedule and it caused a LOT of confusion. The folks in the breast imaging center were very concerned this morning and called the research assistant 3 times before I got a hold of them and explained why and what was going on. Then the radiology tech when she brought me into the squish room was trying to call people to find out what was going on. I explained to her that the Research Study Powers that Be were requiring it. She made two phone calls to let folks know that I was indeed there to have a bilateral mammogram on purpose. I greatly appreciated their thoroughness.

The waiting room for mammograms is also where I waited to have my initial biopsy done. My mammogram was a Tuesday at 1:45 pm. I know that Tuesdays at 1 and 2 are when they do they biopsies. I offered a kind smile to both women who were having their biopsies. One woman had undergone many of these before and she spent time assuring her friend (her support that she brought) that it would be ok. I guess her friend doesn't know about comfort in, dump out. The other woman looked scared. I hope my smiling and giving her "the nod" that this episode of divorce court playing on tv was hilarious helped. The mammogram waiting room is also a place that everyone does look my way, because I am about 20 years younger at least than most folks there. I was also the most relaxed person in the waiting room because thanks to mochaccino flavored barium I knew this was going to be negative. Painful, but negative.

Today I got to have the new 3D mammogram. I was excited. In my head I envisioned the 3D mammogram as something that wouldn't squish. You know some sort of scanner that they would just scan across and be done. So very wrong. The radiology tech lets me know that because they can get better pictures with the 3D mammogram that they really squish you to get the best pictures. She goes on to tell me that because I have metal clips in both breasts and that they are all close to the chest wall that this is going to be tough. Next up is 20 minutes of attempting to become one with the machine.

20 minutes of vice grips. 20 minutes of feeling like the machine was trying to pop my boob like a zit. 20 minutes of weird arm angles, sticking my butt out, moving my chin over here, pulling my shoulder back there. My favorite part is always when they have you in that weird position then lower the squisher pieces to lock your boob up tight is they tell you not to breath. No problem. The radiology tech really worked hard to get the best pictures often climbing under the machine to reposition me. She may have apologized a lot. But, sore ribs, back and boobs totally worth it for the report:

 "Clean! Follow up in 1 year!" 

Still have Salt and Peppa as my theme song for mammograms. May have sang "Squish it" during it. 

One Year Shot

Last week's follow up with my oncologist also included a milestone, one year enrollment in the PRESENT study. It also meant time for more shots. Now as the proud owner of one side effect in the study and an updated consent form coming my way, there was another change to my study treatment.

As I have previously documented my response to the shots seemed to continually increase with every sequential shot. The last time (minus the fainting) I also had to take benedryl. Well, the amount benedryl I previously took to control the swelling was considered a Toxic Level 2 response. "Huh?" Was my response as the oncologist was explaining this to me. The research RN (whom is very diligent) spoke with the study organizers about this and it was deemed that I needed a dose reduction.

I had just been told my scans were clean and I had started to relax. Then she said "dose reduction". I started to protest. "But, I never had induration greater than 10 cm!". My oncologist explained that the reduction of dose would be in the immune booster portion that they inject, because that was more likely what was causing all the inflammation. She let me know that the peptide (if present, unknown in a double blinded study) would not be reduced. Phew.

3 out of the 4 shots hurt. The first 3 were like 30 second bee stings. The fourth one didn't hurt at all. I still made the research RN nervous and sat on my hands to make her feel better. Also during the injections I found that I feel better if I hold my breath and attempt to to pull my diaphragm into my rib cage. It's weird, but it totally works for me. 

24 hours later, I was not sure that a dose reduction had helped or that it might not be the peptide causing the reaction. My leg was swollen. So swollen you could see it through my slacks and it looked like I had a quidriceps instead of a quadriceps. The induration (thickening of the skin) wasn't bad though.

48 hours later, I was pretty sure the research RN and oncologist were genius'. The swelling went way down and my quid was a quad again. And my thigh was now only partially red and translucent white (it's baseline).

72 hours later and just a small amount of induration at each of the shot sites. And I was able to go for a run. Happy day.

Maybe it was because I saw We Will Rock You the night before, but this was the song in my head for my run. Except I only know the words to the chorus. But you still got to love Queen.

A Happy Little Thing Called "Thank You"

I have written before about how being a cancer survivor fills you with gratitude. A Boston College Student Josh Coyne decided to do an experiment to show that expressing gratitude leads to decreased stress, increased self love and happiness. His results were statistically significant. I have found that I more freely express my gratitude and keep a pile of thank you cards on the ready. I went through over 5 packages of thank you cards during my 7 months of treatment and the months following. I am thankful that others can learn how demonstrating your thankfulness makes you a happier person.

Oh and in case I haven't told you, I am grateful for you. Thank you for your continued support.

Officially Still Cancer Free

All tests were normal! 12 tubes of blood, urine, 2 CT Scans (mochaccino!), 1 bone scan, 1 MUGA scan and 2 physical exams. All normal (and heart function is back up to A+ levels).

My favorite line form the reports:

Zero evidence of metastatic disease. 

Lines like that me do things like this:

Celebration cookies!

More on this later. But for now, I'm just going to keep singing.