Replace your fear with peace..

A hope that was shaken...

2011-11-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

The sermon I watched today at elevationchurch.org talked about Hebrews XII. The pastor, Steven Furtick went around the room asking people to talk about a hope that was shaken. I was surprised how few people spoke up....one immediately came to my mind.

My hope/dream of becoming a nurse in life and working in the medical field was removed from me. It's something that stays with me to this day that I always think about. I'm healing and learning and accepting this, but it has been a hard and emotional journey. I know that it's not a failure until I've quit trying, but I also know that I don't know if I want to keep trying...

I was "disqualified" for lack of a better way of explaining it from UNC my Junior year because I unknowingly had pneumonia during final exams and suffered through finals, pulling all-nighters and going to study sessions. When they were over I went to the doctor and had bronchitis and walking pneumonia and subsequently had failed a few of my final exams. I was a transfer student so my GPA that Junior year had started over at a zero...needless to say, I became ineligible to go back to school the following semester.

I found out what I had to do to go back, met with an academic advisor and took the necessary classes to raise my GPA that following summer. When I returned to school in the fall, the academic advisor admitted she had made a "mistake" and miscalculated my credits and I hadn't taken enough to become "eligible" after all. I fought the "system" but did not win and she was eventually fired for errors made with multiple students. (It was just my future in her hands...no big deal!).

So I had taken a detour from school...was taking online classes here and there but in the meantime, life was happening around me. Tony and I were getting more serious and he was moving to Nashville. I followed my heart instead of my head and went to Nashville to be with Tony....we got married shortly after (I think I made the right decision!).

When we moved back to NC in 2008 I was unemployed and happy to be a housewife for a while. I had lots of time to "think" about what I wanted to do and the one unfinished thing in my life was still school...I was so close to getting my degree and yet so uncomfortably far. I decided in late 2008 that I wanted to continue to pursue my hope/dream of being a nurse....I felt driven to do so and in spring of 2009 I was accepted into nursing school. That summer I completed a CNA course and started my first semester of nursing school in fall of 2009. At the last minute (literally 2 weeks out) I was notified that I was not considered an "in state" student even though we had been back in NC for a year because I hadn't gotten my driver's license changed right away. I fought the "system" on this and did not win and ultimately ended up paying 4 times the cost for school (an extremely unexpected bump in the road, but I was determined). Lord.....where you trying to tell me something?

I started school in August 2009....I was so excited and poured my every waking breath into my studies. I held study sessions at my house, passed every test, went to every clinical rotation thirsty to learn something new. On November 6, 2009 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. We only had 6 clinical rotations left and my instructors told me that I could finish everything that was "on paper" at a later date but I HAD to finish my clinical rotations before the end of the semester. I knew this wasn't going to be possible. Chemo started on December 9th (I would have had 2 clinicals left after this.)

I was diagnosed on a Friday and went to school the following week (looking back I can say I was in shock although I didn't feel like I was)...I quietly whispered to close friends in class what was happening with me and walked the halls to different classes as if everything were normal. I didn't feel any different physically. I was in clinical rotations on the heart floor and I remember feeling anxiety creep up a couple of times, looking at sick people and wondering what the future held for me, would I be like those sick people? I had no idea the path that laid before me. The following Sunday I was studying for an Anatomy exam and instead of reading the chapter I was supposed to be reading I found myself searching the index for breast cancer and lying on the floor in a ball sobbing.....I knew it was over. My hope and dream of being a nurse and excelling at school was being utterly shaken. I knew school was no longer a healthy distraction from my personal struggles but instead one more stress that couldn't be smothered any longer. I didn't go to my Anatomy exam that Monday morning and I let go of the fear of disappointing my parents or my husband. I hadn't realized they aready knew I was going to quit school...it was up to me to admit it. I don't remember what I did that Monday instead but I remember the weird cloud that hung over me for a while as I tried to understand how in the WORLD I was having to quit school again. How in the WORLD was it possible that I wasn't going to finish...again!?!?

It's been 2 years since I was diagnosed and the past few sermons on Hebrews chapter 12 have really struck this cord with me: God is speaking to me about that hope. I may never understand why he removed that hope from my life. Why he keeps putting things in the way of what I thought was my dream. But what I do understand is that "nothing that leaves my life is truly lost if I commit into the hands of a faithful God."

Hebrews 12:22-29. "At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with a reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."

God may have shaken my life's hope and dream. But I've come to accept that he has been removing the things from my life that can be shaken to make room for and lay a foundation for the thing that cannot be shaken: my faith. I've gotten so much peace in coming to this understanding, I could not be more grateful. It's interesting....I'm more often grateful for the things that cancer has taught me, than I am for living through it. That in and of itself...is a lesson, yet to be learned.

Happy Birthday to me!!! (again!)

2011-11-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

November 6, 2011 was my 2 year "diagnosis anniversary" but I'd like to call it my survivor birthday! I was so proud that day. I couldn't be happier especially with my mental growth and that I'm truly happy these days. The best part about my survivor birthday is that Tony spent that day at "Brother's Weekend" kayaking and camping with my brothers and two of my nephews. I was so happy that he was able to go and be gone and I didn't feel like I needed him on that emotional day. Instead I was happy, happy to be by myself, happy with where I am in life, and happy that my husband was getting his own time as well. For once it didn't revolve around me and that was almost the best part of the whole day. It's been about me for too long.

I love you my husband:) I can't believe two years has gone by already. Only three more years until the recurrence worry starts to fade away...we can do this!!!

On Monday the 14th I've been invited to participate in an exercise research study at Duke to test the effects of one of my chemo drugs on cardiac function. I was excited to hear that I "qualified" but it's kind of funny I'm excited to find out if chemo damaged my heart!!! I'm pretty sure it didn't considering I've ran a 5K and completed a boot camp since chemo days. I'm most excited just to have all the tests done and they are going to give me some sort of suggested exercise program. I'll let you know how it goes...

BFF's

2011-11-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

I went to visit Gretchen in Birmingham, AL for a weekend. Her husband was out of town so it was GIRLS ONLY weekend and we had such a good time:) It was so nice to not "think" about whether or not I could go because of Duke, etc. and it felt so free-ing.

We had such a great time, did lots of tourist stuff and lots of shopping!! It really couldn't have been better. For those of you that don't know, I've been best friends with Gretchen since kindergarten. We went to Appalachian State together our freshmen year, then transferred to UNC together. She was my maid of honor and I was hers. We've been together every step of the way through life and I wouldn't have it any other way. Here's a pic of us together on top of a famous statue in Birmingham....the Vulcan.

My visit came at a really good time too because Gretchen had just passed her nursing boards and is officially now a nurse! I'm so proud of her and happy for her. Since my nursing career journey has ended, I'm happy that I can still stay "close" to the profession and see it through Gretchen's eyes. I loved flying again too! It was nice to be able to travel and I've almost ALWAYS flown on my own, so that part is just natural to me:)

Breast Cancer Awareness

2011-10-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

Here is my breast cancer battle timeline: (for some awareness):

Diagnosis: Two needle biopsies in the breast. One needle biopsy of the liver.

Countless scans, doctor visits, chalky drinks, and tears. (a period of 4 weeks).

6 rounds of chemotherapy (one every 21 days for 4 months).

Baldness at week 2 of 2nd chemotherapy.

Left breast mastectomy and removal of left armpit lymph nodes: 3 weeks after the last chemo.

7 weeks of radiation, 3 weeks after mastectomy.

Radiation every weekday for 7 weeks (33 treatments), major burns to the skin.

During last 2 weeks of radiation, started monthly hormone treatment injections and daily hormone suppressant pills.

2 years of monthly hormone treatment injections (I'm on #16 of 24!)

Extreme and severe menopause and symptoms.

Life without my left breast for 9 months, wore a prosthetic, heavy, breast.

6 months after radiation: Reconstruction part 1.

Replacement of left breast with part of back muscle and skin (Latissimus dorsi flap reconstruction). Insert of spacer.

Every week for about 6 weeks after reconstruction: Skin stretching while the "spacer implant" was pumped up.

6 weeks after reconstruction part 1: Reconstruction part 2: Removal of spacer and insertion of implant.

Continuation of monthly injections.

July 2012: Monthly injections stop and will begin new hormone therapy for 3 years....still a long road.

Sometimes, day one is still so near and so raw, other times, all of this seems like a distant nightmare. Mostly: It's been a long road and it isn't over yet.

I had no family history and I FOUND THE LUMP. I was doing my monthly breast exams starting in February of 2009. I found a lump in June 2009, it felt "slightly different" in July 2009, so I got into the doctor in early August 2009, he wanted to "watch it" for 6 weeks (due to my young age and no family history, there was a less than 4% chance that someone my age would have breast cancer). In October (6 weeks later) 2009 my doctor agreed it had significantly "changed" and so the diagnosis process began. What if I was not checking my breasts on a monthly basis? Who would have found that lump that had already spread into not one, but 4 places within my breast and lymph nodes. Be assured. Breast cancer is not a fad. It is not COOL to wear the pink ribbon labels, especially when you ARE the label....it's a real and deadly disease and if you wear the label, understand what you're standing for....then you'll be sure to make a significant difference.

Today, I'm alive and well with a head full of curls and a significantly altered body...thank God I was doing my self breast exams.

DO YOUR MONTHLY BREAST EXAMS LADIES!!!! and men....TELL YOUR MOMS, SISTERS, WIVES, FRIENDS TO DO THEIR EXAMS!

"Gettin' Punchy"

2011-09-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Back in 2009 in December, after my first chemo when I got really sick and was hospitalized, I waited until 7:30pm to be seen by my oncologist because they had to "work me in" and it's nearly impossible to see her WITH an appointment. My best friend Gretchen was with me and was wearing this adorable fur vest. My oncologist was more concerned with Gretchen's fur vest, whether it was real, what kind of animal they were trying to make it, etc. etc. than she was with my REAL sickness and could not stop making cuts about Gretchen's vest in the midst of discussing what was wrong with me. It was pretty funny and her ultimate response was due to the time of day and literal hundreds of patients she had seen she was "getting punchy". It's become a funny expression in my mind because, I can only imagine her frame of mind by 7:30pm most nights, and Gretchen was just in her line of sight. If any of you know Gretchen and I, we easily laughed it off. Well, this past visit to Duke with mom lasted in total about 6 hours and I was "gettin' punchy" by the time I got in my gown....

see? :) Thanks goodness for entertaining iPhone apps:)

So, the good news from this visit, aside from getting a good plan to start taking the Motrin twice daily and up the Neurontin dose is that I did not realize that in July 2012 (roughly 8 months) when I complete my Lupron injections, Zometa treatments and Femara drug I will be switching to Tamoxifen. The GOOD NEWS is that on Tamoxifen, my period will probably come back and M.E.N.O.P.A.U.S.E. will end!!! So, after thinking I was going to be in Menopause for a total of 5 years and then finding out that I only have 8 months left of this torture, it was some rather UPLIFTING news:) I was happy, am happy, and am not trying to wish my life away, but will be glad to see the next 8 months come and go:) 8 months, I can see the finish line of this next big Milestone of survivorship! (and just for clarification, I won't be able to attempt to get pregnant for another 3 years still, but at least won't be in menopause for those 3 years).

You are your best advocate

2011-09-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

Although I haven't posted ALL month, it's been a busy month nonetheless, so I will break it down in a timeline style.

Labor Day Weekend:

Sept. 3, 4, 5 & 6:

We had some friends Brandon & Kristin come visit us from Nashville with their new twin babies that were only 6 months old! It was SO awesome to have not one, but two babies in the house all weekend and get to hang out with our friends. We went swimming (for the last time), had cookouts, ate at a sketchy Mexican restaurant in Taylorsville, shot guns, Tony & Brandon played golf, Kristin introduced me to Project Runway on Demand, and overall it was an incredibly relaxing and fun weekend. It rained some nasty tropical depression the last day they were here which caused them to stay and extra day and it was such a treat! They extended their vacation and we extended our time with them!

The following week:

I started to get a cold which I hoped was allergies with the changing fall season, unfortunately it just got out of control and by that weekend...I was sick.

September 11th:

My Birthday!!! Well, as I mentioned, I was SUPER sick over my birthday weekend but all I had asked for was to go horseback riding. So, that Saturday I got lots of Sudafed into my system, sucked it up, and went riding! Tony and I had so much fun. It was a two hour ride at Leatherwood, through the woods, and it was a nice, cool, fallish day:) My horses name was Steamroller and Tony's horse's name was Joey. Tony's horse was a PIG and ate the brush along the trail every chance we got. It was so funny because everytime I turned around Tony's horse had half a plant in his mouth and was just slow-going. It was lots of fun! We had a nice guide and it was just the three of us so it was really relaxing. After our awesome horseback ride we drove up to Boone and did a little shopping and had a nice lunch at one of our favorite sandwhich shops called Our Daily Bread. It was a nice lunch, good conversation, and just enough excitement for me to endure while the cold meds were still in my system. The rest of the weekend, I gave in to living on the couchbed, watching TV, catching up on downloading pictures, etc, and knitting (of course). Tony was such a sweetie and got me a delicious chocolate cake from the local bakery, I could barely taste it, but it was so sweet of him to get it for me. Jacks was afraid of the fire on my candles, she was so adorable.

Sept. 17, 18, 19:

We spent a nice, relaxing weekend at my parents house, visiting with them. Tony and I tried to play tennis on some nice courts in Elon, but I just wasn't recovered enough (oh earlier that week, I gave in, went to the doctor and had a fever, sinus infection and major fluid on my ears). Just this week (Sept. 28th) I finished by 2 weeks worth of antibiotics! Yuck! I hope that's over with for the season!! We went to play tennis but I was real dizzy from the meds and just not feeling up to it. So, we went shopping in Durham with my parents. I have to say, I indulged at Anthopolgie as a birthday present from my parents (thanks mom & dad!). I got some pretty adorable items to add to my fall wardrobe:)

On Monday of that weekend I had an appointment with my medical oncologist at Duke (per my request). At some point in early September I was sitting at my desk working and it all just kind of dawned on me: I don't feel "normal" or "up to it", pretty much all the time these days...I've got bad bone pain, GI troubles, my night sweats/ hot flash combos cause me to lose a lot of sleep and I constantly feel like I'm "waiting" to feel like myself. I finally realized, this is a drastic change compared to one year ago and not much of my medications, etc. has changed (I've just been on them a lot longer). However my mom had pointed out one important thing to me: Last year around this time I did and completed a boot camp, no problem. This year, I started a boot camp, went for about 3 or 4 times and quit due to lack of sleeping, major bone pain, etc. etc. I've been on Lupron/Femara/Zometa/Neurontin for about 16 months now so its just strange how I haven't been feeling as "good" in the past recent months.

Don't be mistaken: ALL of my symptoms are side effects of each drug (talk about the combo platter) so I wasn't concerned that my symptoms were knew or unknown, I just really wanted confirmation that its normal that they seem to have gotten worse. I realized I keep trying and trying to start a workout routine (which use to come a lot easier for me just a year ago) and keep quitting and quitting because of pain. So, my oncologist wanted to see my and for ONCE they scheduled it on the same day as my monthly Lupron injection. It was a long 6 hour day of waiting at Duke on a Monday, but I was glad to be seen. (I didn't see my oncologist, which I was fine with), but did get to see my LPN (my favorite). She basically explained that over the past 16 months, while they have completely stripped by body of estrogen and my body has gotten more used to it; they have successfully made me feel what it will be like to be 55+ years old with the bone pain, hot flashes, etc. My mom asked about my night sweats: it's something I've gotten as used to as is physically possible, but they are dreadful nonetheless. I wake up several times a week in the night and its as if I'm swimming - there is no exaggeration in this...my clothes, hair, sheets both top and bottom are SOAKED. It's worse than when you break a fever in your sleep when you're really, really sick and it happens to me several times a week. Sometimes I wake up enough to change clothes or get up and dry off or put a towel under me. Other times I wake up shivering because I'm soaked and freezing. Other times, I crowd the heck out of Tony and keep rolling towards his side of the bed in order to find a dry spot in the sheets. I know, gross right? and yes, i wash our sheets once a week and sometimes more. When I stayed at my parents house during surgeries, my mom just couldn't believe the extent of it; she couldn't believe how even the top sheet on top of me was like someone had poured water all over me! Anyways, it's all really normal for my situation: just another dreadful side effect of "chemo-pause" and will be over with soon enough. Until then, I keep taking the Neurontin and hope that it helps. I've uped my dose and just deal with the morning hangover it gives me. To combat the chronic bone pain I've been having my LPN wants me to start taking 3 Motrin twice a day with breakfast and with dinner. It's to the point now that the inflammatory response going on is not something I can "spot treat" with Motrin when the pain is there, but rather I need to keep Motrin in my system preventatively. I used to have real trouble with taking so many drugs, but these days I feel a little desparate just roll with it. Anything to get me out of this "pain" funk and let me start working out again. So far, I'm in week 2 of the daily motrin and have not had any bone pain - even though I JUST had the Lupron treatment so that is a REALLY good sign and I'm happy! I ran 2.79 miles this morning and it felt great! I'm hoping this is a sign of things to come and I'm just thankful that I took the time to once again call in and report symptoms.

It definitely gets old constantly feeling like I have to do a "body check" and say "okay, is anything new going on with me? Is everything okay?" And if something's off, it's a lot of effort to call in and not get frustrated, but I continue to do it and continue to be pleased with the outcome. You are your own best advocate and the ONLY one that knows whats really going on with your body. The ONLY one that knows when somethings "off" and it's a lesson I've proven to myself over and over again:)

Only NINE left!!!!!!!

2011-08-26T13:16:00.001-07:00

Just did the math and had to share!!! I only have NINE Lupron injections left!!!

My how time flies when you're......checking stuff off the calender! :)

Also, I had my radiation oncologist follow up on August 10th. She's my favorite doc at Duke and is VERY pregnant. It was great to see her. She couldn't get over my very curly hair. All is well on the skin side. I mentioned the constant pain I have in my sternum but she said it seemed relatively "normal" considering what they did to me. Her answers to most things were "you have me to thank for that." I couldn't complain, I also have her to thank for saving my life. I will never forget my last day laying on the radiation table that she walked in and said they were only dealing with "microscopic" aspects of the disease and I was technically cancer free. That memory will stay with me forever.

I hope everyone is having a great end of summer! Tony and I went to the Cincinnati Tennis Open last weekend and had an absolute blast! It will definitely become an annual trip for us!

"I HAVE DECIDED...

2011-08-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

...to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back."

Today was the first step into the rest of my life. Today, I was baptized for the first time and today, my husband chose to also be baptized. It was such a wonderful experience, I was drawn to spontaneously do this and am so thankful that Tony was also moved and this is something we were able to experience together.

I've been going through a lot lately, what I've mostly referred to as "delayed healing". A lot of it has been spiritual and I feel like I'm finally finding my way and getting more clarity on the things I've been struggling with.

Today was such an incredible day. New beginnings are in our future.

I wanted to share this video that changed my life and brought me closer to God. Today.

http://vimeo.com/27442072

My friend Nicole's church was doing a "spontaneous baptism" series and at the moment she felt compelled to post this video on her facebook, I was looking for something....God knew what I was looking for and spoke to Nicole to post this video. I'm so glad that I was able to share this special day with Nicole at her church. Love you Nicole!

America!!!

2011-07-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

It has been a great July 4th weekend! ALL of my family came to my house to celebrate over the weekend and we had lots of fun pool time and good food together.

I had my Zometa treatment last Monday. It was a long day (as usual) at Duke and I was thankful that I had decided to take the day off instead of stressing over when I'd be able to "check in" with work. Tony and I got to Duke at 9am for my Zometa treatment and they called me back to the chemo room right away...which was, what we thought, a good sign. Well, we were then informed that the pharmacy was backed up so they started my IV and gave me a saline drip. I was so proud of myself because I forgot my ativan and decided it was time to "face the fear" of the chemo room and not drug myself through the experience. I did really good and luckily Tony and I got setup near some tv's and were able to watch Wimbledon while we waited. Everytime the IV pumps BEEPED really loudly, I just closed my eyes, plugged my ears, and did some "centering breaths" until they stopped (who needs ativan!? go me!). I was really proud of myself for getting through it without a tear shed.

Tony and I left Duke and had a little retail therapy at REI and then headed home. We got home around 5pm...it was a long day.

Tuesday I felt pretty good after the treatment but when i went to bed I definitely had a low grade fever and had trouble falling asleep. As i was just about asleep I realized I was in quite a bit of achy pain all over and that was why I was so "uncomfortable" while trying to fall asleep. Well, I went out like a light and woke up at 5am in 10/10 pain. Every, single bone in my body was in pain! My cheek bones, teeth, back, toes, knees, you name it - it was killing me. I FORCED myself out of bed to go to the bathroom and about collapsed when I got to the toilet. I couldn't believe I was in so much pain. I imagined trying to open a Motrin bottle or pull the fridge open to get some water and I started to tremble. The thought of the pain it would take to do these things was unbearable. I went to bed and woke Tony up crying and out of breath....wow did it hurt. He got me some Motrin and water (sweet, sweet husband) and I forced myself to try and fall asleep. Wednesday morning the pain was still their...I kept Motrin in my system ALL day and it eventually wore off by Wednesday night. They call this "flu like" symptoms - I call it "Neulasta like" symptoms. This is my 3rd of 4 Zometa treatments and I am SO HAPPY that I am almost done with them. If they were more often than every 6 months, I would probably take pain meds or something. Yikes!

Well, on the heals of having a "down and out" week. It was a great weekend with the family. We swam a lot, ate a lot, and did fireworks in the backyard. My brother, David's birthday was on Friday and my dad's birthday was on Saturday so we always celebrate their birthday's over July 4 when we are all together. I made my dad cholate cupcakes for his birthday desert request and made David TWO apple pies (picked all the apples from my backyard) and mom made David TWO coconut cream pies. We had a LOT of good food and desert.

Next Monday, July 11th I'm starting another boot camp at the Y. I'm really looking forward to it as I desparately need to lose some "chemo weight" and desparately need to tone up. On my off days from boot camp I'm hoping to get back into running now that the bone pain "scare" is overwith. I will just treat my symptoms with Motrin as needed and forget about the rest. Nothing is going to hold me back.

He Speaks....if we just listen.

2011-06-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well, my wonderful husband turned 31 on June 13th...It was a wonderful weekend celebration with his family. His dad came up and stayed with us for the weekend from Florida and all his family came over for a fun cookout (and cupcakes!). Those are my proud hands as I had made 24 red velvet cupcaks and TWO blackberry pies for him:)

I've been doing really great post surgery. In the early days of June I started a running program and was back in action playing tennis and running for about 3 weeks. I was running by week 2 after surgery which was an amazing feeling. On a Sunday, (about week 3 of running, I had been running 90sec./30 sec. running/walking intervals and doing between 2 and 3 miles each time. Well, on a Sunday I was running and got some pretty severe groin/femur pain that doubled me over and really freaked me out. Being that I had just had my Lupron injection a week prior, I passed it off as "joint aches" which the Lupron never fails to give me with each treatment. And not just creaky joints, old-lady-can-hardly-get-out-of-bed pains...but this is something I've gotten used to. The second time I ran after those pains occurred I got to mile 2 and it happened again, except this time I almost collapsed (thinking in my mind that BOTH of my femurs must have broke)...but yet I was still walking. I took motrin and the pain immediately went away. Being the stubborn headed person that I am, I tried a third time (after taking two days off)...I ran in the morning with my friend Holly....we got completely finished and as we slowed down nearing our cars it happened again and the entire drive home I was in 10/10 pain. I finally decided I needed to "check in" with my docs about this as it just didn't seem normal and definitely wasn't going away.

I called my oncologist office with this description "I'm having major pain in my pelvis and both femurs after/during excercise." The nurse asked me a laundry list of questions and said she'd relay it all to my oncologist and call me back. The reason I called my oncologist was that this seemed like an "extreme" side effect to the drugs I am on. All of them cause some form of joint and or bone pain but this was bizzarre and sudden. Instead of my nurse calling me back I got a call from the appointment desk that I was to come in and have a BONE SCAN in 4 days. I was a little taken aback to say the least. (For you non-cancer term knowing folks....BONE SCAN, PET SCAN, pretty much = cancer SCAN). They don't do bone scan's for the fun of it. Unfortunately, I know this from experience.

So, even though I've been scolded for this before and KNOW that it's better NOT to do this, I had to know WHY in the world my doctor immediately went to "bone scan" in her mind. So I googled this "femur pelvis bone pain breast cancer".....low and behold I was terrified. As I've said before breast cancer recurs in "the 2 B's and 2 L's" = bones, brain, lungs, liver. As I read and was sick with fear it stated: Bones are the #1 place breast cancer recurs, femurs and pelvis are the #1 bones the cancer appears in, pain is the #1 symptom.....and this is my life.

In my mind, I mentally searched my closet for my coat of armor that I had just recently packed away and covered, intentionally, with dust. I got it out, shook it off, and said "here we go." As this is not a suspense novel...the bone scan was CLEAR and they are attributing the pain to the drugs I'm on and want me to treat it with anti-inflammatory drugs as needed. If it gets worse I may go and see a sports therapist, but hopefully not.

When I reluctantly told Tony of the news, the Friday of his birthday weekend (I know)...he said "it's going to take a lot more than some leg pains to convince me that you have cancer again." To some it may seem like an insensitive comment, but to me, I knew that Tony also, was schlepping his coat of armor off the coat rack and putting it on until the skies were clear again.

All in all, this "lesson" in cancer survivorship taught me that this is probably going to be the way things are from here on out (especially within the 10 year window of "worry" as my radiation oncologist named it). Unfortunately I can't just say "ow" and leave it alone as I still feel the NEED to check in with my docs when new/bizarre symptoms arise and unfortunately they validate them by giving me a bone scan to check for cancer because legitimately, they have to rule cancer out first before assuming something minor. This is my life now. As time goes on, these "scares" will get easier (?) maybe? Or at least I can say "remember how worried sick you were for nothing?".

At some point in that 4 day window, I kind of gave up worrying....I felt as though during constant prayers God had tapped me on the shoulder and said "not this time, stop worrying about something that doesn't exist"...and the Bible says "do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself". And I felt strong. My dad used to always quote that scripture to me as a kid because I was most definitely known in my family as "the worry wort". My dad and I spent the day of my bone scan at Duke together, drinking coffee, eating sushi and pizza, and being silly:)...what we do best:) It was a good day and while driving home from Duke I got the results "no evidence of cancer"...thank you Lord.

Just one more day...

2011-05-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

Well, this surgery has been a breeze! So funny, how things get put into perspective. I thought my mastectomy was a breeze compared to chemo (pretty much everything has been a breeze since chemo, physically). Anyways. I was off the pain meds (my biggest hurdle) by day 3 and off tylenol on day 5! I can honestly say, I'm not in pain, which is so nice. I'm just taking antibiotics.

I had one really rough night where my drain leaked and I completely freaked out. A - I wasn't fully awake and was on drugs so I thought I was hallucinating that my night gown was wet. B - This is probably my "WORST NIGHTMARE" realized in terms of having a drain coming from my body!

We called the "on call" surgeon at Duke and he acted like it was no big deal. Said that the drain hole might be bigger than the tubing and to just put some gauze on it. The next morning my surgeon's nurse called and said that it really probably meant there was a clot in the tube (sorry for the faint of stomach) and low and behold there was. Tony stripped the tubing and it started draining again like it was supposed to. Was definitely a freaky thing.

My surgery was Monday and I was supposed to potentially get my drain out on Thursday or Friday. They were still outputting over 30 CC's both days so they pushed it to this Tuesday. Just ONE more day! What's great about that is that my friend Nicole is having her 2 month post-op at Duke at the same time Tuesday so we'll get to see each other!! Yipee!! Friday night the drain only put out 20ish CC's and then yesterday and today it was under 20 which is excellent! Makes me feel a lot better about getting it out and knowing I probably won't be getting another seroma this time around! (They are supposed to be under 20 before they come out).

The whole no use of my left arm and VERY limited use of my right has been a big pain again, but I really can't complain. It's just kind of mentally taxing when you realize that your husband has gotten bathing and dressing you down to a quick science. It's like he's been doing this for a while now!....oh yeah. Tony has been so good to me this week. For a naturally kind of inpatient person - he has been incredibly patient and caring and always cheerful. At least, I can amazingly say, Lord willing, NEVER again! At least no surgery relating to breast cancer, please Lord. I'm not naive enough to think I might not ever have another surgery at age 28. But ya know...here's to wishful thinking!

The actual surgery report went really well. Doc said he removed a LOT of scar tissue from radiation damage and it was more than he was expecting so he had to "build it up" with something called Alloderm. I will spare most of you with the details of this, but for those of you interested in what Alloderm is. Here is a link:

http://www.breastreconstruction.org/InTheNews/AlloDerminBreastReconstruction.html

....kind of scary to think I have another human's skin inside me, but it's done now!!! The positive is I'm so glad to know that a lot of the scar tissue has been removed. I was SO tight on that side of my body.

The actual implant itself looks really strange (immediate satisfaction would be too easy right?). Something they failed to mention is that its going to be 2 - 3 MONTHS for the implant to "settle" into it's pocket and look more like it belongs...ho hum, the waiting continues.

In the meantime, I'm ready to move on, and just keep on keeping on, welcome SUMMER!! Having this past week off of work has been great for helping me realize that I can REALLY put this crap behind me. No more daunting, black storm clouds, ahead. No more BIG steps. All I do now is keep checking those Lupron Injections off the calendar every month and pray to remain cancer free. What a blessing. I am so grateful for my health.

Acceptance

2011-05-04T22:32:00.001-07:00

Without any exaggeration, last Friday night it really just suddenly dawned on me that I had cancer. While my loved ones, peers, etc where absorbing and accepting the fact that I had cancer over the past 19 months, I was just going through the motions. I was swallowing the treatment plan, putting on my battle gear (mentally and physically) and preparing for the next step once one was completed. The actual fact that I had cancer....literally and honestly had not sunk in yet. Now it has, now I figure out what to do with it.

The simplest things have all been changed:

This hair is not normal, but it makes things seem normal now that it is back, I for a long time didn't have hair, this hair is new, this hair grew back on my head after I was completely bald for a long time. Having hair makes me forget that I didn't have hair for 7 months or more. Makes me forget how discouraged I was about it in thinking it might not ever come back. Looking in the mirror reminds me that this "me" is all new - new hair, new body, new attitude on life, new everything. Everything is different...

Everything about my body is different, new. The moment I get used to the cancerous tumors and lumps inside my breast, they cut it off. The moment I get used to my breast being gone, my left side being completely flat (almost caved in), they replace it with a piece of my back. The moment I get mobility from having a portion of my back removed and get used to this hard, uncomfortable spacer in my body, they remove it and once again, I'm recovering and adjusting to something new. This cycle of getting used to my body has been going on for a long time. I'm ready to be done with it and really try to wrap my head around what I am left to live with for the rest of my life.

This "label" is going to be mine for the rest of my life - there is no denying it, hiding it, dampening it. I just have to learn somehow, some way to deal with it and own it in a way that does not lessen who I was. I'm struggling to remember who I was prior to this. Wishing I could be happy for no reason like I so often was before. Wishing I could be happy for so many reasons because of things I had experienced up until my diagnosis. Wishing that my cancer experience had not dimmed the light on all those happy memories pre-cancer and that I could remember things as bright and clear as they used to be in my mind. Wishing the memories, traumas of cancer were not the freshest of the bunch to pick from. Wishing, almost all the time, that it would all just go away.

I want to be happy for no reason instead of having the odds stacked against me daily for being sad, upset, depressed, angry and most of all, frustrated.

I'm often angry about everything that has happened to me. I may have lived through it but am just now starting to soak it up and recognize, that I, Jill Raney, had cancer.

I get so depressed about the things I won't be able to do during recovery that it dampens my ability to do those things the few days/weeks prior to my recovery. This is normal I assume.

I got good news about my potential for fertility in the future at the doctor this past week. I will discuss it more in depth another time. I'm halfway through these treatments but the excitement is not there like I had hoped. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the looming surgery.

In light of my woes, please pray for my friend

Lisa on Monday as well, as she faces a much tougher fight than I do. She has stage IV cancer and will be having surgery to remove some "floater" tumors, which ultimately is a risky process. Since I have such a stigma against pink - if you think of me, you can wear purple (for Lisa's cancer) to remind yourself to pray for her (and me) all day on Monday. She was a regular at Bean Traders when I worked there years ago (easily some of the happiest days of my life). We have stayed in touch since then and unfortunately, but fortunately have grown closer since our cancer diagnosis. Lisa is still fighting a tough fight and is so incredibly brave.

I hope to blog again next week after my surgery or maybe even again this weekend prior to it all.

Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely mothers!!

If you were coming in the fall....

2011-04-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

Today while I was packing up all the bookshelves downstairs, I found an old journal of mine. I had taped a copy of "If you were coming in the fall" by Emily Dickinson inside the journal. I know it's really a "love" poem but the beginning of it mimicked a lot of how I've felt about this "cancer timeline". It's like since day one of diagnosis the focus has always been on the next step. When I talk to friends that I haven't talked to in a while their first question is always "so what's the next step?". It's funny too because although that really is the case, cancer has also taught me to take life one day at a time, not to rush things and just get through the small goals in front of me. I feel like having no more surgeries on the horizon is a BIG step towards moving on and this, what seemd to be, unattainable goal is really being reached. Anyways, I wanted to post this poem - it's kind of how I've felt about "the end" (or just survival of this cancer in general)....I've been waiting what seems like forever for this and just can't believe it's about to be here.

If you were coming in the fall,

I'd brush the summer by

With half a smile and half a spurn,

As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,  

I'd wind the months in balls,  

And put them each in separate drawers,

 Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,  

I'd count them on my hand,  

Subtracting till my fingers dropped  

Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,  

That yours and mine should be,  

I'd toss it yonder like a rind,  

And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length  

Of time's uncertain wing,  

It goads me, like the goblin bee,  

That will not state its sting.

Moving on.....

2011-04-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty "quiet" April in terms of Duke. I had my 11th of 24 monthly Lupron injections on April 4th and on April 5th saw my surgeon for the last time until my next surgery. I got my left breast "pumped up" one final time to stretch the skin again and got my surgery date scheduled for May 9th. This is THE LAST surgery on the table!!

This last surgery is just to remove the tissue expander (it is inside my left "breast" right now and has been used to "pump up" and stretch the skin that was moved from my back). They will replace the tissue expander with a silicone gel implant. I will have general anesthesia but will not have to stay overnight in the hospital, which is really nice. I will have the dreaded drain back in but hopefully only for a week (knowing my history with drains and seromas, I'm not holding my breath on this timeline). When my surgeon's nurse offered up some dates in June or July, I was inclined to put it off that long, but then I realized, WHY!?! I'm so ready to put this last BIG step behind me and REALLY start to heal and move on. Last night falling asleep I told Tony "I can't believe I'm having another surgery." His, always positive, response was "We won't know what to do with ourselves". It is sooo true. There's always been one more BIG step on the horizon, since, well, since my diagnosis. We've known of this timeline since day one of discussions of treatments and I just can't believe the big stuff is almost over. I'm so ready for May 9th and so ready to be done with "recovery".

I've had some good discussions with my therapist recently. I've been feeling a little "weak" mentally and have not really been able to wrap my head around why. One recent visit to Duke (when I got the drains out from the last surgery), I had a full blown panic attack walking into the clinic. This place is so familiar to me and I'm still going there once a month for my Lupron injection and am really doing better going into the chemo room. This time I was just going to see my surgeon I completely broke. Sometimes it overwhelms me when there are 8 people all shuffling into the same elevator going into the same cancer clinic. The air is always thick and I think back to ALL my visits and ALL the uncertainty that naturally came with them. It's like a full blown punch in the gut and I feel smothered. My biggest problem is that these "episodes" are SO unpredictable. It's not like I had a bad morning or had a lot on my mind, etc. It just attacked me out of nowhere. My therapist has determined I definitely have a form of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). He said cancer patients have unfortunately been paralelled with war veterans in terms of this disorder. He also said most experts in the field completely disagree with "exposure therapy" where they make you face the thing that traumatized you over and over again. Well, in my specific case, I don't have a choice. I go to Duke at the VERY least every month and walk back into that chemo room each time. I park in the same parking deck, walk the same pedestrian bridge on floor 2. Although I'm healed, cured, in remission, whatever you want to call it....when it comes to going to Duke, the motions are the same and sometimes they choke me out. Sometimes the switch in my mind gets stuck in the on position and there is NO turning back once I go down that road. This is something I'm going to be working on. Something I want to conquer. I want to feel strong mentally. The only thing keeping me from doing this is the unpredictable moments of panic that still keep creeping up. I don't know if I'll ever be able to conquer this, but I'd like to at least get a little more control of rectifying it when it does happen.

This week is going to be really interesting. While Tony and I were gone for my last surgery we unfortunately had a water leak in our house and are having to have the kitchen, dining, and living room wood floors ripped up and replaced. They are also having to rip out the ceiling and walls downstairs and replacing the drywall. The "demolition" starts on Monday and I spent all weekend packing up all of our belongings and loading it onto the storage pod that the insurance guy dropped off this morning. Quite a dreadful undertaking I must say. I work from home, so my office, etc. is now going to be in our bedroom. We'll see how long I last with all the noise going on:)

Tony and I have been SO addicted to tennis again lately. I'm actually surprised how much range of motion I have since my most recent surgery and it's been so fun to get back into playing. When we lived in Nashville we were totally addicted and played almost everyday. Last week was crazy as we didn't get home until after 8pm a lot of nights and it seemed as there was no time for anything else (including dinner)! I'm sure that's what we'll fill our time with this week as well. I'm looking forward to it.

Happy Birthday Nicole!!

2011-04-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

Today is my "chemo" buddy, Nicole's birthday! Such a wonderful celebration now that we both have that dreaded C word behind us. We have plans to meet for dinner next weekend and I can't wait to see her! It's been too long.

The 5K Breast Cancer Awareness walk was a big success. The nursing school raised a lot of money and I think the turnout was pretty big! The weather was perfect for the day, actually almost too cool, but just right for running. I hadn't ran since before my surgery and luckily my sister-in-law, Sarah, agreed to buddy up with me. I was shocked to be able to run a full 2 miles without stopping. So happy to feel my body getting stronger again. Thanks again to everyone that supported the walk and spent the Saturday in honor of me! Thanks especially to my brother Nathan and family for making the 5 1/2 hour drive to be there for me. It meant a lot and I'm glad they were able to share in the day.

Here's a picture of the group that came out on the day of the walk - it really was so much fun.

Breast Cancer Awareness 5K

2011-03-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Well, as I mentioned before my fellow nursing student classmates are about to graduate this spring. But, they just couldn't "quit" without being wonderful people and recognizing me. I'm posting this in case there are any blog followers who would like to attend this event. I'm also posting this as a big THANK YOU to my fellow nursing classmates for thinking of me, honoring me, and well, not forgetting me. Unfortunately a lot of them went through my diagnosis phase with me as I had to ultimately drop out of school because I could not continue on with clinicals while going through chemo. It was such a tough decision for me and I struggle with it to this day. Here are the walk details. Come one, come all:)

Dance, Walk, or Run your way to

Breast Cancer Awareness

Hosted by: Wilkes Community College: Nursing

Date: Saturday April 9th, 2011

Time: 8:00am-Noon

Where: Wilkes Community College Walking Track

Price: $25 per adult, $15 per child 2-12, under 2 free

$30 on day of walk

Price includes a shirt!

All proceeds go to Jill A. Raney and family, 27 year old diagnosed with Breast Cancer at age 26. The money will go to help pay any bills incurred during her ongoing battle with breast cancer.

If you cannot be present for the walk and still would like to donate that is wonderful. All donations are appreciated! If you donate $25 before April 1st you will still get a t-shirt even if not present the day of walk. We will ensure that you get your shirt!

Please contact any member of the Student Nurses’ Association I & II for more information or to register

336-793-6794 –Michelle

336-984-1986-Meghan

Time	Saturday, April 9 · 8:00am - 12:00pm

Location	Wilkes Community College Walking Track 1328 South Collegiate Drive Wilkesboro, NC

Can you be a couch potato for me?

2011-03-16T14:22:00.000-07:00

Yep...that's what my surgeon said yesterday as I went for my weekly surgery follow-up/tissue expansion (aka "pump up"). Over the weekend I developed a nasty seroma (fluid collection) around my incision on my back. I unfortunately, have had one before after my mastectomy last April and knew that although it's not serious, it would have to be drained off. I went in and got the pump up - my new breast/ skin flap is healing nicely and stretching/expanding nicely for the future implant. It's only getting "pumped up" enough to match my right side so I'm probably done getting pumped up (after only 2;0)).

Then my surgeon drained off the fluid on my back. It was pretty painful as he had to really press on the back incision, which made me really sore yesterday. He said that I need to REALLY limit my left arm and even my right arm movement and just be a couch potato. He said the next two days are criticaly in getting the back to "heal down" and stick together. If I keep moving my arm around and moving that incision around it will keep collecting fluid which prevents it from sticking together. UGH! Of course this is frustrating because I was SO GOOD in terms of not moving my arms after the drains were out. But alas, I must just be a drainy person! So, after getting to the point where I can start physical therapy, I"m taking a few steps backward and am back to couch potato-ness. Of course its frustrating, but I've only got to stay like this for two days if it appears like no seroma is reforming.

I guess I was a little overconfident and DROVE myself to Burlington Monday night for my Tuesday morning appointment. After that news I had to have Tony's mom (thanks Liz!) drive him to Burlington to get me and then drive me back....oops:) Now I'm home and am back to couch-sitting. For those of you who know me well, know that this is NOT EASY for me. It's good there's good tv on this week. I spent a good portion of our tax return on craft supplies and my crafting table is BURIED with projects that are just calling my name. I WANT MY CRAFT FIX!! :)

My new job is going really good. It's SO busy and SO fast paced that it really is a good distraction. I worked until after 7pm most nights last week which was super crazy how fast the day just FLEW by! This week I'm taking it a little more easy and feel a lot more caught up on things, luckily. My boss has been so great and flexible with all these surgery follow ups and I just couldn't ask for more.

It's warming up here in western NC and I can't wait to enjoy the weather this summer. Last summer was spent under unseasonably warm clothes to cover me up during my 7 weeks stretch of radiation. Although I won't be a sun bunny probably every again I will definitely be enjoying some tank tops!!!

Happy Spring All!!!

UN.limited.

2011-03-08T16:58:00.000-08:00

The fact that I had cancer still shocks me from time to time. I had cancer. Already! At age 27. It's so bizarre. And sometimes I think it shocks me because I don't necessarily feel like it's gone. I'm still being treated for it, albeit preventatively but its still treatment AND it's monthly.
As we drove home to our house after a two week stretch of recovery at my parents house, I felt such a huge weight being lifted. "That was a lot." I said to the LPN today after she pulled my drains out and I fought passing out. Tony and the nurse were looking at me with careful eyes as I was trying to decide if I should be laid down again. Ugh. Oh yeah. I scared the pants off off Tony recently with a pass out episode. On the toilet no less.

That was a lot. What a simple statement that says so much. I am so proud of Tony and I. We have come so far and grown so much and although this diagnosis has changed us...I am so grateful of how close we have grown. I haven't slept in bed with my husband in 2 solid weeks! Tonights the night and I cannot wait. I am so attached to him and so happy that I chose the right person to spend my life with. We had such a good time at my parents over the past 2 weeks.
I unfortunately had a panic attack as we were walking into the hospital this morning. Boy - that PTSD sure sneaks up on me at the most unpredictable of moments. We had woken early, driven 45 minutes (too much time for "build up" of all the worries in my brain that day), rushed to park, rushed to walk into the clinic and I just felt overwhelmed. Everywhere you look there are elderly people who are definitely ill, crammed waiting rooms of tired, chemo induced, bodies and one too many scarf covered heads of one too many young women. I felt like the weight of the crowds' thoughts was thickening the air and making it hard for me to breath; a thick cloud of worry and pain was hanging over everyone I looked at. It's one thing to deal with rush hour and the hustle and bustle of work, life, etc. It's another to feel that your "hustle and bustle" involves the morning foot traffic into a cancer clinic. I never thought I'd feel this way about a place I thought would be my dream job. Since I was very young I would walk into a hospital and say "this is where I want to work someday". This has obviously changed. I just wish I could work through this. Isn't it enough for me to get cancer at such a young, interrupted phase of life? But then to get cancer when I'm in the middle of nursing school trying to complete my career? My nursing class is about to graduate this spring. While I've been fighting for my life and mental sanity, they've been fighting to stay in the program, to stay awake during long clinical days and sleepless nights of studying. I really miss my class and wish all of them the best. I'm so happy for them that they're so close to that end goal that seems so incredibly duanting those first few months of the program. Maybe when they graduate I'll decide to make that me graduating too - letting go of that hopeless memory of a goal that was not achieved. There are new goals and to memories to be made, just not down the same road.

Well, the drains are out and I get to start physical therapy this weekend. Ready to get my left arm back in the game and get this recovery behind me.

What a difference a boob makes...

2011-02-28T11:28:00.001-08:00

Well, it's so incredibly nice to have a left boob again! Didn't realize how much I missed it until I got it back:) Although there will always be scars - I am so happy with my surgeon's work. It looks so incredibly natural and the shape of it is so perfect.

So, I recapped the hospital stay over the phone yesterday with a close friend and realized why I haven't felt like blogging about it is the same reason I really didn't even like talking about it yesterday - it was so terrible. So I will try to very quickly break it down.

Here's a funny pic of me with Bean Traders and my incentive sperometer!!

The first night I was on a morphine pain pump and got stubborn in the middle of the night and refused to "push the button" for 1.5 hours. Well, I woke up sobbing in pain and the nurse came in and scolded me saying "everytime you open your eyes you push the button!!!" it was not good.

Day two was wonderful as my dear friend brought Tony and I Bean Traders Coffee!! (A much needed perk after a night of being woken up almost hourly - no exaggeration). If it wasn't a vitals check it was blood draws, drain emptying, drug rounds, etc etc etc. So ridiculous! And poor Tony couldn't sleep through any of it because everytime they came in my room they would turn the strobe lights on.

Day two went by pretty quick. I came off the morphine pump and was switched to oxycodone and tylenol and only had to have one IV push of morphine mid-day for what they referred to as "break through pain". I woke up in the night with a fever and my IV site was red and ON FIRE. My nurse was bizarrely not convinced that my IV site was infiltrated and seemed to just stare at it and say very frustrating things like "I hear you, I'm listening". She left the room and I asked Tony if I was hallucinating that she was completely NOT hearing what I was saying. I finally convinced her she needed to get the thing out of my arm when she tried to clear it with saline and I about came off the bed. The hospital bed was one of those that pump up as you shift your weight but mine was broken and only deflated and never pumped back up - not good for a giant back incision to be laying on the hard bar of the bed. They had a man come in the middle of night #2 and take the foot of my bed apart, take it out into the hall, bang on it a bunch and put it back. It worked for all of 5 minutes. So UNCOMFORTABLE!!! Later that same night I got up to go to the bathroom and Tony was helping me and I passed out on the commode. I definitely scared him to death and they had to drag me to the bed and put my head low and feet really high to get me to come back. A rough Night 2 to say the least.

Day 3 I woke up with some phlebitis in my right arm from the botched IV site but luckily they let me go home anyways! Tony was practically delirious from the major lack of sleep in 48 hours and I was just ready to GET out!!!

This week has been pretty good. I tried to play tough on Saturday and Sunday and skip some pain med doses but ended up suffering terribly by letting it get out of my system. I can't use my left arm which is frustrating. I can't reach, at the moment, to wipe myself off - which is humbling. I've recently been able to stand up/push myself up on my own. And also late this past week I figured out how to give myself a bath for the most part all by myself - there's only a few times that Tony has to step in and help. I've got three Jackson Pratt drains this time but they have not been as bad mentally as the last time:)

Tomorrow I go to Duke for a follow up and hopefully will be getting one of the three drains out (but the amount they are putting out I'm kind of doubting it).

Mentally, I'm doing pretty good. I've had my down moments - - sometimes the scars seem so large and daunting that it's hard to wrap my mind around why I went through all of this - recovery, pain, put my faimly through this, etc. for something so superficial. But, when I focus on the end result I'm overwhelmingly assured that it's definitely worth it. I'm so much happier with my body - even with the extra scars it takes to achieve it.

Tomorrow hopefully we will also go home I'm just hoping the drive to Duke isn't too painful. The incisions on the front and back and my drain sites are definitely quite painful still. I will update how the surgeon follow up goes tomorrow.

Here's a funny pic of me with Bean Traders and my incentive sperometer!

A short update...

2011-02-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

So reconstructive surgery was a success. It took place this past Monday the 21st. I still have not been able to completely ween myself off the pain meds so writing a blog is a much harder task than normal. I'm doing well. I feel that recovery is going pretty well and everyday I feel a little more independent. I've been able to go for small walks today and yesterday and it's been nice to get some fresh air. The hospital stay was a total nightmare (will elaborate later) but I did get out as planned on Wednesday morning. I have 3 blood drains and will be going back to Duke on Tuesday morning to hopefully get at least one of them removed. I'll hopefully be able to write a longer post tomorrow if I can find some time where I'm a little more clear headed...for the moment the pain med haze is pretty thick.

Thanks everyone for your prayers and kind words.

Short and sweet....creme brulee like.

2011-02-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

So, this is kind of funny. A pic of me on our honeymoon in Sept. 2007 "cracking creme brulee....." Amelie style and then again over Valentine's weekend 2011. Still have those "in love" eyes:) Looking at the man I'm in love with who is taking these silly Amelie wanna be photos of me. Well, we had an amazing time in Asheville. Caught up with some old friends, shopped, had an amazing dinner at Grove Park Inn and even got to fall asleep to some crazy teen outreach convention blaring all kinds of Backstreet Boys, etc. etc. until the wee hours of the morning in the hotel lobby....no wonder our hotel was so inexpensive? We made the most of it. It was a short and sweet trip, but just right.

We headed to Duke that Monday and I got great news from the radiologist who did my ultrasound. She searched and dug into my right armpit to the point that it was super sore the next day...but I'm not complaining. She had just diagnosed another "too young" girl as she put it and was not taking any chances. The nodes she saw in the ultrasound were ones that she also said she saw back in November when I had my mammogram and MRI of my right breast. It just so happened this same radiologist read/signed off on those results. She said "I feel good about telling you that these nodes are normal and you can leave with a clean bill of health." - - instant, overwhelming, all consuming relief and exhaustion. Funny how you don't realize how sometimes high strung emotions can really wear you out. So, reconstructive surgery HERE I COME! :)

I got the call from Duke today. The surgery is at 11:30am on Monday morning (feb. 21st). We have to be at Duke at 9:30am and I'll be staying (as long as all goes as planned) until Wednesday morning. I'm a little bummed that it's kind of late in the day because I know by then I'll be working on a no caffeine migraine and super cranky. Sometimes the only reason I get out of bed in the morning is because of cereal. I'm a caffiene/ cereal addict and I'm not afraid to admit it. I feel bad for those who will have to deal with my hunger complaints and crybaby-ness Monday morning.

Thanks all as I know you're praying for me and this surgery. Although this surgery may be more involved than the mastectomy, I really feel good about it. Will be nice to be put back together again. As much as the word "reconstructive surgery" pretty much sums it up - it should also be applied to my mental state as this stage in the process is also a mental reconstruction. Definitely ready to get this behind me.

Duke is like a box of chocolates...

2011-02-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

You never know what you're gonna get....

So this past week I had three Duke appointments, three days in a row. Made for a long week and a lot of travel. I stayed with mom & dad Sunday through Wednesday (Tony stayed back and work since he's about to take time off for my surgery on the 21st). I really missed him, but it was good to spend one on one time with my parents. Monday dad went with me to Duke early in the morning and I got my monthly Lupron injection - nothing too exciting. Tuesday mom went with me to Duke for my pre-op appointment and we met with my surgeon and his nurse. The only thing I found out that I didn't know prior to going in was that I'm going to have a catheter - which is really neither here nor there and hopefully I'll never really know it's in. My surgery is Monday, Feb. 21st and I'll know what time it is that day by the Friday beforehand.

So Wednesday morning rolled around and I had to go to Duke for my radiation oncology follow up. I decided since I knew I'd be in a gown getting a physical exam, etc, that it'd be best if dad just stayed home instead of spending half his day in a waiting room and I decided to just go to Duke by myself and then I would drive straight home to my house after the appointment.

I love my radiation oncologist - she's probably one of my favorite Duke Dr.'s. She did a physical exam, feeling my clavicle area, collar bones, neck, armpits, right breast, etc. As she was pressing in my right armpit I looked up at her to say something and she had her eyes closed with her head tilted back as if she were "blocking everything else out". So, I decided to stay quiet and wait until she finished. Without much sighing or hesitation she said she felt "palbable nodes" on my right side (this is the opposite side from where I've already had cancer). She said she would like me to have an ultrasound but that she's not worried at all. She said that I won't be seeing her again for 6 months and she doesn't want me to come back in 6 months, her to feel them again and then wish that she would have had an image of them....a baseline of sorts of what they looked like. Obviously this is very worrisome to me. No matter what she says about her not being worried - she wouldn't want an image of them for no reason. I felt completely in shock and we ended the meeting, I got dressed and went and scheduled my ultrasound - Feb. 14th at 2pm. No better way to spend Valentine's right?...ugh.

I got half way out of Duke and finally sat down on a bench in the halls and called Tony in tears. I actually considered telling no one because I just didn't want to worry anyone. Its almost as if I've failed to have any sort of setback at this stage in the game. I almost wish that my surgery were not so soon on the timeline because my Dr. wanted the ultrasound done before my surgery which is a week from Monday - so of course it seems to me as if she's rushing the images - but it may just be because of when my surgery is. Obviously my mind has been racing. I called my dad and mom on my drive home and decided never to go to Duke alone again. This was supposed to be a simple follow up and they find new lumps. I just simply can't believe it.

I know that palpable nodes only means that she can feel them, but I kind of thought that your lymph nodes are always palpable and that of course they are more so if you are sick, etc. Anyways, she asked if I had noticed any new lumps and I told her no - which is the truth - "nothing other than severe hypochondria" I said jokingly. She immediately said anyone whose been through this will always have that little fear in the back of their mind and not to beat myself up over passing anything that's physically going on with me through the "cancer filter" before passing it off as something else. That made me feel better. The cancer filter...yeah, I've got one of those.

Tony's immediate response was "it's nothing to worry about until it is something to worry about". This is so true and so hard to make my reality. I wasn't going to blog about this. I haven't called my therapist. I really honestly didn't want to even say it out loud. But, the more its settling in the more I realize this has to just be categorized into another bump in the road and I have to just keep going. I can't think the worst I just have to let Monday get here and go through the motions. Tonight in the shower I finally allowed myself to feel for them....yep - they're there. They exist. They are lumps. Those are facts. The unknown is the worst.

Today - I thought back to before my first surgery. The fear of that first surgery and the unknown of what it would be like to have my breast cut off was easily 100 times worse than the actual surgery itself. I just keep telling myself - this is similar - the unknown is vast, daunting, suffocating. So - I'm going to focus on the known. The known is this - I'm having an ultrasound on Monday, until then, everything is speculation.

I have a lot of guilt in my life because of cancer. I constantly say and feel things like "Tony didn't ask for this life, this marriage, this wife." I know I shouldn't feel that way, but it's true. I have drastically changed because of this. Our life has drastically changed. I wish for nothing more than to be happy. I just want to be happy all the time. Right before my oncologist came in the room that day Tony had text me the information for our dinner reservations on Saturday night in Asheville. It made me so happy. As soon as she said she felt something my mind raced for a happy place...the dinner....and immediately I was happy again. I'm so looking forward to this weekend in Asheville, in spite of this new news. It's so important to mentally have "happy places" in times like these. There are so many sad people in this world who cannot get out from under it as hard as they try. I'm so thankful for the strength I have been blessed with. I refuse to let the sadness take over. I'm just going to keep going. Keep waking up, making coffee, and being happy. It's not that hard, but it is a choice. A daily, waking, choice. My nagging mind may try to get me down, but then I remember - I have control of that mind and I just redirect it.

I didn't want to write this blog post but it has definitely made me feel better. I'd appreciate prayers and thoughts for Tony and I this weekend through Monday as we face a small bump in the road. I'll definitely post as soon as I hear the results.

FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY*

2011-02-04T06:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I've definitely been going through many phases of emotion about this upcoming surgery. I talked with my therapist about it and he put it very simply. I've just started getting used to this new body and now they are going to "reconstruct" my left side and there will be this new shape to get used to once again. It's rather strange and really hard to describe. I started having lots of feelings that maybe I didn't want to have the surgery...maybe I don't want to get used to anything else. I don't like that this surgery will take away my scar, something I've gotten used to and almost found comfort in as a reminder of everything I've been through.

I realized that in the future looking back the time that I've lived with this scar and lack of my left breast will actually be a very small window of time. It's been 10 months since my mastectomy and a LOT of healing has taken place around that scar, physically and emotionally. I had drains removed and put back in due to fluid build up, I had major physical therapy in order to get my arm above my head for radiation and then I had major burns and scars from radiation and the tightness came back. My physical therapist said to picture putting bubble gum in a towel and then into the dryer. She said to picture trying to pull that towel apart after you got it out of the dryer - that's what radiation did to my tissues. That's what I've been healing from, fighting with, getting used to for the past 10 months. My scar has been "with" me through all of that. And suddenly I feel proud of it.

So after talking with Tony I decided I definitely wanted to take some pictures to help me remember this window of time in my life. I never want to forget this body I live in now and how I feel about it. I never want to forget how strong I am in that I've still gotten out of bed everyday, strapped on that prosthesis and moved on with my life. I never want to forget how welcoming my husband has been and that he's not afraid to touch my scar or snuggle me sans clothing. He's never made me feel disfigured or lacking in anyway and I can't describe the love I have for him. I never want to forget that while working out my cotton prosthesis has shifted in my sports bra and I just adjust it and keep going. I just keep going. It's amazing how much the human mind and spirit can endure. I am so thankful for this body and mind I have been given.

So I wanted to share these pictures. Pictures I took to help me remember no matter how hard all of this has been on me I am proud of this body and still find beauty in this figure. If you don't want to see it, don't click the link.

http://gallery.me.com/jarcroft#100031

"Out of the woods"

2011-01-09T18:03:00.001-08:00

Well, last week was rather acceptable at Duke. I saw my therapist - went well, saw my medical oncologist's LPN - she's my fav:), everything looked and feels "normal" so that's good, and went "upstairs" to the dreaded chemo room. Sounds like a pretty simple day right? Yeah, except we were there from 12 - 6pm...a LONG day of waiting. I had a chemo nurse who openly admits to me upon walking through the door, (this is when the trauma/anxiety starts to really rev up) "hi jill, you have not met me before because today is my first day." - I wanted to run but instead tried to be so optimistic that maybe she'd be the best nurse I'd ever had. Four needle sticks and several giant bruises later I was teary eyed and deep breathing with Regina Spektor blaring in my ears and trying my best to block it all out. Well at least the nurse's supervisor had informed me that the "drip" would only be for 15 minutes which for some reason I thought it was going to be a 45 minute infusion. Well...we sat there and sat there and sat there. My machine beeped and blared and nurses came rushing over asking who my nurse was? where was she? my answer was very short: "THE NEW GIRL." they hurried off only to figure out she hadn't closed the IV machine correctly so it hadn't even started....then about 30 minutes later her supervisor walks over and looks at my machine...perplexed. She leaves and comes back with the new girl: "You set this to drip for 45 minutes...it's only a 15 minute infusion"....and there you have it. If I only could have explained to them how traumatized I am by this whole process and how I don't like the beeping and how guilty I feel that I'm not technically getting chemo but am so sad to be going in that room...it's such a swirl of emotions and I just wish I could get over it. It's funny because my therapist has offered to GO to the chemo room with me and I felt like that was kind of ridiculous...but now I can kind of understand why. I couldn't have predicted that chain of events and I couldn't have possibly "worked through that" with him that day. It was pretty bad, but I had taken an ativan and we came back to my parents' house and I promptly and fell asleep.

I asked the chemo nurse this time about the Zometa side effects and she said I really shouldn't get those "flu-like" symptoms this time, so I was cautiously hopeful this past week. I didn't get any flu symptoms but I did have some major bone aches. I actually considered taking a pain pill in the middle of the night on Thursday but I just forced myself to go back to sleep and took some Motrin upon waking. The motrin kept it at bay for the most part and the major creaks and cracks are definitely dissipating this weekend.

Today Tony and I went and spent some time in the woods. It was freezing cold - a nice high of 28! I can't really name too many things that I love more than playing outside in the cold! Well, I was playing but Tony was "working" on sighting in a new rifle. I hiked around, looked for birds, and took some pretty cool shots of the bald and lanky trees waiting for their leaves to come back. I LOVE playing outside and really try not to take it for granted. I drove to Burlington tonight to stay with my parents - going to get up really early and be at the doors of the chemo room when they open tomorrow morning at 7:45am to get my monthly Lupron injection - this way I can come back to mom and dad's and work without missing too many hours. I was so glad to find out they open so early so I can just get it over-with.

I got some VERY good and BIG news this past week! My insurance all went through and my surgery has been scheduled for FEBRUARY 17TH!!! That's right - a little over a MONTH from now I'm going to be "put back together again" :) I'm so very excited and happy to have it coming so quickly. It's kind of funny how very different I feel about this surgery compared to the last. It will still be scary and daunting but for now, I'm just happy to have a date set - I've been waiting for this since November! I'm going to be having a latissimus dorsi flap reconstruction on my left side. They take a portion of my latissimus dorsi muscle on my back, tunnel it through my under arm and attach it to my left chest. They will then place a spacer under it which will eventually be replaced with an implant. (Yes, that means 2 surgeries). My plastic surgeon is HIGHLY recommended and I really like his nurse as I have spoken with her over the phone several times this week. I'll be staying at Duke for 3 days and 2 nights (assuming no complications) and then will need about a good week of little arm motion and pain killers.

So, it's nice to finally have a date set so Tony and I can start making plans. My biggest plan is to have a wonderful Valentine's with Tony before-hand and to keep as active as possible before this temporary moment of sedentary-ness happens to me:) This year's Valentines is VERY special for Tony & I as we are celebrating our 10th year of when we first met and had our first date:) How time flies...when you're in love.

Goodbye 2010..hello NEW year.

2011-01-02T20:01:00.000-08:00

Well, it was a GREAT Christmas, spent with friends and all of our family. I was so happy to feel like we got to spend time evenly at home with our friends and with our families and didn't feel too rushed or hectic. It was OBVIOUSLY a much better Christmas than last year, as that all seems somewhat of a blur.

Tony and I rang in the New Year this past weekend with mom and dad....just like last year, although this year it was not on the heels of my 2nd of 6 rounds of chemo with me asleep in Tony's lap while he and dad drank champagne and watched the funny entertainers on the television. I was so proud to be sharing in the moment with them; awake, with no chemo coursing through my body and most importantly of all....cancer free:)...what a rough year it has been indeed. It actually just dawned on me today that ALL of 2010 holds the "cancer" label and that is quite daunting to me; to realize that an entire year of my life has gone by. It definitely doesn't feel like it.
I've tried to "keep my chin up" today about the fact that the first weekday of the new year is going to be spent at Duke. I have a 6 month follow-up with my oncologist and my 2nd Zometa infusion. Zometa is the "bone-building" drug that I get every 6 months to help keep my bones strong and reduce the risk of bone metastases. Last time (the first time) I got this treatment it put me down and out for about 2 days with major bone pain, centralized in my sternum, and flu-like symptoms. Supposedly that is only supposed to happen on your first treatment, so I'm really, really hoping for the best tomorrow although, I'm also trying not to get my hopes up (a fine balance). The worst part about this treatment is once again I have to go back into the chemo room and it's about a 45 min. IV infusion. My veins have pretty much shriveled up to nothing in my right arm since chemo so I'm dreading the part where the chemo nurses try to find my veins, I'm dreading the chemo room in general, and maybe #3 on the list is I'm dreading the beeping. I'm very admittedly traumatized by those beeping IV machines. The chemo room is filled with this sound and anytime I've heard it anywhere else my anxiety level goes through the roof. I plan on getting my ipod loaded with good tunes to drowned it out for the course of my treatment. I'm trying really hard to be as positive as I can. It's just the fact of the matter is....even though I'm not getting chemotherapy...I'm still going to the chemo room tomorrow and having an IV infusion for about 45 minutes...it kind of doesn't matter what the drug is. The good news of all this is that I've strategically made an appointment with my therapist before the treatment to hopefully let off some steam prior to going in the room. I really like him so far. I've only met with him once and I've spoke with him on the phone once - so far so good. He definitely is like an extra brain that helps me organize, prioritize, and categorize my thoughts and feelings and it definitely keeps the overwhelming factor at bay.

Mom and I went shopping together on Saturday and twice I actually forgot about my breast being removed. I was looking at different shirts and one was strapless and I was looking for my size and then I thought...."oh, I can't just wear that". Sometimes my bra + prosthesis combo feels like a straight jacket on my body and makes me want to crawl out of my skin, but then there's other times when I completely forget and feel rather normal. The forgetting are the times I want to mentally focus on. Not "forgetting" I guess, but how I felt when I did forget. That's an amazing thing....that even for a brief second I could forget.....after all I've been through. Looking forward I know those brief seconds will become moments that will become days. That is what I'm looking forward to in 2011 and the years beyond.

All in all, I'm happy about this new year ahead of me. Tony and I have great things on our horizon and we can start making plans and working towards our goals and leave that big cancer factor in the dust. It will always be a part of who I am, who I've become, and I can't say that it doesn't define me. But, I can say with each passing day the world seems a little brighter and I'm starting to feel more and more like "myself" with every "normal" day I have.

Intro/Rising Action/Climax/Falling Action/Resolution.

2010-12-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

You'd think I was a major literary buff with that type of blog title but I think that's probably one of the ONLY things I learned in lit classes. Anyways, my point is...anyone who's ever gone to school understands which month November is in the dramatic structure of life....CLIMAX! I've always, always looked at school like this...August /September/October = Intro, rising action; November = CLIMAX; December = Falling Action; Christmas Break = Resolution (gonna do better next semester). :) See? Doesn't it all make sense?

November was a CRAZY busy month for me. My job position changed from part time to full time (which I love so much more, but it was quite the juggling act with school going full force). I started a boot camp at the Y with my friend Holly. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday start at 4:15am getting up and ready for boot camp at 5am - get home by 6:30am and either get ready for school, study, or get ready for work...makes for a long day. I have really LOVED boot camp. (It ends Dec. 22nd). Aside from missing quite a few days due to...you guessed it...Duke appointments!...I've really really enjoyed kind of proving to myself that physically...I'm back. I can do anything most anyone else can do and chemo has not drastically tore my body down. It's really helped in my range of motion with my left arm. I've worn my compression sleeve for every class and had no issues with lymphedema. I also have found that my "stiffness and pain" that is on my left side - mainly left over from radiation - is SO much better when I'm active and move it a lot - whether it's weight lifting or simple push ups - it really helps the tightness I experience day to day. That's been great to realize and will hopefully be a motivator to KEEP MOVING even after boot camp comes to an end.

School was so crazy busy (even with just 2 classes) right before Thanksgiving and I actually hosted my family's Thanksgiving the weekend before the holiday so I was trying to get prepared and caught up/on top of school before the break. I had my monthly Lupron injection at Duke on November 15th and drove to Burlington by myself to meet my dad who went to Duke with me. Half way there I decided maybe I should start the countdown of this monthly adventure. Here's how it went: "hmm..let's see, I have to come here every month for two years, it's just a shot, but it literally takes me 5 hours of driving on top of however long I have to wait at Duke...well I come for two years so that's 24 total shots. Ok, maybe I'll start a countdown...cause this is getting REALLY old....ok so I started the shots in July, August, September, October, so I'm on FIVE!?!?!?!?! 19 out of 24........." I found myself sobbing at the wheel of the car feeling like I couldn't breathe. I finally admitted somethings GOT TO GIVE and called the therapist that had called me months prior from Duke. I have really fought this whole idea of going to a therapist and then I suddenly realized I really need to take advantage of any and every resource that I'm being offered - why wouldn't I? Just like when I was so reluctant to take all the drugs being thrown at me through chemo and that nice lady said to me "Just think of all the things you need to climb a mountain....you wouldn't climb a mountain without water or barefoot would you? You've got to use the tools given to you to get through this." - It was an amazing perspective and I'm so glad I gave in and "ativaned" myself through all those chemo days....I honestly don't know if anyone could live through it otherwise. Anyways, I called the therapist and we made a plan to talk at my next monthly injection....which is December. Just knowing I was going to talk to him took a little pressure off.

The day after my Lupron I woke up with the flu....of course the week I'm supposed to be cleaning house, prepping for my early Thanksgiving, studying for exams and getting on top of school before the break, and working full time. It couldn't have come at a worse time. I definitely felt like I'd been kicked while I was down...it's so NOT FAIR for me to get the flu. I mean, I know I'm not always going to be healthy, but I just really took it personally that germs decided to invade my body and make me sick. I kind of don't deserve it! Not that anyone does, but you know, really? I was a big baby about it, especially when my husband proceeded to tell me that I needed to "chin up" because he's "seen me worse." I had to quickly remind him that although I've lived through cancer, I AM allowed to be "normal sick" and am NOT a super hero - no matter how much he thinks I am :) It was a crappy week, but i survived it - had a super successful Thanksgiving weekend with my family and made it through school. I ended up getting good grades in both my classes. Finally finished that anatomy class that I started LAST YEAR and had to quit because of cancer. In your face cancer. It was nice also to know that I remembered so much of the class so as for "blocking" that part of my life out - didn't happen.

I've decided not to go back to school in the spring. With full time work, a very complicated surgery, and well....life on the horizon, I just really need to take something off my plate and unfortunately school is the easiest choice for now. I kept finding myself getting REALLY down and really upset that instead of knitting or doing something crafty (which is literally my therapy) I had NO time to do it and anytime I would have been doing it I was studying b/c day time hours were spent working. My anatomy teacher was going to be super AWESOME and work with me for my surgery time out - but I just realized it wasn't how much leeway I got - it's how much pressure there was on me and how much extra work I would have had to do outside of school just to keep up. I will definitely go back - hopefully next fall. Now it's on to the fallign action/ resolution:) For now - I realized I put one too many things on my plate (at least I conquered them ) and now it's time to add some "me time" to my plate - and maybe even some dessert! ;)

Adaptation (From November)

2010-11-15T18:08:00.001-08:00

Wow! I can't believe I have not written on here in forever! Just a wonderful sign that life is still cancer free and I'm too busy! A lot has happened in the past month so I'm going to do a quick breakdown and get into the details later...

October was pretty busy with work, school, working out, and a wonderful vacation to round out the month.

1. On October 17th I ran my first 5K race called "Free to Breathe" for lung cancer in Boone. It was super fun and very fulfilling. Definitely made me want to do more and do them better of course:)

2. The last week of October Tony and I took our first vacation since my diagnosis. We drove up to South Bend, IN to see our dear friends Zack and Rachel. Rachel found out she was pregnant with their first child the day that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her pregnancy came into my life at the most pertinent time because I was finding out how my chance for children was going to be delayed, if possible at all. This allowed for it to not become a taboo part of my life and I knit Job all the most wonderful baby items I could. Making him gifts was kind of like my therapy in dealing with having children. Job was born 4 days after my last cancer treatment. It was an amazing parallel that for 9 months while Job was growing and developing inside of Rachel, I was fighting for my life so that maybe someday I too can have a child and bring new life into this world. His life has been such an uplifting aspect to my cancer fight timeline and I really am at a loss for words to describe this connection I have with him. Tony and I met baby Job for the first time when we went to South Bend. It was worth every second of that 11.5 hour drive to hold his little body in my arms and make sure he knew how much I love him!! :) My heart aches to think about him now...I can't wait to see him again.

Tony and I also were able to drive to Chicago from South Bend and spend one night being city slickers!! My mom got us an amazing hotel room for my birthday gift and we had such an great 24 hours in the city being tourists.

3. As we drove home from Chicago/South Bend that last week of October it was quickly dawning on me that my "anniversary" of my diagnosis was approaching. It is mostly a celebration that I lived to see this day, but it definitely felt like a black cloud. Unfortunately it also worked out that I had 3 days worth of Duke appointments the first week of November, so Tony and I were off to Burlington to stay with mom and dad for the week. Fresh off our vacation high we were back at Duke...three days in a row...waiting, waiting, waiting rooms...It for some reason got old really fast. I had a meeting with my future plastic surgeon, a mammogram on my right breast, a meeting with my radiation oncologist for my "skin check" follow up, and an MRI of my right breast. A long, depressing week. As we went back and forth to Duke those days I realized it was like I was reliving the events up until my diagnosis last year all over again. In and out of Dr. offices, scans, and tests galore...Duke, Duke, and more Duke. It was really quite a daunting week. I just had to keep my head up and focus on the number one fact...I survived.

4. A super fun moment of that week was that Nicole and I had our right breast MRI's on the same night at Duke and we were able to meet and film our Amazing Race entry video!! Wahooo! Now we are just waiting for the new season to be posted and we'll be all set!!

5. Plastic Surgeon: This is a long, long story, so I'm gonna just sum it up as best I can. I was always going to have my right breast removed profilactically. I guess somewhere in this past year, the details of this part of my "treatment" were lost through conversations with doctors, etc. I do remember that my surgeon's response was "if you got cancer in your left arm, would you cut off your right one?" - but that to me, still did not phase me. Obviously...it's not comparable. Anyways, come to find out, there is not enough data to support the fact that a woman who has had breast cancer in one breast (and that doesn't carry the breast cancer gene) is likely to have it recur in the opposite breast. Therefore, NO insurance company will pay for a profilactic mastectomy and most oncologists (including my medical onc. and radiation onc. at Duke) don't think that the surgery would benefit me in any way. This was not an easy thing to discuss. Since my surgery I've kind of been getting used to my left side having no breast and kind of "bidding farewell" to my right breast since I have a lot more time to deal with it being removed. However, that will not be the case anymore. The odd thing is that there is SO LITTLE data about women in my age group having/getting/re-getting breast cancer that it seems a little skewed to say that there is not enough data, because it's really that there is NO data. My oncologist did admit this point as we were discussing it. I really had a hard time swallowing it as it is something that I thought maybe for once, I could control....but I'm just gonna lump the "worry" of my right breast getting cancer in the category with the "2 B's and 2 L's" and forget about it as best I can. I did not get my surgery date scheduled but I'm hoping it will take place in February - I'm waiting on some insurance things to go through and then they will put me on their books. I will still be having the lat-flap procedure on the left side and nothing done on the right.

6. The day that I had my mammogram I was seeing my radiation oncologist for a "skin check" and to see how I was doing with my pain on my left side immediately after the mammogram. The mammogram clinic at Duke is not a fond memory for me (obviously) and I definitely don't fit the demographic in the waiting room. I really liked the lady that did it and when we got finished she asked me to go sit back in the waiting room...instead of getting my gown off and being on my merry way. As I sat back in the all female waiting room with a bunch of 50+ women seemingly super nervous and hating their grey gowns my mind began to race....."why is she making me sit back in here when she's already taken my images? what if she saw something and wants a doctor to look at it?" I immediately felt sick and blank and numb and....AFRAID!!! So I began to pray. But what was so bizarre that I realized immediately was I could NOT bring myself to pray and ask that I don't have cancer again, it just felt like too much to ask. So I just kept praying and asking that whatever I was about to be told just please god - give me the strength to handle it. It's quite often overwhelming how much my wishes, dreams, hopes, and even prayers have changed over the past year. My tech came to get me, handed me my printed out mammogram results with CLEAR findings to hand deliver since I was going immediately after to see my oncologist - phew! One great big sigh of relief.

In fact all of my scans, tests, etc came back clear from that go round of testing. I didn't realize how much I was subconsciously worried about them until they posted on my Duke website and I sobbed a great big relieving sob. That's another thing I'm adapting to...you can't worry about getting cancer for the first time or getting cancer again any more than you can worry about the sky falling in because you can't control it....so I'm trying to adjust to keeping it "out" of my mental stream....but it sure is easier to not worry about the sky. :)

One bad day is another man's good day!?

2010-09-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

No really...how does that saying go? So yesterday was a horrible, no good, very bad day. I was supposed to run at 5:30am and got approximately 2 hours of solid sleep...if that. I had multiple hot flashes while trying to fall asleep, several hour long hot flashes throughout the night, 2 or 3 major cases of night sweats to where I was freezing to death and shivering uncontrollably, followed by a few more hot flashes, and then....it was morning time. Needless to say, I did not go running. I woke feeling super nauseous, on edge, and well...hung over. I had to work from 9-5 and although my job at home, it requires a TON of concentration and most definitely a keen mind. I was so incredibly miserable from not sleeping and my level of frustration with this issue is through the roof. I feel kind of at a loss because instead of giving me a sleep aid, my oncologists are refusing this tactic and instead want me to take an anti-depressent or a nerve pain/epilepsy medication to treat my hot flashes. It's like treat one symptom the other will go away, I just don't understand why they wouldn't treat the tried and true problem since its well known there are drugs on the market that help people sleep through the night....I'm sure there's some reason behind their methods:(

Anyways, I woke up and while trying to force some coffee through my very nauseous beat-up body I read all about this drug I've been prescribed for my hot flashes (gabapentin/neurontin). It seems to actually work for some women in specifically chemopause and has cut hot flashes by up to 65%! I also read that chemopause side effects can be SO MUCH more intense that just regular menopause side effects. I think I am having the more intense effects FO SHO!. So, I "openend my mind" as my medical oncologist would say, to taking this nerve med for my hot flashes and decided I would try it last night.

I proceeded to try and work and as I'm sitting at my computer minding my own business I start to feel a hot flash coming on (there is no way to describe this unless you have experienced it), but on one of the breast cancer websites they described the aura that women get before a hot flash as a feeling of suffocation. Yep, that's right. SUFFOCATION, while you're just sitting at a computer, and then your skin temperature raises approximately 6 degrees and you break out in an all body sweat.....it's so unbearable. Well, I was a little on edge from sleep deprivation and instead of understanding my aura sensation was just signs of a hot flash, I started to panic and had not one, but two terrible panic attacks. Then I felt super defeated and like I really was this frail, weak-minded, red-flag waving cancer survivor that my medical oncologist has deemed me to be. I decided to take an adivan, quit work, go back to bed, and start the day over. I woke up at 5pm and just pretended like the 1st half of the day never happened. I reluctantly, but with hope, took my neurontin last night and had 1 hot flash while I was falling asleep and 1 hot flash while I was waking up....the in between....is unknown. Hopefully this is a good sign of whats to come. I think I can say I've tried as hard as I can to go the natural route and it's just not gonna happen for me.

Today was a much better day. Woke up feeling rested, not hung over, and well...I'm hopeful that this new drug is gonna work. No red-flag waving here...or white flag for that matter. I am not a quitter.

I had to include this picture. My cat is rather strange and laid in my lap

while I worked for a few hours like this today....he's good company and entertainment:):)

It's blowing in the wind!!!???

2010-09-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

So, I caught my hair blowing in the wind the other day....I have to admit. I liked it:) It's finally getting a little bit tame but I just really can't say I like having short hair. I don't. But, I can say I'm starting to finally like my hair short...finally. Plus I realized, I kind of have to:) It's gonna be this way for a while.

So, I've been dealing with a pretty significant pain in my left side, specifically where my drain site was since radiation ended. I finally called into my radiation oncologist about it last week because I realized that maybe it's not normal and I just really wanted someone to do a physical exam and tell me whether or not I've healed normally, etc, etc. I was not supposed to have a follow up with my radiation oncologist until November, so I didn't think it'd be too big of a deal to call and ask to be seen a few months early (this was actually Nicole's idea...Thanks Nicole for helping me sort through this!!). Their main question was "is this new pain?". It's not new pain, just pain I've been waiting to go away and it hasn't really subsided at all. So, they said they would like to see me and I went last Friday with Tony. Once they assessed my pain and looked me over the Dr. seemed pretty confident that there was a really good chance I might have a fractured rib...............................................

..............................................................................................................

..........What? It's somewhat common to get rib fractures in the areas where your highest radiation dose was and my drain site is one of the places I had my "boost" which was the highest dose of radiation because it's one of the places recurrence is most likely. So, they sent me over to have an X-ray of my left chest and side and Tony and I drove home...wondering.....Luckily, they called before the day was over and said that my rib is not fractured and it is probably just a "slow healing" area from radiation and to continue to take motrin and give it time. I guess it was relieving to know I didn't have a fractured rib, but that the pain is attributable to something real. It was also nice to hear from my radiation oncologist that my skin otherwise looks as though it has healed very nicely.

Other than that interesting little hiccup, I've been doing really good. I feel SUPER busy now that I'm working full time on my days off from school. I went from having TOO MUCH free time, to not enough, so its definitely been an adjustment. I can't complain though. Every morning when I take a shower and put on a clean pair of pajamas and walk downstairs to my computer with a coffee mug in hand I am just so thankful that I can work from home. I know most people would kill for an at home job, and they came to me. It just seems to have been such perfect timing and is working out so well for me. I realized today how nice it is that I don't have to wear my prosthesis for 8 hours a day while I'm out in public. It definitely gets heavy and annoying just wearing it for a couple of hours at school.

Tony and I have been trying to camp every available weekend. We took my nephew Brennan this past weekend and had a blast!! Even though we did get rained out and packed it all in and left the camp site at about 11:30 and drove home. We all were super awake and couldn't imagine just sitting in the tent for the rest of the night while it rained on us. We had done the funnest part already anyways, set up camp, cut fire wood, made fires, exploring, hot dogs, and SMORES!...so I felt like it was still a successful night:)

The only other (medical) thing going on with me that's relatively new is terrible night sweats. They started about 2 weeks ago and I have had them sporadically. They are very different than a hot flash because a.) I sleep through them and b.) I sweat about 20x more than a hot flash. Tony woke me up the other morning around 5 and I got out of bed to turn my alarm off. When I came back to bed it looked like someone had poured water all over the bed in an outline of my body....all the way down to my legs...can we say DISGUSTING!?!?! I was drenched from head to toe, my pillow was drenched, and I was freezing!!! I mentioned it to my radiation oncologist, but unfortunately it's another lovely side effect of menopause (which I've learned recently that when you're in menopause from cancer related treatments they've coined it "chemopause"). Anyways, it sucks really bad and I've tried sleeping on a beach towel, but that makes me really over heated and causes me to have tons more hot flashes. So far, I can't win. It's definitely interrupting my sleep cycle and that is my biggest complaint lately, I just don't feel like I'm sleeping like I should be.

All in all, I'm doing really good. This past week was the first week that I've run twice in one week. I've been getting up before the sun and running 3 miles with my friend Holly for the past month. This week we did it twice..it feels SO good...I'm really starting to look forward to my runs. We run 4 minute intervals. 4 minutes of running and 1.5 minutes of walking...Holly's the greatest partner because when I'm about to quit towards the end of the run she'll say "You've only got 50 seconds left!!! What CAN'T you do for 50 seconds!?!?" I feel like saying "are you talking to ME!??!?!" If I can live through the 12 days post chemo I can do ANYTHING for 50 seconds!!!!!! Good bye cancer. You've taught me SO much:)

"This is dedicated to the one I love..."

2010-09-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is our 3 year anniversary...my wonderful, charming, loving husband. I have to thank you for sticking with me through all of this. We've had so much change and strife that most couples never experience. And somehow, we've managed to grow stronger and closer. My love for you is beyond measure.

"Love can never be, exactly what you want it to be..." but we sure have mastered the technique of making the most of it. A few things we've conquered: an entire state move, 3 emergency room trips for you, 2 ER trips for me, major health changes for blood pressure and cholesterol, my breast cancer diagnosis, 6 rounds of chemo every 21 days for 4 months, a 3 day hospital stay for low WBC, one major surgery, 2 horrible blood drains, 7 weeks of daily radiation and sleeping apart, baldness, altering of the female body you fell in love with, our chance and timeline for children being taken from us, hot flashes, menopausal mood swings, countless moments of hysteria, a fruit bowl thats been converted into a pharmacy, 2 dogs, 1 cat, countless knitted delicacies and video games beaten, and countless memorable couchbed sleep overs....we're still ticking....our hearts still beat for one another!! We still laugh, we still love, we still live. We are richer in love than any funds could ever bring us. You've been my strength, my rock, my safe haven. I love you to the ends of the earth and back. You deserve this blog post and everything the world has to offer. Thank you most importantly for being my best friend. I love you forever. My dear husband.

It's Amazing...It's Amazing...

2010-08-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

So, August has been a busy, but welcome month for me. I started school, am starting a job. The weather is finally cooperating so that Tony and I can start camping every possible weekend until it gets too cold! We went a few weeks ago and it was super fun! We got these hammocks that are like sleeping in the clouds and the dogs had a blast. Except for Jacks, as soon as it got dark she went in the tent and wouldn't come out. Poor girl...she's such a scaredy cat:) School is going well so far. I'm retaking a class that I was taking last year and had to quit with 5 weeks left so its all pretty much like dejavu thus far. I made a 96 on my first exam and was so relieved (my chemo brain has not failed me!).

As anyone who knows me well knows...I am a HUGE Amazing Race fan....Nicole (my friend that I met at chemo who has gone through this with me..literally) and I have decided to apply to be on the AMAZING RACE!!! I'm so stoked I can't even explain it!! I think CBS will love us as we don't exactly know each other super well, together we make up ONE pair of breasts (wink) and we are cancer SURVIVORS!! I mean come on...who wouldn't want to watch us crash and burn as we race around the world for a million dollahs!! :) We met recently at Starbucks...that's right!!!...NOT AT DUKE! And had coffee and filled out our very thick applications to be on the race...next step...make a 3 minute video explaining why we are the perfect candidates...next step...wait for CBS to call us!! Yippee!!!

Well, my birthday is right around the corner. Good ole 9-11 which has never been the same since I turned 18 and terrorists attacked NYC, PA and DC. But I'm turning 27!! To think, there have really been times this past year when I was unsure I'd make it to 27, and here I am, cancer free and ready to celebrate. It's funny a good friend of mine wrote me and said "Can you believe what you've been through? I don't even know all of it and I can't believe it." It's true...there has been lots of reflection lately on the events of the past year. I keep reciting things to myself like "this time last year I still didn't have cancer..." or I see a picture of me pre-diagnosis and think how happy and unaware I was. I mean, of course I couldn't have ever imagined last year on my birthday what my life was about to become...it's just interesting to remember how it was...the past 26 years of my life will forever be labeled "before I was diagnosed" or "pre-cancer". It changes things....that's for sure.

Well - I use this blog to organize my thoughts. The top two things I'm working through right now are 1. trying to get over my anger/frustration at my oncologist and 2. trying not to worry or feel negative towards making future plans. Even before cancer I was notorious for getting way too bent out of shape when things didn't go as PLANNED. I always say that's one of the reasons I married Tony because he taught me how to "go with the flow" a little more. I can't explain how much of an adjustment it was to have my future, routine, health, hair, boob, etc. etc. ripped away from me and now suddenly, everything's just back to normal. Like someone took away my day planner and now they are returning it..."here...carry on". Yeah, easier said than done, that's all I can say. It's been a major transition. I'm just so thankful to be starting my job (working from home, I'm so fortunate) and that school is going well and things are starting to feel routine again. The monthly visit to Duke is always on the horizon, but each time its getting less and less like a big storm cloud on the east horizon.

Thanks everyone for your continued support and prayers. It's been a long road. I couldn't have done it without my friends and family.

Communication BREAKDOWN!!!!

2010-08-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I had my liver MRI - it came back "clean & clear" so that was GREAT news!! I also had pretty much the worst meeting with my medical oncologist ever. I know looking back that we had a major communication breakdown and she got me so emotional that I wasn't able to clear the air or clarify anything that was being said. Long story short...she initially admitted she "genuinely didn't know why I was there" and when I told her to get my liver MRI results, she just kind of ignored me. Then she continued to reiterate the fact that they have done EVERY scan, test, etc. and I don't have cancer. I don't know why and I guess you had to be there but it just really struck me funny - like "was I sitting here like a hypochondriac asking her multiple ways whether or not I still had cancer?" I already KNOW this! Anyways, she then proceeded to ask what type of support group I have and wondered if I need to see a therapist. NOW!?!?! NOW 10 MONTHS LATER SHE'S CONCERNED I NEED A SUPPORT GROUP!?!?!? Um, a little late DOC! (Deep breath). Obviously I was very emotional at this point, not understanding why my oncologist seemed to be treating me like some giant worry wort, unstable, emotionally tapped patient. And on top of it all, I actually called in after my third round of chemo last FEBRUARY and ASKED what they could give me support wise and they gave me a website to go to...A WEBSITE! I started telling my oncologist about my priceless friend Nicole I made at chemo and she totally acted like "that's not enough" and from then on...everything I said to her about how I feel about my health, future or otherwise she picked apart and labeled a "red flag" because I am being "too strong".

I was crying and told her that every time I come to Duke I'm a little on edge anyways because obviously that place holds a lot of bad memories and I have major anxiety about going to the chemo room. I expressed to her how I wish I could be a strong happy face for the people still going through chemo and she said that was a "red flag" because I'm being to hard on myself. Then she asks me how I feel about my upcoming surgery in January and I say that I'm ready to get it over with and have that next big hurdle kind of under my belt and she said that was a "red flag" because I shouldn't think it's all just going to be over after that surgery happens....This was the most frustrating meeting with her. My emotions were so on edge and all the things she was picking apart that I was saying were so unexpected that I just shut down and wanted the appointment to be over. I felt ambushed and totally beaten. Don't get me wrong, I love my medical oncologist, she's been an incredible doctor in terms of my treatment plan and well...saving my LIFE. I just, well....WE just had a bad communication day and I'm still kind of not over it. She even said that she doesn't like that women have immediate reconstruction (mind you, immediate means 6 MONTHS after radiation ends you can have surgery to begin to have your breast replaced) because she thinks its unhealthy for women to deal with so much so fast. I'd first like her to walk around with one breast for 6 months and then tell me it's unhealthy to deal with getting that "fixed". ARGH!!! (There. I feel better.) Lesson number 50,987: DON'T try to share your FEELINGS with your medical oncologist.

It's 5 o'clock...do you know where your positive is?

2010-08-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

So I've taken a little break from posting to try and just live life as normal as possible - it's a daily struggle. Medical news is as follows:

I had my Zometa infusion on July 12th. It's a drug that I'm taking to help keep my bones strong and healthy - it helps my bone marrow get "ramped" up and build more bone - since I'm at high risk of getting osteoporosis being in menopause at such a young age. It also has been shown in studies to significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence in the bones. I've learned the 2 B's and 2 L's and unfortunately recite them almost daily - like I'm studying for a test. Breast cancer recurs mainly in the bones, brain, lungs, and liver. So - to take Zometa is one good preventative measure. I will have this IV infusion every six months for the next four years...another visit to the chemo room at Duke, but I'm doing better with that. The Zometa was supposed to give me "flu-like" symptoms for 48 hours but instead it gave me the most excruciating bone pain I have ever experienced (much worse than the Neulasta WBC shot I took during chemo) and most of it was focused in my sternum. It put me completely down for 2 days and for a good 7 - 10 days after that I creaked and cracked like a rickety old woman when I would get up...I guess that's the bones building part. I'm also taking Vitamin C and D to help the Zometa work and doing weight bearing exercise to make my bones absorb the drugs as effectively as possible.

I met with my LPN for one of my "final follow-ups" unfortunately my medical oncologist had some kind of emergency and I did not get to see her that day but I found out that my bilirubin was elevated (which this was an abnormal normal for me during chemo but then it returned to normal after chemo and now had elevated again). They are concerned with this because of the lesion that was found on my liver prior to chemo. I had the liver biopsy and 2 MRI's since it was found and it hasn't shrunk or grown or changed in any way - but the fact that my bilirubin has been elevated again is enough to get it checked out. My "routine" liver MRI was scheduled for November but they have pushed it up to August 23rd - so I'll be having that pretty soon.

I go to have my Lupron (ovary suppressor) injection every 3rd Monday of the month - so I'll be having my 3rd injection on August 23rd also. I did a little better on my 2nd visit back to the chemo room and had an old chemo nurse who rememebered me and was happy to see my pretty little locks coming back.

I went to 2 physical therapy sessions the last week of August to learn how to give myself a lymphatic drainage massage - to help manage any signs or symptoms of lymphedema. I've been wearing my compression sleeve on my left arm everyday for the past 4-5weeks and I'm getting somewhat used to it. I have to wear it during "active hours" of the day - so pretty much all the time except for when I'm sleeping. The main complaint I have for it is that it is TOO HOT - just imagine wearing tights on one of your arms during these 100+ degree days - it will raise your body temperature super fast!!

Speaking of body temperature - I've been suffering from major insomnia due to my hot flashes during night time hours. They tend to increase exponentially as the night goes on and by the time I lay down to go to sleep my bed turns into this torture chamber of back to back hotflashes. When I found myself sitting up, covered in sweat, on the edge of my bed doing yoga breathing two nights in a row I finally called in to my doctor and begged for something to help me sleep. They asked me to try melatonin (for sleep aid) and Vitamin E (to get my hotflashes under contorl). I've been on it for 2 weeks now and it's worked for about 3 nights....when I go back on Aug. 23rd I'm going to beg on my hands and knees for a sleep aid - sleep is the great HEALER and I can't sleep having 3-4 hot flashes an hour...instead I lay there and get all stressed out that they are happening and wait for the next one to happen instead of trying to go back to sleep. Not a good method.

So, I've been trying to live my life as normal as possible. I'm trying to get used to the rediculous amount of pills I'm taking. Calcium, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin B, Melatonin and Femara (estrogen blocker). It's a lot to keep up with but I'm finally getting into the habit of it. It's been so nice to realize that I get to say things like I HAD cancer and not HAVE cancer. I'm still trying to get used to people telling me they like my hair cut and stop correcting them and saying "it's not a hair cut, it's chemo re-growth" - I understand most people don't want to hear that just about as much as I don't want people thinking I intentionally cut my hair this short. I'm now also trying to come up with a quick and simple answer to "what's that sleeve on your arm for?" ugh. Anyways, its been nice to wake up in the mornings and not wonder how I'm going to muster through the day and to be able to make plans that don't entirely revolve around my doctor's appointments. I've decided to go back to school to work on finishing my biology degree, nursing school is going to be put on the back burner for a while. Mentally, I'm a little afraid of starting school again on Monday - afraid of starting something only to have it all taken away from me again. I'm afraid to make birthday plans, or commit to job opportunities, there's always that shadow of cancer in the back of my mind. But - I refuse to live that way. I can worry about cancer as much as I can worry about getting in a fatal car accident every time I leave the house, or about the sky falling on me while I'm sitting at home for that matter! I refuse to do it. It may not come as easy as it does to others, but I try my hardest every day to stare that fear in the face and say "I refuse to put my life on hold for you any longer." Pretty much the worst part of this is how much it has interrupted my life....they always say that life can never be put on hold. You know, after people die, etc. that life "goes on" - well that's true, but cancer sure interrupted my life, dreams, goals, etc. It also redirected them. This is something I'm still processing and coming to terms with. I was diagnosed in November of last year. It has been a tough road the past 10 months, so tough in fact...that tough became my normal. I'm trying to get used to things being/coming a little easier for me. Even though it's nice to realize how tough my mind/body is...I don't necessarily like comparing any daily aches or pains to the magnitude of chemo misery. Nothing is comparable to that. So, I don't want to pretend I never went through all of that, I just want to pretend that I'm normal. When I get a cold...I don't want to be hard on myself and say "that's nothing compared to chemo." I want to really have a cold and be normal....there's got to be a balance. I'm still struggling to find it.

Day 23...losing my "muchness"...

2010-07-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

So, on day 23 of radiation, Tony came to my Friday appointment with me. My radiation oncologist came in the treatment room and saw me "on the table" that day to look at my skin and help plan my boost treatment. She gave me the good news that I'm technically cancer free now and they are only dealing with treating microscopic aspects of the disease that they wouldn't have anyway of detecting (this was a very good thing to hear on Friday morning of day 23!). Then we had to meet with my medical oncologist's LPN. I feel very close to my LPN as she has been very accessible throughout this entire process and has really come to understand me and communicate with me in the most effective way. As we were discussing what's next on the treatment plan timeline, I asked her what she would say to me if I told her I was utterly terrified of my treatment ending. She told me that I was perfectly normal and that although they say that chemo is the worst part, a lot of times this "ending" can really be the worst part for people in terms of getting depressed and the amount of worry that comes with it. We talked about my future plans and how I've decided not to go back to nursing school immediately. She understood and said she can't imagine what it would be like to go through this and then try to enter the field. It was a really sad meeting and I am really afraid of my treatment ending...it seems like something I should be so happy and relieved about and the only part I can see and feel is the fear.
I met with her to discuss getting an injection called Lupron. This drug is used to put my ovaries "to sleep" and help eliminate the amount of estrogen floating through my body for the next 2 years. I will have to go to Duke monthly to receive this shot and it will put my body back into menopause. The worst part about this injection (which I had found out prior to going to get it) is that it has to be given to me "upstairs" which means - in the chemo treatment area at Duke. I was so incredible anxious and upset about this - I really had celebrated the fact that I never had to go back there again and I never had to walk through all those barcaloungers and see all the people being treated again... I never had to feel that crazy anxiousness when my chemo beeper goes off and I go stand in the front of the room and wait for the very experienced "chemo" nurse to come and get me, I never had to hear the constant beeping and alarms of all the IV machines flowing different mixtures of poison into people's veins to kill off this terrible thing called cancer, just the sound of those machines made my stomach swirl and flip flop. I was so incredibly worked up about going back into this atmosphere. I started crying as soon as I checked in, I cried as Tony and I sat in those too familiar green chairs by the piano in the hall and watched all the "chemo" people walk by, I cried when my beeper went off, I cried when the nurse came and got me and sat me down in the recliner, I cried while my blood pressure was being taken and when the nurse finally acknowledged my tears and asked "did you get bad news today?" - I cried even harder because I felt so guilty. No, I hadn't gotten bad news and I definitely could have. How terrible was it of me to be crying in front of all these people who are STILL going through the scary chemo treatment? Why couldn't I have been the pretty, happy face with hopeful sprigs of hair for all the girls to see? I was so upset with myself at that point, that I just continued to cry...the chemo treatment area was so full and crowded - we couldn't find an available "curtained" area for me to drop my pants and get my injection in my booty - so we had to go to a storage closet. Even this...was just sickening. Needless to say - it was a terrible day at Duke. I know, that I will have to get this shot every month, and yes, I've asked if I had to go "upstairs" just to get the shot and they all said they understand they amount of stress it puts on people who have finished chemo, and its going to be different when the new cancer clinic offices are open, but for now the answer is yes, I have to get over this terrible fear and walk through that chemo room every month for the next two years. I'm hoping every time it will get better, but for now it's still a pretty rough patch of my emotional stability.
During my visit with my LPN we talked a lot about what will be discussed at my major follow up appointment with my medical oncologist on July 12th. On this day, I'm going to be starting the oral drug Tamoxifen (to be taken daily for the next 2 years at minimum) which is an estrogen blocker - to work in conjunction with the monthly Lupron injection to keep estrogen from circulating through my body - this drug will also keep my body in menopause. I will also be getting an IV infusion of a drug called Zometa (yes, the IV infusion will be in the chemo room, enough said about that) - this is a bone density drug that I will receive every 6 months for the next 4 years. It will help build up my bones and protect me from osteoporosis - which I'm at high risk of getting since I'm in menopause at such a young age - and studies have shown that this drug reduces the risk of bone metastases recurrence by 40%. The only side effects of this drug are that it will take 48 hours to kick in and then it gives me flu-like symptoms, low grade fever, body aches, etc for 48 hours and then it's over. I will be starting this drug on July 12th.

Tony stayed with me at my parents that weekend and it was so nice not to have to make the drive to Wilkesboro. Unfortunately Tony received a call Sunday morning that his grandpa in Ohio had passed away and he was to travel to Ohio and be a pallbearer that following week. So my mom and I drove to Wilkesboro and back on Sunday to get my two dogs and bring them to my parents for my last full week of radiation. This was the start of a very rough week.
On Monday (Day 24) - as Tony left for Ohio with his dad, aunt and sister, I received a phone call that my insurance is dropping me at the end of July because I am finished with what they consider "aggressive" treatments and that is all that this insurance program is willing to cover. On Tuesday night (Day 25) my mom and I had dinner and a pedicure together and received a phone call that my dad had had another mini-stroke (his second one in 13 months) - so we were in the emergency room until 1am. Wednesday morning (Day 26) Tony was a pallbearer in his grandfather's funeral in Ohio and in North Carolina I slept in and rescheduled my radiation for later in the afternoon. My skin started to really cause me a lot of pain and I asked to see the nurse almost everyday that week because the creams, bandages, etc weren't giving me any relief and my radiation burn was seeping through all of my clothing. Thursday (Day 27) Tony drove back home from Ohio and I in NC finally asked for some pain killers to try and make it through the nights for the duration of my treatment. Friday (Day 28) - I drove my weary self home to my husband and we prepared for a wonderful July 4th weekend with our family and a houseful of 12 people!

I really didn't intend to blog about all of this - but my blog has done one main thing for me and that is to help me sort out all of the things I've been through during this process, write about them, and LET THEM GO! It has been a very trying time recently and I really am ready to be home with my husband and try to start living as normal a life as possible. Radiation is closed on Monday - July 5th - and a long weekend from treatment couldn't have come at a better time. My July 4th weekend was just what the doctor ordered - quality time with my wonderful family, crazy amounts of fireworks, lots of baking and good food. A much needed end to an incredibly daunting final days of radiation treatment. Only 2 more to go!!

I want to play outside...

2010-06-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

So day 18 of 30 weekdays of radiation is completed. My skin was holding up really good until this past week. I had my bolus 3 days this week for the first time and it definitely made the treatment more intense. My nurse said she's a little concerned of how red the area is getting so fast, but that it's probably from taking the chemo pills and is to be expected. My radiation oncologist was out of town last week, so I'm going to ask to see her this Monday when I go back. I'm VERY red and the skin in my left under arm started peeling off this weekend. They told me to eliminate skin to skin friction, but unless I walk around with my arm at a 90 degree angle - that is impossible. I'm using some stuff called Aquaphor on the burn to create more lubrication, but it's thicker than vaseline and super uncomfortable to wear under clothing. Today when I woke up - it's the first time I've been able to say I'm officially uncomfortable. I'm pretty thankful for this considering I'm more than halfway finished with treatment. I have 6 more weekdays of regular treatment and then will have 6 days of my "boost" treatment - which is a treatment that focuses the beams only on the mastectomy and drain scars because that's where the cancer is most likely to recur. My fatigue is pretty manageable - I've actually been able to catch up with quite a few people in Durham that I used to be close to after my treatments in the morning and it has been such a reward for having to drive to Duke everyday:)

I had a physical therapy appointment this week. My PT basically told me that my risk of lymphedema (left arm swelling due to no lymph nodes in my left underarm to drain fluid out of it) is very high at 30%. She told me that radiation only increases this risk and she really wants me to start wearing a compression sleeve. This is like TET hose for your arm. I complied and have been ordered by her to wear my compression sleeve from now on during active hours of the day; this includes: housework, grocery shopping, definitely working out, etc. etc. This has been very discouraging, but I have to keep telling myself that lymphedema is preventable and why would I take a chance at getting something that once I have is irreversible? I should get my sleeve in the mail this week.

My neighbor was diagnosed with lung cancer this past November - the same month that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was never really close to him. His name is Frank, he was 60 years old with a wife, 3 kids, and lots of grandchildren. He was so sweet and always brought us grilled chicken, etc. as he spent most of his weekends cooking out with his large family. Frank and I have kind of been on the same timeline in terms of going through chemotherapy and radiation at the same time...he lost his hair around the same time as me and I remember one day we were both outside (me, weeding my garden & Frank, mowing his lawn) on one of our "good" days amidst our terrible struggle through the chemo cycles. I felt so happy to know that like me, he was taking advantage of those good days and doing what he loved. Unfortunately, Frank's cancer was much more advanced than mine and very recently was found to have spread to his liver and spinal cord. He became incoherent this past week and was hospitalized on Wednesday. Frank passed away at 3am Thursday morning. I found myself sitting at his funeral today. It was very surreal to be at someone's funeral who was diagnosed with cancer the same month as me. The happy part of all of this is that Frank's diagnosis brought him back to the Lord and he told the preacher that God had replaced his fear of dieing with peace and he had gone to church every single service for the past 6 months. I felt a very strong presence of God today as I sat and listened to the preacher discussing how God is a "forever friend" and will be with you in the darkest hours of the night when you don't think that anyone else could begin to comfort you. This has been so true for me. I know that the great peace that I have within me, the silent strength that I so often am surprised I have found is really my faith. Today really reaffirmed my trust that Jesus has been with me every step of this struggle and just as the well-known Footprints story goes - I know that for the past 6 months many times, there has only been one set of Footprints in the sand...he has been carrying me and I am strengthened by his grace. There is evidence of God's grace in everything you do in everway - every single day. You just have to open your eyes and your heart and see it.

Day 11...slow and steady

2010-06-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

So week 2 of radiation (last week) was quite a mess. Monday was Memorial Day and they were closed, then all week my appointments were majorly delayed due to the machine breaking down, then Thursday I actually went to my appointment, got in my gown, and they came out and said the machine was broke and I couldn't be treated. So out of 5 weekdays that I could have had under my belt...I was only treated 3 days last week. This pushes my end date of radiation to July 12th....hopefully there will be no more hiccups in terms of technical difficulties.
I had the most wonderful weekend last weekend. Our friends were in town from Nashville and then we celebrated Tony's friend Danvey's 30th birthday by camping out Saturday night. It was such a relaxing good time and felt so good to be outdoors and sleep under the stars.
The start of this week I found myself pretty emotional....I just really miss my husband and hate being away from him. I'm also feeling pretty lonely going to treatment everyday by myself and driving to and fro for such distances by myself. I pretty much went from never being alone to being alone quite a bit. I've really tried to reward myself for going to Durham everyday and have been getting in touch with lots of old but dear friends that I made while living in Chapel Hill for 3 years. I had lunch with a friend on Monday and am having lunch with another friend tomorrow - which has been really nice and really breaks up the monotony of going back and forth to Duke.
The big news of the week (which probably explains a lot of my emotions) is that I started my period!! This situation was such a swell of mixed emotions because it means 2 very different things. A: Chemo did not kill my ovaries!!! B: Estrogen is flowing through my body (which is NOT GOOD because my cancer is estrogen positive) and now I'm going to have to be put back into menopause and have my ovaries put back to sleep for the next 5 years:( I called my medical oncologist at the first sign of it and they had my FSH and estradiol levels checked to confirm. I meet with my oncologist on June 25th to get an injection of Lupron - which will not destroy, but rather put my ovaries to sleep for a while. I'm not sure of the details of the injection as to how often, exact side effects, etc. But I'll post more about that after my visit.
I've been doing a lot of thinking during all this driving and I've had a couple of revelations recently.
Revelation #1:
Last week on Wednesday I was driving out of the hospital and took my buff (head covering) off because it was so hot...I haven't put it back on since! And suddenly I realized that I had been waiting to stop covering my head until I met this standard that doesn't even exist. I mean who says that my hair has to be a certain thickness or length before I can uncover what lies beneath the buff? Why would people approve or disapprove of me any more or less? I never wore a wig because I always felt like I was hiding the fact that I have cancer from the public, and ultimately it makes it seem like its something to be ashamed of...which I have never and will never feel this way. So I realized, there is no standard that I need to meet in order to be free from the head coverings...I'm ready, so it's gone - and I can't even express how liberating it is.
Revelation #2:
After waiting in a plethora of hospital waiting rooms over the past 6 months of my life...I've realized just how much people like to complain. I'm not saying I've never complained or that I don't complain anymore about the length of time one must wait sometimes, but something that has become ever so clear to me is this: I walk into an oncology (CANCER) waiting room that is standing room only....people of all ages....I realize that there will probably be a 2 hour wait to see my highly sought after oncologist who has dedicated her life to treating people with this most unlucky disease. How can I complain that she is too busy that she makes me wait 2 hours so that she can deliver a life saving treatment plan to me? Ultimately it feels like complaining that too many people have cancer and they are a nuisance to me and my life's problems...and that just can't be the case.
The number one thing breast cancer has done for me thus far is allow me to put things into perspective in a way that I never would have been able to before. And I know I've read many people's testimony that have had cancer and it generally seems to be what lots of people say, but you could never imagine exactly how keen you become until it happens to you. I've felt myself saying things like "I feel tagged" in other words - I feel like now my entire identity is about the fact that I have breast cancer and have lived through this very trying experience thus far, but I refuse to accept that as my identity. If anything, I just want to try everyday to be an example to others that there are so many millions upon millions of things to be most utterly thankful for each and everyday that if you can look at life with that perspective it makes it harder and harder to see the negatives and to find things to complain about. I may have my meltdowns and I let myself get down and out, but with this very strong spirit inside of me it never lasts very long and I'm quickly on the flip side of my emotions and continuing to look up. And just having that ability makes me forever thankful.

On a side note: Please keep my friend Nicole, who is also battling breast cancer in your prayers this Friday as she is having a complete hysterectomy. She is finished with radiation and after this surgery will be finished with her breast cancer treatment for a while.

Radiation Week 1 Complete - only 5 more to go!

2010-05-30T19:29:00.001-07:00

So I've completed radiation week 1! I must admit, it feels way too easy. My appointments have gotten down to about 20 minutes and are going quite smoothly. I met with my radiation oncologist on Friday (I will see her every Friday during radiation treatments) and she said that as of right now, my treatment will be 30 weekdays total (ending July 6th). So, I've only got 25 weekdays left! My skin is already a little pink and my skin on my chest broke out in a really bad rash from the tegaderm stickers that are covering up my radiation marks. My radiation oncologist said that unfortunately, if one mark broke out it probably means that the other ones will too and if that is the case, I will have to get permanent tattoos for the radiation marks :( I'm not too upset about this except for the fact that the marks are pretty high up on my chest. I only own a couple of shirts that come up high enough around my neck to even cover them up. Another tegaderm patch has red bumps under it this weekend, so I'll probably be seeing the doctor again when I go back on Tuesday and discuss the possibility of tattoos with her.

Like I said in my last post, I'm not really feeling any side effects of this phase of treatment yet. My skin is pink, but so far, I've had no side effects from the chemo pills (phew!). I worked out on the elliptical and did some ab workouts and yoga poses two days in a row last week - on the 2nd day I had a MAJOR bout of fatigue and almost collapsed in the grocery store. It kind of hit me out of nowhere and I had to drive myself straight home and luckily my sweet father was home and able to wait on me hand and foot while the feeling passed. I talked to my doctor about this and she said its probably from the chemo pills and the radiation (both have side effects of fatigue so its like a double whammy) but I'm still not sure of that. I'm hoping maybe I just jumped into too much working out too soon and my body kind of shut down on me unexpectedly.

It's been great to be home with my husband this weekend and to have a long weekend together. Surprisingly, the radiation department is closed for Memorial Day on Monday - so I don't have to drive to my parents' until Monday night - Tony and I get 3 nights together! I've gotten a lot of gardening and housework done this weekend. I love my house and the outdoors that surrounds it. We have a pool and although I'm not allowed to swim in it or be in the sun, I worked on the pool deck area and our back deck this weekend, getting everything organized, and planting more container plants to make it look nice and summery. I'm kind of getting used to wearing long sleeves in the sweltering heat...I waited until the sun went down tonight to venture out...but I still wore long sleeves and a big sun hat. I'm just thankful that I feel good enough to be working outdoors...no matter what my clothing limitations are:)

I asked my radiation oncologist how they measure my progress throughout radiation - she said it was an answer I would not like, but that they basically "trust" that it will work for me based on it being successful in other similar situations in the past and they just do follow up tests at the end of the treatment cycle to determine if there is any cancer left. I also asked her when I get to consider myself a "survivor" and she said its another answer I would not like, but technically I get to say I'm a survivor once radiation is over (even though this is not the end of my road). She said but really they will worry less about the possibility of recurrence after 5 years and then they will worry even less after 10 years...but doctors don't consider me out of the woods for at least 10 years after treatment ends. (This is quite a long time, but fortunately I was already somewhat aware of this timeline.)

I'm looking forward to counting down the days of week 2 and getting another 4 days of treatment behind me. I get bloodwork done every Wednesday to check my WBC and RBC's and then I see my radiation oncologist every Friday so I'll probably be posting updates as to how this phase of treatment is going on the weekends. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend! I know I have:)

The bravery continues...

2010-05-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

So I've been debating for some time whether or not to post a picture of my mastectomy scar so that others that are inquisitive will maybe find some comfort in how clean & neat it is. I most definitely am very grateful that my surgeon was such an amazing seamstress and understands the importance of a keeping things neat and tidy. The actual lack of my left breast is something that every day I try to continue to get used to. It has most definitely not been easy and I still can't say I'm used to it...even though it has been over a month since the surgery. I feel wonderful when I'm out in public and have my prosthesis in and know that only I know about my little "secret". But when I'm at home and I'm not wearing it, sometimes I catch myself in the mirror - or forget entirely and it's still quite a shock - the drastic-ness of what I look like. It's actually worse for me when I'm wearing a shirt and no prosthesis - than when I'm naked. I find comfort in seeing the scar and knowing that its all healed up. It's definitely been quite a process of getting my mind wrapped around this change in my body.
Speaking of changes - my hair is growing back at what feels like a rapid pace...maybe only a few more weeks and I'll feel comfortable enough to not cover my head in public...that will be a VERY welcome change.
I had my very first radiation treatment last night. As I stated in my last post- I have lots of multi-coloured marks all over my skin that line me up on the machine and mark the actual radiation field, etc. These are not permanent as they are just paint marker and Sharpie pen covered up with tegaderm, maybe when radiation's over I'll see if I can play connect the dots with it and discover some creative new symbol. Pah!! My treatments last about 30 -45 minutes, but it's great because I get free parking right at the door of the radiation oncology area at Duke. So I'm in and out in no time. This week my appts are all over the place, but starting next week until the end of treatment I'll have my appt at 10am. I'm so thankful for this as I wanted an early appt to get it over with for the day - this also allows me to be able to drive home to Wilkesboro and get there early on Friday afternoons:) I'll be staying with my parents in Elon Monday - Thursday - then driving home to be with my hubby on the weekends. It is definitely going to be hard on us as Tony and I don't spend very much time apart...but it's the best solution to eliminate so much driving on my end. I've never wanted 7 weeks to come and go so quickly in my life!!! I'll be meeting with my radiation oncology doctor every Friday as part of my radiation appointment - I currently have lots of questions for her and it will be nice to kind of understand how they "rate" your progress, etc. It's hard on me to even accept the fact that I'm still being treated for this cancer...so far the treatments (chemo & surgery) have been hard and a test of my will and strength....radiation is painless, quick, and just totally feels TOO easy, so it worries me...I want to FEEL something physically to KNOW that the cancer is being killed extra good (pardon my grammar) - but alas radiation does not allow this type of physical reinforcement and I just have to trust that those alien like machines with crazy lasers are doing their job. Sigh*
I'm also taking those dreaded chemo pills every weekday with my radiation....I was almost secretly hoping that they would make me feel really sick or loopy or just do SOMETHING to let me know they are working, but I have to be thankful....I can't even tell I've taken them (except for possibly explaining the reason for my super crazy, elaborate, non-sensical dreams). I'll just have to trust that they are working also - and be ever so thankful that my adorable peach fuzz that has worked so hard to cover my head is not falling out all over again:) Yippee!!

So here is a picture of my scar...I'm proud of it and at peace with it and ultimately entertained by all the silly "x marks the spot" marks around it for my radiation treatments. Mainly, my hopes for sharing this picture is that it will comfort some people who may be facing what I went through prior to surgery and comfort my friends and family to help them understand that I'm not living with this horrendous unimaginable scar.

From May 2010

The next chapter unfolds...

2010-05-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

Blue birds are my FAVORITE thing to try and get pictures of. Yes. I'm a bird watcher.

So as I stated in my last blog...I was right!..when I predicted that Monday was going to be a good day. I did get my drains out and I did get almost 100% of my range of motion back in my arm after going and see my physical therapist...it only took one visit! I still am doing my exercises at home but it was a HUGE improvement after visiting the PT. I got my CT simulation scheduled last Thursday and was able to meet my friend Nicole (she is 34 and also has breast cancer - we met at our chemo treatments and she is 3 weeks ahead of me) for lunch! It has been such a blessing to have her in my life and was so nice to be able to sit down face to face and just be together:)

I am happy to report that the radiation setup went well. I will be doing the "breath holding" treatment where I have to hold my breath while getting "beamed" (to be honest - I haven't done my little folder of homework about radiation yet - so I don't know much about it). Anyways, the long and the short of it is that while I'm holding my breath, it pushes my heart away from my chest wall so it decreases the amount of radiation exposure to my heart. This is obviously a good thing. They put lots of Sharpie drawings on my stomach, chest, and sides and covered them with Tegaderm - not to be washed off until after treatment ends in July. I must say - it's pretty silly looking. My official first day of radiation is May 21st! I am so excited to get it started and let the countdown begin! I'm having a really hard time facing the fact that I will be away from my husband Monday - Friday for 7 weeks - but I'm just thankful that it's starting. The sooner it starts, the sooner it will be behind me.
I will update this better once I go to my first treatment and see what it's really like. For now, I'm trying to just soak up my last 3 weekdays at home:)...I've still got a long road ahead of me, but I think I'm ready for it.

Drain-oh - Round 2!!

2010-05-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

This picture is from our deck on Cinco de Mayo. I love our view and love this time of year for the sunsets!! So...I've been able to do some at home physical therapy with this drain in. I've also been able to do a lot more (in terms of house work, gardening, and going out and about) than I expected. It's still super annoying to have it in place...but I feel like I've managed well this past week and definitely worked around it. I've done PT twice a day and feel pretty sore in the mornings...which I think is a good thing. My drains are finally where they should be in terms of volume output and I've got an appointment to have it removed on Monday morning. (I CANNOT WAIT!!) Straight from having the drain out I'm going to see a physical therapist at Duke to have my arm stretched so I can get it above my head and get the ball rolling with radiation. I'm very optimistic that Monday is going to be an all around GOOD DAY!

This weekend has been nice at home...Tony and I did date night last night and drove up to Boone for dinner and a movie...today his sister graduated and we had lunch with his family, tomorrow is mother's day and I'll be spending it with my mother-in-law and my mommy - so I'm happy. I did quite a bit of gardening today and fell asleep in the hammock until the sun went down. Looking forward to more relaxing tomorrow before another week of appointments and commitments all related to Duke.

This boy gives me strength....and boy have I needed it lately!

2010-05-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a rather rough 3 weeks post-op. I got my drains removed after my surgery on April 26th...I woke up the next morning and my drain site was filled with fluid under my skin...I called into my surgeon's office and they wanted to see me:( I went back 2 days later and had the site aspirated. I woke up the next morning and the site was filled again to the same size...I called into my surgeon's office and she wanted to put the drain back in this past Monday (May 3rd). I felt like I was failing at surgery recovery.

On April 30th - Friday - I met with my radiation oncologist. I really liked my radiation oncologist - and her resident. They were both very attentive to the "young woman" issue but my doctor definitely (in retrospect) was using a lot of "worst case scenario" tactics that I was not ready for. I know that all Dr's just have to cover their tracks, but I just was not expecting to have such a "deep" conversation about my future with this cancer (which included discussions about the radiation risks to my heart, lungs, ovaries and due to my young age, the fact that radiation could actually give me cancer later in life (seriously?). I'll be receiving one of the highest doses of radiation for 6.5 weeks. But as of right now, everything radiation related is on hold until this drain issue is resolved and that is very hard to swallow.

The big downer of the appt was that my range of motion in my left arm is not at all where it should be and I have been delayed due to this fluid build up (it's called a seroma). My doctor said she is hoping that I will remain in her "window of comfort" and get to start radiation before they feel uncomfortable about how long I'm going without treatment after surgery:( I was very discouraged by this news. This drain having to be put back in for a week has delayed me. I can't do my full physical therapy because of the drain and I can't start radiation until the drain site completely heals AND I can put my left arm above my head.

Once my drain site is healed and my range of motion is back to where it should be I can go have a CT simulation and THEN they said it takes a week to get the treatment plan for my radiation to begin - so we're looking at about 2-3 weeks before I even start radiation and technically - I was supposed to start today:(. Obviously I am very discouraged by all this news. On top of it all - I have major "tape injury" from wearing a bandaid over my drain site, then over the aspiration site, and now there's adhesive over the new drain - and that also has to be healed before radiation can start. Talk about a bump in the road.

So Monday, May 6th, Tony and I went back to Duke - I saw my surgeon first and got the new drain put in. It is much smaller but still just as cumbersome. She tried to put in a longer tube and hit scar tissue and so that was good news that it has healed somewhat. They basically said that my insides are not "scarring down" fast enough and that she took the drains out too early:( Oh well. The actual procedure was a breeze and painless except for the 4 stitches she put into skin that was not numbed...but I got my bravery back and found myself watching the whole thing and felt perfectly calm. This new drain actually looks like a HEP lock - so it's much less traumatic.

Finally, I found myself crying in front of BOTH Dr's - for THE 1ST TIME!!! It was ridiculous, (but I was starting to think it was not possible for me to show emotion to them) once I got done with the drain thing I just got really emotional and told her I felt discouraged and as soon as the word came out I was boohooing - she was super sweet and told me this was a totally normal complication which made me feel a little better.

Then I saw my medical oncologist and she gave me news that during my radiation she wants me to take chemo pills orally. I guess I took for granted that chemo is completely over and I would never have to hear that word again. I really had to take a deep breath and not get caught up in the storm of scary vocabulary that swirls around me daily. I needed to just understand the facts. The reasoning for the chemo pills is b/c my cancer had spread to my lymph nodes and there was still cancer left in my breast tissue that was removed. My oncologist wants to make the "radiation work better". I asked her if it was like a double whammy of radiation or what the deal was and she said it just makes the radiation about 10% more effective and anything that would help it work is worth taking. The good news is that the pills don't have any typical chemo side effects and my hair will continue to grow and I'll have no nausea (I felt like I escaped a bullet when she said that!).

I love my oncologist because she understands and took the worries right out of my head when she said it's important as much for my health as it was for my mental well being to keep going with treatment and she knows I've been doing my own physical therapy religiously, but she wants me to go to physical therapy because she wants me to push myself as much as possible. She then said "not that i expect more out of a 26 year old patient because your young, but I expect more out of you:)"

I'm trying really hard to just keep rolling with the punches (even though I feel like I'm having a knock down drag out fight) and to not get discouraged.

My pathology report after surgery was not WONDERFUL but was not bad either. I still had some cancer left in the breast tissue that was removed - so the chemo did not get it ALL, but the up side of that is that the cells were only proliferating (or spreading) at a rate of 1% which is very low. I had 28 lymph nodes removed from my under arm (the average person has between 30-35). 5 of the nodes were sentinel nodes and 7 of them had cancer in them. Not good news that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes (which we already knew prior to surgery) - but good news that is wasn't a bigger number that were positive for cancer. My mastectomy scar has however healed up quite "beautiful" as I've been told my two different doctors and my physical therapist in spite of my drains site troubles - all again good news.

I posted this picture, because a.) I am so thankful my husband and best friend is in my life and with me through this journey and b.) I've found myself really wishing my hair would just GROW back....I realized I have a rather LONG wait for it to be this long again, at least it's just hair....I find myself EVERY DAY thankful for the fact that I have my "health" back and am not going through chemo. No matter what obstacles have occurred lately - I can always be thankful that I have the physical strength now to get through it now. Chemo I can still say was the hardest physical part of this - and it's really hard sometimes to stay mentally strong when you don't have your physical strength. I'm so thankful that chemo was not a forever.

So close now!!!

2010-04-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

So it's day 12 post op and I'm recovering right on schedule. My drains are putting out less than 30 CC's each per day (which is right on schedule) and I'm scheduled to have them removed tomorrow morning!! As soon as I get them out I'll be able to start my range of motion exercises and get my left arm back to normal hopefully. MOST importantly I get these drains out of my body, get the steri-strips off, and get to take off this super tight very annoying elastic BINDER!!! It's been a rough week of feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin with these things coming out of me and I'm so thankful I made it through it and tomorrow will be here SO soon!
As long as everything goes as planned at Duke, Tony and I will be going home tomorrow too which is very exciting...I miss my house and my dogs and my bed, etc. It has been very nice to be with my parents and have all the extra help this week post op, but it will also be nice to get home and try to get back into the natural swing of things in our everyday life.

Soon, I'll be meeting with my radiation oncologist and my breast oncologist to discuss the rest of my plan for treatment. I'm hoping to get a pathology report from my surgeon tomorrow at our post op visit to discuss how all the tests came back from my lymph node removal, etc.
This picture is of me the day after surgery sporting my Survivor buff!! My friend Nicole and I are super Survivor fans and she was so sweet to send this to me - a villains one, since I'm ashamedly a big fan of Russell:)
I've caught myself a few times still having "chemo mentality" and saying "I should rest and be careful not to over do it" - and then remember that physically I've got my strength back and have no more low WBC day's where my body gives out on me long before I'm ready for it. Surgery has sure been an easier ticket than chemo and I'm so thankful to be bouncing back and feeling back to normal like I did back in December before chemo ever started. Everyday I'm thankful that chemo is over. I guess my NP was right - surgery is easier than chemo PHYSICALLY. I beg to differ - mentally.

It's All About Perspective...

2010-04-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

I had surgery on April 15th to have my left breast and many lymph nodes under my arm removed. It was a strange day as we had to be up at 4am to be at Duke by 5:45am. All 3 of my older brothers came as well as my mother-in-law and my parents. And one of my sister-in-laws. It was so good to have such a nice support system and to be able to see all of them before and after my surgery. I was taken back to the prep room and everything seemed to happen so fast. They asked me to undress, started my IV, and before I knew it they were asking my parents and Tony to leave and said they would see me after I had been in recovery. I felt like I didn't have time to process what was actually happening. As soon as Tony and my parents left, the anesthesiologist was going over my paper work and asked me to state my name and date of birth and I couldn't say it. This swell of emotion came over me and I just broke down in tears. The Dr. was so nice as he patted my shoulder and said to his assistant "let her have a minute". There was no way I was saying my name or date of birth until I was ready. I knew this was the only stalling opportunity I had and I needed to take it.
I did not get put totally to sleep but was given sedatives and they performed a nerve block where they make several injections in my back and the front of my chest to numb the chest wall. Luckily I did not have any troubles getting sick after surgery and woke up out of it alright. I have two drains coming from my incision sight that I will have removed on Monday, the 26th. They have become my arch nemesis and have won in terms of mind over matter. I have been so disappointed in myself in terms of being a future nurse and not getting squeamish over things. The first 3 or 4 times we emptied my drains I came very close to completely passing out and now the process has become this big terrifying ordeal that makes me super nauseous and puts my anxiety level through the roof. I have been having to consciously fight not to obsess over them and really just cannot wait until they come out.
Today is day 7 of recovery and I am doing pretty good. I'm very grateful to be managing my pain with just tylenol. I had a rough 3rd day after surgery and got sick and had a terrible migraine, but luckily that has been my only "bad" day so far.
I was sent home from the hospital in a flowery, blue, very elastic tube top that Velcro's in the front called a binder. It makes me feel compressed and safe and I have to wear it 24/7 until I get my drains removed. I was very brave about peaking at my incision while in the hospital when the nurses would pull back my binder to check on it (must have been the drugs.) Since I have been home, every time I take a bath and take it off I start to cry over the sight of my incision. I am definitely not getting used to it as quickly as I thought I would. I cried to my mom when we first took the stuffing out and I realized how drastic it was. I told her through tears "I look deformed." She hugged me really tight and said "You don't look deformed, you look like someone who got cancer cut off of you." - It's amazing how quickly everything came back into perspective no matter how terrible it all seemed. My mom is right, I did have cancer cut off of me and if that's what I have to look like in order for it to have saved my life, I guess I can deal with it. And I should probably give myself a little time to get used to it.
I've been so blessed to have such strong family support and so many people praying for me. My husband is being an incredible partner through this terrible journey we are on and always helps me to stay focused on the positives of every situation. I don't know what I would do without him. All in all, I'm so thankful the surgery is over. It is definitely the part that was giving me the most anxiety and now it's over and I can focus on preparing for radiation. We are staying in Elon with my parents until I get my drains out on Monday the 26th. Then we'll be heading home and I'll probably have a little less than 3 weeks before I start radiation everyday for 6 weeks. I'll be sure to post more about my pathology report etc, after my postop visit.

I did it!!!!

2010-03-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

I finally made it through!!! I've kicked six rounds of chemo in the rear and am ready to move onto the next chapter of this journey. My last chemo nurse was the same one I had for round 5 and was super awesome. On her 20 minute lunch break she bought me an ice cream cake to celebrate and my parents got me balloons!!! The best part of the last round at the hospital was that I ended up getting a bed - which meant that I had a room so my parents and Tony were able to be in the treatment area with me all at once. That was very special.
Today is day #6 of this last and final round. I'm experiencing the typical GI troubles and major nausea that I just can't swing, but other than that, I'm in good spirits. Tony stayed home from work on Monday and Tuesday to be with me and took such good care of me - it makes me feel so much better when he's home and I sleep a lot more soundly. Today he came home from work early because I couldn't get off the couch to eat - was too sick - I ate, took some meds, and layed on our swing under the apple tree while he mowed the lawn. It was such a beautiful day and super hot out! It felt great to get some sun and some fresh air.
My friend Nicole, who is also battling breast cancer sent me the sweetest gift ever! A little package with 10 cards - words of inspiration for every day it takes to come out of the chemo funk. It means so much to me and I taped them all along the entryway of the house so every morning its the first place I go. A reason to get out of bed:)
Nicole is about a month ahead of me - has already had surgery - and is recovering nicely - oh and big PS! - her hair's growing back already!!
I definitely can't wait for my lil' peach fuz to get here:) My moment of joy today: This time next week I'll be able to use a big girl toothbrush once and for all!!!
Ahh...the little things.

Sunshine on my mind....

2010-03-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Spring is officially here and I am so happy about that. It has been so good for the psyche to get outside and do some sweating and get some sunshine on my face. I spent all day today in the garden - planted 11 new plants and put down 12 bags of mulch! It was about 75 degrees and breezy - such a beautiful day. Today was my only full 24 hours at home out of this week, as we met with my surgeon at Duke on Monday afternoon - went to Elon to visit my parents Sunday night through Tuesday morning - then came home and will be heading back to Elon tomorrow (Thursday night) for my final round of chemo (#6) on Friday!!! I have been thankful to have such a big project to be working on and especially thankful for feeling well enough and having enough energy to work in my garden - it has been good to keep my mind busy. I started to get very depressed earlier this week - as I have every chemo round at this time - that these are my last days of "freedom" and feeling well...but I made a decision this morning to not let those thoughts inhabit my mind today and to just focus on the "can do's" and not the "cant's" before this next round. It is so hard to be idle while I'm not feeling well - that really has been the biggest struggle for me - but I've given up on my wild aspirations of really working out and stuff before my surgery and I'm just going to let the time come and go and be grateful for any days that I feel well enough to be up and around. I know one thing - I will never take another "feeling normal" day for granted. The surgery consult went well. I had a lot of questions and got all of them answered. There are several preop appointments that will be taking place the week of the surgery. My surgery is scheduled for April 15th - so after this final round of chemo on Friday and my typical 10 days of being down from the chemo - I only have about 10 good days left before the surgery date (lesson #35,426 learned: time is precious)...I'm so glad that it is coming and going so quickly - no matter how I feel about it - I can say that I am glad that this trying time is going by so quickly.
I have a plastic surgeon & physical therapy consult the week of my surgery - the plastic surgeon will decide if they will be removing both breasts during surgery and then reconstructing them both after radiation (about 6 months later) 0r if they will keep the right breast until after radiation - then remove it and reconstruct it. Either way - they will be taking skin from somewhere on my body to rebuild the left breast - so I may possibly be getting a tummy tuck out of all this? "Where's the cake?!!?!?! :)?"
The physical therapist will be showing me exercises that I must do as part of prevention towards not getting lymphedema - a common occurrence of swelling in the limb in people who have lymph nodes removed. I will be having 6 or more lymph nodes that are cancerous removed from under my left arm. My surgeon is doing a procedure called sentinel node mapping - i will be part of a clinical trial to further her research regarding which lymph nodes they remove on patients whose cancer has spread to their axillary nodes in the future. It is no benefit or risk to me - I'm just another number adding to their statistics for research in the future. I will have to be injected with a radioactive dye the day before my surgery for this sentinel node mapping procedure. I will also have a preop/ anesthesia interview the day before surgery - so that entire week will be busy with appointments and I will be just well enough from chemo to be going to all of these.
The surgery is just a one night hospital stay at Duke's Ambulatory Surgery Clinic - I will be going home with 2 bulb drains that will be removed approximately 10 days later. I supposedly will be able to do normal daily activities and my surgeon said some women even end up taking only Tylenol for pain instead of being on painkillers for quite some time. All of this was VERY good news and made the surgery seem much less daunting.

I've designated an entire drawer to my seemingly growing collection of head coverings - I've been trying to fall asleep on a positive note lately and have been focusing a lot of those thoughts to the fact that my hair will be growing back soon. I'm excited to see what it will be like and I'm beyond excited to not wear anything on my head ever again!! - so much for knitting all those cute hats. It will be so nice to just walk around and not feel naked all the time. As soon as there's even a little evidence of growth I'm sure it will be enough for me to give up on the head wraps - they are especially annoying considering all the hot flashes I have throughout the day. My first reaction is to pull my hat off - but you can't always do that in public.
The chemo definitely has had cumulative effects in that the nausea was much worse this past round and the fatigue lasted a lot longer. I still find myself sometimes wondering "why am I so tired?" then I remember that my body is going through some major struggles and I have to force myself to give myself a break now and then. It is so easy to overdo it, but the punishment for that is it takes me a lot longer to bounce back from overdoing it - so I've really tried to learn how to pace myself. I'm going to try to keep a more day by day blog entry of this last chemo round as I have not been able to do that yet and would like to give a more detailed description of the "harder" days - mostly so I can remind myself of what I've made it through. Sometimes I feel like I'm blocking out all the hard stuff and not really realizing how strong I really am. This blog has really helped me to remind myself of the goods and the bads and keep things in perspective.

One more round...

2010-03-12T10:42:00.000-08:00

So I have completed my 5th round of chemo! Only one more left. My 4th cycle was really bizarre. I felt completely better in about 7 days and drove home to Burlington to be with my parents and went out shopping with my mom and wondered if they had given me a placebo or something? :) It was nice to bounce back so fast. I worked out every other day for the last two weeks of that cycle and it felt really really good. Today is day 7 of my 5th cycle and I'm at about 80%. I had a real rough time with the nausea this time, I just couldn't shake it and the anti-nausea meds seemed to be not working. But today has been the first day with no nausea meds and I have a little bit of energy that has allowed to me to clean house - which is such a relief. The hardest part about the first week after chemo is having to be so idle - and if I at all try to do anything I'm defeated by my weak and sick body - it's just really frustrating and I will never get used to it. Luckily - I only have to go through this one more time.
According to my LPN, chemo is the "worst" part of this whole process - it struck me as funny that she said that considering she has never been through any of it - but that's what "they" say. Unfortunately I've been having a really hard time dealing with the idea of surgery. I really can't wrap my mind around the idea of my mastectomy. Every time I start to think about it I have the most incredible anxiety I have ever felt and it literally takes my breath away. The list of fears that I have going forward is endless. I am mostly afraid of what it will be like to see my scars and how I will get used to my body and what my husband will think of my disfigurement. I totally feel like I'm losing my womanhood - everything it means to be a woman has been stripped from me. I don't have hair to shower, I can't shave my legs, I may not be able to have children, I can't lay in the sun this summer or wear a bathing suit, my ovaries have gone to sleep and I am in full blown menopause, and soon I will have no breasts. I have been consumed with the thought of "how can someone's mind handle the amount of things that I daily ponder?" - the mind and the human spirit is an amazing thing. I don't even understand how everyday I find a way to win the battle over my mind. I have had some really really sad days and some days where I totally forget. Forgetting is priceless.
I went through a day recently where all I could think about was why did I get cancer? I am still waiting for something profound to happen to me - to make me understand there IS a reason for this and my life will be BETTER because of it. Right now I just feel very interrupted.
I went to a counselor once over a bad break up - years ago - the main thing she taught me was even when you feel really alone and like everything is so terrible - there is always someone in THAT boat with you. I know that things could be so much worse for me - I know that. So everyday I just focus on being thankful for the things that I do have. I am so thankful for the life I have had thus far and for my husband and my family. I made a friend at my chemo rounds - we are on the same "schedule" but she is one cycle ahead of me. I cannot describe how incredibly priceless it has been to meet her. I mean - one of the worst parts about this is feeling so incredibly alone and unable to describe what I'm going through to anyone. But she knows and is only 33 and I am so relieved to have found her and know that we will more than likely be lifelong friends.
Some people may not realize - the average age for a woman to have breast cancer is 64 - and the chance that a woman under 40 will get it is less than 8% - so there really is not a lot of people that I can relate to - that are in my same "stage" in life.

I got good results since the last time I updated this blog - all of my tumors have responded to the chemo and decreased in size. My liver lesion has NOT showed any change in size which is good because that means it is still a cluster of blood vessels and nothing cancerous. I have a surgery consult on March 22nd. My last chemo is March 26th. Then I will be having my mastectomy. I have decided to have both breasts removed considering the aggressiveness of my cancer, my age, and the risk of it recurring in my right breast. Then I will be starting radiation and will go everyday for 6 weeks. Then 6 months after that I will have reconstructive surgery.

I have come to the very grim realization that going back to nursing school this fall - does not look like an option for me. I am going to try to maybe get a job as a CNA or go to school part time and try to get some of the classes I took last fall out of the way towards nursing school. The worst part is that I'm terrified that my "dream job" as a nurse has been forever tainted. The hospital no longer feels like this place where I always said "man, I would love to work in this type of setting and do it for the rest of my life" - it is now a place of fear, anxiety, sickness, and sadness. I know lots of people have always felt that way about hospitals and I have always been SO thankful that I didn't see it that way because I really feel like my calling is to be a nurse, so I'm hoping those feelings will fade and I will feel good about working there again someday.

If you pray - please pray for me everyday - that I have a strong mind. That has been the hardest part of all of this for me - I can handle the physical problems but the mind is a very powerful thing and sometimes I can't hold down all the scary and overwhelming thoughts I have. That is when I pray and I pray really hard - and it really helps. So thank you already if you have been praying for me.

Day two of Round 3 of chemo.

2010-01-23T14:32:00.001-08:00

Today has been a relatively good day!! I woke up with manageable nausea, have not puked at all today, took severall on and off naps, and then around 4pm today finally found the energy to take both my dogs for a walk. It felt good to get some fresh air. My steroids make my heart palpitate really bad so it felt good to kind of get my heart rate up and get some oxygen flowing through my body. Tony and I are plannning on going home tomorrow morning.
I asked a lot of questions about my future since we are at the halfway point of the chemo treatment. Which is only step one of a long process to recovery. I have another mammogram and liver MRI on Feb 2nd to measure my tumors response to the treatment and to make sure the liver MRI has not changed. Then in between my 5th and 6th chemo treatment and I will get an appointment set up with my surgeon at Duke to discuss all the details. My mastectomy will be roughly 3 weeks after my last chemo which is on March 26th. Then I will start radiation treatments roughly 3 weeks after my surgery. My radiation treatments will be every day for 6 weeks. That is all I know for now, but it was good to get some information about what my future looks like over the next 6 months.

Half Way There

2010-01-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my third chemo treatment. I have had a very good round this time. Besides being so sick the day after my treatment...I had about 11 days of feeling down and then started to feel normal again. My mom came the weekend after my treatment and helped me "spring clean" my house and it really helped me stay on top of things around the house and feel much better! It has been so great to be able to have good enough days to have friends from school over for a knitting afternoon and to be able to meet some friends from school for lunch. It's been great to be able to get out of the house. Tony and I are at mom and dad's in Burlington tonight. I have to be at Duke at 9am in the morning. We are supposed to be going back home on Sunday (as long as I feel good enough to drive home) so this will be our shortest stay.
Since this is my third treatment, that means I am halfway finished with my chemo rounds!!! My last treatment is March 26th. Feb. 2nd I go back to Duke to have a mammogram and a 2nd liver MRI to check the status of my tumors and to make sure that the liver lesion has not changed. It will be good to find out how my body has responded to the treatment and what the plan is for surgery, etc.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn...

2010-01-03T11:16:00.000-08:00

Is just to love and be loved in return....

I want to make this special post to thank each and everyone of my past classmates who took time out of their life to be in touch with Gretchen and send me cards. It really did make an impact on me and the fact that any of you would spend some time writing me such nice cards really means so much. Thank you for your prayers, uplifting comments and just most importantly your time. It is so much easier now-a-days to claim to be too busy to do such things and I just want everyone to know how much I really, really appreciate it.

Please continue to pray for me and that my counts stay up this time and that my cellulitis does not return. Please continue to pray for me to have a strong mind and keep strong positive thoughts flowing. Thanks again to everyone for your unconditional support.

Christmas Bellows!!

2010-01-03T10:58:00.001-08:00

Tony and I celebrated Christmas early with his family on the 21st so we could make it home to Burlington for Christmas before another possible snow storm hit. I was so thankful that I felt good enough to host Christmas dinner at our house and I made homemade chicken pot pie and apple pie. Tony got me an accordion which I have been asking for for 3 years plus!!! I have no idea how to play it, but my dad took lessons as a kid and I was able to figure out how to play the scales over the Christmas break.

We celebrated Christmas with my family on the 26th and I played Santa. I had successfully wrapped every single gift under my parents tree so I figured I wouldn't miss anything by passing them all out. It was fun to watch the kids excitement everytime I called their name. With 5 nieces and nephews it is a lot of multiples of gifts to wrap.

We stayed at my parents house on through to my 2nd round of chemo on the 30th. It went pretty smoothly. My oncologist determined that my cellulitis is healed up and that this time if I feel super terrible on day 7 like last cycle - I need to go into Duke and get my counts checked - if they bottom out this time, I will probably have to start taking neupogen injections to cover my WBC counts until the Neulasta kicks in. I woke up day 2 after the chemo and threw up 6 times - including throwing up all of my anti-nausea meds, etc. and having to take the round of meds all over again - I pretty much slept ALL day on New Year's Eve and all day yesterday as we drove home from Burlington back to our house. I am feeling like I have a little pep in my step today - but definitely not much. Tomorrow will be my first REAL day home alone as Tony will finally be going back to work after a mini-retirement while we worked out all the kinks in my treatment side effects.

Hospital Sleepovers

2010-01-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

So I was admitted to the hospital Dec. 15 thru 17th. It was a rough time, I was in lots of pain and don't remember much of my stay at all - more than likely due to the amount that I slept and the amount of oxycodone I was on. I also had terrible mouth ulcers the whole time I was in the hospital so it was very hard to eat. Tony stayed overnight in the hospital with me everynight and slept in the bed with me. It was pricelessly comforting to have him there right beside me the whole time. We made the most of it and watched movies on Itunes together, etc. The major rash I had - they had a dermatologist come look at me and determined it was an acne reaction to the steroids - so I have that to combat every treatment round also. We woke up Friday morning - the 18th and drove back home to Wilkesboro, getting home just in time to be inundated with 1.5 feet of snow!! It was so beautiful and such a nice homecoming.

I was feeling much better after getting released from the hospital and was so surprised and thankful to find out many of our closest friends were in town and were going to be visiting us. I was told the day before I got discharged that my WBC's had come back to normal all on their own and that meant the shot had finally kicked in. My hopitalist told me I was free to be around healthy friends and family for the holidays and that was the greatest Christmas gift I could have gotten. I actually felt good enough to go sledding in all of our glorious snow and it was probably one of my favorite most recent days - for about 20 mintues, I completely forgot about my current health issues and all of my anxieties were absent - it was so nice. Kelly and I had super fun showing up our old men how to sled.

My hair started to fall out the weekend before Christmas, and it was actually kind of nice to have company over to take the edge off of how I would feel being around my peers with a shaved head. I am not really upset about losing my hair, it is something I've been expecting and I know it will be coming back someday. Tony really helped me to understand the hardest part was just doing it, and he was strong enough for me to help me go through with it and not let it get to me. Luckily - I have a pretty nice shaped head and still feel very comfortable around people without covering it up completely. It took some getting used to, but shower time has most certainly been cut in half!!!

So I took a holiday....

2010-01-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

...a small break from writing on this blog. I figured if I pushed myself to do it, it would become something that is unenjoyable and I would just stop writing altogether. I had my first chemo treatment on Dec. 7th. It was not a great experience and nothing you can ever imagine until you go to it. Even me, being on the behind the scenes side of the medical field was very much overwhelmed by the amount of people in the treatment room and the "stream-liny-ness" of it all. Not a good environment whatsoever. I really liked my chemo nurse- his name was William and he instantly asked if I was a nurse because of how wide eyed and inquisitive I was over everything he was doing to me. Lesson learned - I will not be that inquisitive again - it's not good for the psyche.

Tony and I drove home Thursday Dec. 10th after my treatment - I was
feeling pretty good due to the steroids I was on and was able to go and
get my hair cut short and get the house all decorated for Christmas. It was awesome to feel good enough to get stuff done and we were so glad to be home with our dogs in our own house, bed etc. After being gone for an unexpected 3 weeks....it was SO good to be home.

My parents came up that weekend and I was feeling pretty good - actually felt good enough to make dinner for us all which was a huge feat! Then Saturday night (so day 6 of my cycle I woke up in extreme pain and felt very feverish). I called the on-call oncologist because I didn't think the pain could be normal and he said that it meant my white blood cell shot called Neulasta was kicking in and to look at the pain as a good sign that its working. Well, Sunday morning I woke up with a huge hot pink lump under my underarm that was red and warm to the touch. If there's anything I learned from nursing school - it's pink and warm are never good skin indicators. So I added that to my sudden laundry list of symptoms that was racking up and waited for Monday to come so I could call my doctor's office.

Tony was planning to go to work on Monday and my very best friend Gretchen was coming to spend the day with me from Burlington and we had high hopes of making ginger bread houses, etc. etc. Well I woke up Monday - called my doctor with a list of red lumps under my arm that were warm to the touch and hurt A LOT, a low grade fever, severe bone pain, and really bizarre sweat that was like the consistency of mousse, oh and a big fat rash all over my chest, back, and stomach. Needless to say - they wanted to see me ASAP.

So poor dear Gretchen drove all the way to my house from Burlington and put me in her car and drove me all the way back. (Tony was in Boone at the time working so I decided he should just stay and I would keep him posted). My dad, Gretchen and I went to Duke and waited ALL day b/c they worked me in - I was so thankful to be there once I got there b/c I was feeling progressively worse and worse as the day went on. By the time I saw my Dr. I had a fever of 100.5 and my WBC counts were a 2. Very bad news. Come to find out I shaved my armpits Saturday morning before my parents came to visit - probably nicked myself just enough to introduce infection, my counts were bottomed out because the shot took too long to kick in and I had a full blown cellulitis infection. It was no good. My Dr. really wanted to keep my OUT of the hospital considering how low my counts were, so at 7pm Monday night they sent me to the chemo treatment room to get an IV of antibiotics and to go home and get drugged up and sleep it off. Unfortunately my fever did not stay at bay even after several doses of antibiotics so I was admitted Tuesday night. Tony drove to Burlington Monday night after rounding up yet another set of luggage and the dogs for who knew how long. I was admitted to Duke Tuesday night around 8pm and their main goal was to get my fever down and my pain under control. A rough start to chemo round 1.

The Darkness and then the Light

2009-12-05T14:02:00.001-08:00

"Men's and nations finest hour consist of those moments when extraordinary challenge is met by extraordinary response. Hence, in those darkest hours, we must light our individual candles rather than vying with others to call attention to the enveloping darkness." (Neal Maxwell)

I have definitely felt the "enveloping darkness" today - I am starting to lose sleep over the immense amount of emotions that I daily experience and try to process, but then I got some incredibly happy news about/from a dear dear friend and everything once again aligned into perspective. Life is an incredible journey and although today has been a sad day - it also held one of the happiest moments I've had in a long long time.

Head prosthesis

2009-12-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

I went for my liver MRI scheduled at 7am today. Dad was sweet enough to take me again so we could give Tony one last day off to get totally better before Monday. It went by pretty fast and we miraculously left the hospital by 9:20am!! The best part of getting out early was I somehow talked dad into letting me go to a yarn store in Chapel Hill - which got even better when KO' decided to meet me there. It was so good to get a hug from an old dear friend. I need those more than ever.
I got all of my prescriptions filled and picked them up at the hospital pharmacy. A bunch of PO meds for nausea, etc the days after the chemo treatment. And a SubQ shot that I have to give myself for my white blood cell count the day after the chemo treatment (fellow nursing students - feel free to come practice on me!! NOT! - you know I was excited about this though.) Anyways, the most bizarre thing was my oncologist wrote me a prescription for a "head prosthesis" - aka - a wig. What I think is so great about this is that the government requires insurance companies to cover the cost of one wig for every woman that is diagnosed with breast cancer. I think this is so incredible - and although, I've decided I probably will not wear one, I'm going to go through the motions of getting it fitted - and then try to donate it. I've also agreed to participate in a research study by Duke that is studying the effects of women who took oral contraceptives and breast cancer and the effects of the chemo on my hormone levels etc, throughout the treatment process. Its basically a donation of my blood sample to a blood bank of young women with the breast cancer diagnosis to try and understand it better. I will be giving that on Monday if/when I start chemo.
Tony feels much better today and it looks like we are a go for him to be with me during the treatment on Monday. Let the lazy weekend begin!!!!!

The Quarantined Love

2009-12-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

Today mom and dad and I went to meet with my oncologist to get the liver biopsy results and the PET scan results. Tony had to stay home again - we are hoping he is all the way better by Monday for my possible 1st chemo appointment. My oncologist told us that she was overbooking me today and boy did she mean it. We waited 4hrs and 45minutes to see her. It was a LONG day. So the liver biopsy tissues came back with no cancer cells and lots of blood - which is excellent, BUT it doesn't mean it is definitely not cancer because they can't really determine what it is. The doctor said that because the biopsy was SO painful, the lesion is uniform in shape, and there was so much blood in the tissue that it is a good sign towards it not being cancer, but she ordered me to have an MRI of my liver to learn more about it. She said that she is just hoping the MRI doesn't come back and show that it is cancer since they were so undecided about what it might be. The good news of the day was that the PET scan came back with no other spots of suspicion other than the known areas.
The other news of the day is that although Forsyth determined my cancer was a "triple negative" tumor that was not progesteron, estrogen, or Her2-Neu positive, well, once again Duke redid the tests on the tissue samples and over 90% of the cells were estrogen positive. On a scale of 1-9 mine is a 7 or 8 for being estrogen positive. This was not good news, but it was good that they redid the tests because this is a huge part of how they treat my cancer. The long and the short of it means that I will have to be on hormone treatment after the chemo, surgery and radiation that will keep my ovaries from working for at least 5 years. Then IF they are able to start working after all the chemo that I'm given that will be poisoning my ovaries then I can maybe discuss the options of having kids. This is still a very sad, sore subject that I am working through and would appreciate NO posts or comments regarding it.
The exciting part of the day was to get my actual prescriptions written for the start of chemo on Monday. I've had 2 chemo appointments scheduled so far that I have not been able to go to because of further tests that needed to be done. So this Monday - the 7th I hopefully will really and truly be starting chemo and get to go HOME to my house the day after:) I meet with the oncologist at 8:45am and if the liver MRI comes back as something determinable then I will get to start chemo. It may possibly be something called a focal nodular hyperplasia - that is a benign tumor of the liver.
My quarantined hubbie is feeling much better today- Thank the Lord!!!!

Drink This!!!!

2009-12-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

My mom, Tony & I were in the hospital yesterday from 10am to 7pm unexpectedly going through the liver biopsy procedure. The waiting rooms were all packed, and people just are not reading the MILLIONS of signs posted on every corner in the hospital practically saying "If you have the sniffles, GO HOME! or please wear a mask." One of the waiting rooms was so closed in that we all couldn't bring ourselves to sit in there - yes we are germaphobes, but seriously it seemed like everyone was sneezing, burping, coughing, you name it. My mom said to Tony during my procedure "We'll be lucky to get out of here without being sick." Well, low and behold Tony woke up Tuesday morning sicker than a dog. So he is quarantined from me until he is better. Which has been very sad and feels like the last thing we need right now, but he went to a clinic and they tested him for the flu - which he doesn't have so that was a relief. They said he has a virus and hopefully he'll get better soon.

Anyways, today I had to have my PET scan redone at Duke because my oncologist said it really threw up a red flag that the Duke CT scan showed a lesion on my liver and the one done at Forsyth didn't - so they are basically redoing all tests. I had to drink contrast dye which has given me major GI problems every time, so that was really the worst part of it all. Dad took me to the scan and was sweet enough to sit in the dark with me while the radioactive sugar injection settled into my body. They make you sit in the dark for an hour so that your brain won't be so active because otherwise all the sugar would go to your brain and not distribute evenly throughout your body. We go back tomorrow to find out the PET scan and liver biopsy results.

Bumps in the road...literally & figuratively

2009-11-30T17:24:00.000-08:00

So today we hit a proverbial "bump" in the road. Halfway through the day I decided I hate that expression but then I got over it. We went to Duke today to meet with my oncologist & surgeon. I got my bone scan results back - negative - very good. My CT scan results came back with a lesion on my liver that they decided is of concern enough to "act" on it. I also found out I have what they call Tietze syndrome - which is arthritis of the sternum and chondral cartilage in my ribs. It is supposedly a common thing that young women have and they aren't really concerned about it. On with the liver...
My oncologist decided that I would have an ultrasound of the lesion on my liver. It is 0.8cm and not big enough to show up on my PET scan, but the CT scan did show it. So there were 3 possible outcomes from the ultrasound today: 1. they would think it is "something" and try to biopsy it...2. they would determine it was a "cluster" of blood vessels and decide not to stick a needle it in but to take me for an MRI or 3. they would have no idea what it was, not be able to biopsy it and send me for an MRI.
After doing the ultrasound the radiologist determined that although it was small and hard to get to because it was next to a hepatic blood vessel - they decided to try to biopsy it so they could get a tissue sample and get a diagnosis. I had the biopsy under conscious sedation with morphine and nausea meds in an IV. The HUGE problem with this was the only way they could see my lesion on my liver was if I took a deep breath in and held it because otherwise my diaphram would move my liver so they couldn't see the lesion on the ultrasound in order for them to take the biopsy sample. This made for a terrible procedure because I had to be an active part of the procedure because I had to take a deep breath and hold it while they tried to puncture the liver and the lesion and get a good sample....so I was fighting off the sedatives, morphine, etc. but had to have the pain meds in order to live through it. It was pretty much terrible. After 5 attempts they finally got a good sample and I was done - I got to recover in a recovery room for 2.5hours afterwards and then got to come home. I am very sore, drugged, tired, etc. The car ride home was rough considering it was raining and every bump was super painful, but I'm glad to be back at mom & dad's. It is looking like Tony and I will be here most of the week again.
I'm trying not to be super disappointed about not starting chemo today. I understand that they have to get "all the ducks in a row" prior to creating the set treatment plan, and I know that my oncologist completely feels my anxieties, etc over not starting treatment. I am trying to remain positive and not let these "bumps" get too discouraging.
Tomorrow I go back for another PET scan at Duke, I had one 2 weeks ago at Forsyth but Duke wants to do their own imaging to see if the liver lesion will show up. Then Wednesday I meet with the oncologist again to get the liver biopsy results back and hopefully get the TREATMENT PLAN!!
Please pray the the cancer has not spread to my liver and that the treatment starts soon.

Thank you all for your supportive messages. I know I may not respond to them all, but I appreciate them more than you know.

Where my knitters at!?!

2009-11-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

I knitted so much this Thanksgiving weekend that I got "knitter's elbow". It has been wonderful to be with my brothers and my mom and dad and my 5 nieces and nephews and my wonderful husband!! We had 15 people here for Thanksgiving!! It was great!!! I'm taking a day off of knitting in order to save my elbow:( I can't believe how bad it hurts!!!

Freedom...finally

2009-11-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday Tony & I met with the fertility doctor and decided we are not going to pursue freezing any embryos. It was a hard decision to make, I'm glad we met with the doctor to discuss our options, but it was ultimately our decision and that is what we decided - that's all I'm willing to say about the subject, so please, don't ask me about it.

I am 26 years old, have been married for 2 years and am facing a ton of challenges right now and have thoughts and fears and decisions that no 26 year old newlywed should be having to go through. I am managing the best I can and am so thankful for my husband and my family. It has been good for Tony and I both to be staying at my parents house this week. We were only planning on coming here Saturday for a massage that mom got for us - and then going to my appointment at Duke on Monday and then going back home until coming here Friday for Thanksgiving. Considering the fact that I had the biopsy done Monday, then had an appt. Tues, Wed, then next Monday - there was no sense in driving home. So we will be here until next Monday at the earliest. It has been nice for me to be home and be able to relax. I told Tony it was funny that all we had to do all the sudden was "clean our room" - instead of all the other household stuff we normally do:) Its the simple things I guess:)

Today - I had a CT scan with contrast dye - a bizarre experience - makes you have a hot flash and feel like you are peeing your pants. They told me that would be the sensation but I couldn't imagine it - but for real - I thought I peed my pants:) So bizarre. Then I was injected with a radioactive isotope and had a bone scan done. Then we were set free!!!! No more doctors until Monday. I also got my biopsy results back from Monday's biopsy and the lumps in the tail of my breast and my lymph node were both cancer. Not surprising or devastating - just a fact. This does mean I will most definitely have to have a mastectomy with no option for a lumpectomy. I was told that from the very beginning - so this also - was not devastating news - just a fact.

Monday I have a chemo appointment scheduled for 2:45pm but I meet with my Duke oncologist and surgeon prior to deciding if it is time for chemo or if they need to run more tests. Please pray for me that I start treatment soon as the anticipation and tests have started to really wear on my strength. I took a nap today when we got home from Duke - which is not at all normal for me -it felt great. I'm looking forward to seeing my 3 brothers and their kids tonight - and to start the Thanksgiving festivities. My biopsy sites are mostly "muscle" soreness today - so it is manageable. And I get to take a shower today - which is really probably going to be the best part of my day. There is nothing worse than being in and out of hospital procedures and only being able to sponge bath the 'hospital' feeling away.

I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving - no matter what challenges life may present - there is always so much more to be thankful for. The good always outweighs the bad in my eyes.

Duke

2009-11-24T07:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Duke and met with an oncologist and surgeon who SPECIALIZE in dealing with breat cancer cases that occur in young women.
They have decided to do some more testing so that "the table is set" prior to starting any treatment/surgeries, etc. My surgeon is concerned about a lump in my lymph nodes in my axillary and a lump in the tail of the breast. Whether or not those lumps are cancer will determine my type of surgery and chemo.
The doctors both also want Tony and I to meet with a fertility doctor. There is a chance, do to the type of chemo I will be given, that my ovaries may never produce eggs again. I was willing to take that chance because I do not want to delay my treatment, but the doctors have urged us to at least meet with a fertility doctor prior to going forward. My oncologist is giving the fertility doctors a minimum of two weeks from yesterday to make something happen (in terms of freezing embryos) or she will stop the process and we HAVE to start chemo.
SO...the most recent events are:
Yesterday - I had 2 needle biopsies - one of my lymph node and one of the breast tail. I also had 3 metal "clips" put inside each tumor so that if the chemo melts the tumors too quickly - which would not be a bad thing - the clips will show the surgeon where the tumors were. I had one clip placed in the lymph node lump, one in the breast tail, and one in the main tumor behind my nipple. Directly after that I had a mammogram - which was super painful.
Today - I am very sore and my arm is very sore - from the lymph site being in my armpit. I have to keep my bandages dry for 3 days and the soreness should be gone by then. They are going to use these tissue samples to redo all the tests and make sure that it is not estrogen receptor positive, etc. Also to be sure that the lymph site and breast tail lumps are cancer - they only did one biopsy previously on the lump behind my nipple to get the diagnosis.
Today - Tuesday - Tony and I are meeting with a fertility doctor today.
Tomorrow - Wednesday - I am having a bone scan and a CT scan done to cover all bases and just make sure that I have nothing in any outerlying areas.
It is going to be a full week. But I feel a lot better about going to Duke - the little things that they said proved to me they are much more experienced in this field and I really like my oncologist. I will still more than likely be having chemo first and it will still be 6 rounds, one every 3 weeks. I will NOT be having the portacath put in this week because my new oncologist thinks they are very unneccessary and the risk for infection in them far outwieghs the benefits. Plus its only 6 treatments so its not like I'm getting stuck every week.
Tony & I have decided to stay at Mom & Dad's for the rest of the week b/c they are closer to Duke and I have an appt there today, tomorrow, then its Thanksgiving - then I meet with my oncologist again on Monday - then might even start chemo that day.

2nd Opinions...

2009-11-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

On Monday - Nov. 23 I am meeting with a breast specialist/ oncologist at Duke. She is part of a team of doctors that work specifically with YOUNG women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. I am seeing her because ultimately, I want to have my surgery at Duke. My oncologist that I am working with now knows the Duke doctor and understands me getting a second opinion. I am hoping that the Duke doctor will agree with the set plan of care - the portacath getting put in this week and chemo starting the week after. The big debate is chemo before surgery vs. chemo after surgery. This is what we are waiting to find out. From what I've read, there are reasons they do chemo before vs. after surgery, and it seems that my situation fits the criteria for having chemo first. But, I will be sure to update the findings from Duke and whether or not the portacath procedure is still a go. I am meeting with a Duke oncologist and surgeon Monday morning.

The details

2009-11-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

I have had several tests done to determine the next steps in treating my cancer. My cancer cells were rated a 3/3 for being most aggressive. It has spread to 4 or 5 lymph nodes in my axillary (armpit), but has not metastisized to any other parts of my body. I had a PET scan done to determine if there were any other tumors in my body and it came back clear - an answer to prayer. My cancer is being considered a "triple negative" for not being positive for progesteron receptors, estrogen receptors, or HER2Nue positive. These are also all very good results for my prognosis.
Last Thursday, Nov. 19th, I met with my oncologist and he has decided to start with chemo first, to shrink the bulk of my tumor, and then we will discuss surgery after treatments. I do not have a choice of having a lumpectomy. When it comes time for surgery, I will definitely be having a mastectomy. I will be having 6 rounds of chemo, one treatment every 3 weeks. My oncologist presented my case to a tumor board, a panel of surgeons that work for Forsyth Hospital to determine my plan of care.
There is still genetic testing results that we are waiting on to determine if I carry the breast cancer gene - which would dictate whether or not I have to have both breasts removed. The genetic testing also determines some treatment aspects, so we are anxiously awaiting those results.

On Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) I am having a portacath put in. This will be the route in which they deliver the chemo. It is a permanent catheter with a self sealing rubber valve that goes under my skin just below my collar bone. It eliminates them having to stick my veins everytime they draw blood or give me chemo treatments. I will be put under general anasthesia for this procedure. I don't know now what time the "surgery" is on Wednesday - I will find out on Tuesday when I go for my anasthesia consult.
The plan is to start chemo the week after Thanksgiving.

Diagnosis

2009-11-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

I was diagnosed with breast cancer on November 6, 2009. I am currently undergoing tests and meetings with doctors to determine the next steps for treatment, surgery, etc.