My Own Double Rainbow

Lately I’ve been fluctuating between happiness that my mammogram came back all clear and the sadness and fear that the cancer will come back. Today has been a little harder for me.

It all started when baby girl and I started watching the movie “UP.” Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, I always cry (those of you who’ve seen it know what I’m talking about) and then towards the end, I cry again. There is this scene where Carl (the old man) looks through his and his late wife’s scrapbook reliving their life together. At the very last page, his wife wrote to him: “Thank you for the adventure, now go and have a new one.” She’s telling him to move on with his life after she’s gone.

I had not watched this movie in some years; and I’d forgotten about that scene. It made me so sad to think that one day I may have to tell baby girl and hubby to move on if I’m gone. How I may not see her grow, graduate from college, start her own family or celebrate any milestones in her life. When hubby came home, he noticed I was melancholy, but allowed me to be with my thoughts. After dinner, he and baby girl went to bed early and I was again stuck in my head about dying. To make it worse, there was an article in the paper about a local newscaster who battled breast cancer for 16 years and then passing away at age 56. That means she had started her battle against cancer right at 40 and I’m in my 30’s. Is that what I have to look forward to?

I’m finding it hard to be joyous tonight, even though I know it’s better for my health and my mind to stay positive. To be happy that I beat the disease. I’ve recently met several people with stories of survival and some who are just starting the battle. One woman I was chatting with is BRCA+ (meaning she has the genetic form) which has a lower survival rate than the type I have. She is a 6 year survivor and is going strong. I told her I couldn’t wait to hit my 6 year anniversary. She told me to stay strong. Sometimes, like tonight, I can’t be strong. I feel scared, and weak, and alone. I find it hard to take life day by day and there are times when even minute by minute is a struggle. I worry that it will affect my ability to be a good mother to baby girl. The fear and worry are gnawing at me.

This past weekend hubby and I had a short but meaningful conversation about children. I decided to not go through with seeing an onco-fertility specialist. Hubby had started to set aside money for in-vitro and egg harvesting, but I told him I had come to peace about not having another biological child. He hugged me and told me that he’d rather have me, his wife, than another child and that he was perfectly happy adopting. I think we may start the process, even though we’re not really ready for another child just yet. My heart has still not given up hope that one day I will be pregnant with a child again, but I am also glad that I finally got over the hurdle of being emotionally tied up over it.

This week, tomorrow, the next day, soon, really…I hope to be back to my normal self. The one who is still ecstatic over a one year cancer free diagnosis. I want to get to the point where I stop thinking about cancer everyday. It’s been a year and yet it still occupies my thoughts as if it where yesterday. A year ago, I was suffering through an episode of erythema nodosum and my breasts were still healing from surgery. I was getting ready to start to chemo and I was battling an infection. And now here I am, healthy and whole and yet I can’t be happy. I’m trying to find my own double rainbow.

PTSD After Treatment

The last week has not been good for me.

Lately, I’ve felt almost like I did when I was first diagnosed. My mind is dwelling on the breast cancer coming back and I’m absolutely terrified that baby girl won’t have her mother. I’ve found myself crying quite a bit and not being able to sleep. My anxiety is at an all time high and I can’t seem to stop the morbid thoughts from entering my mind.

I’m trying very hard to not be negative because I believe that our bodies respond to what we think. If we believe that our body will die, well then, I feel the individual cells may just stop working because they will feel like “what’s the point?” To make it worse, there have been stories in the news lately of people dying from cancer at a young age. Just recently, a popular Mexican singer passed from breast cancer at the age of 44 after battling the cancer for 6 years. Like her, I was diagnosed at a young age (in my 30’s) and her story reminded me of how fragile life really is. I keep telling myself I can not leave baby girl motherless, but I still can’t stop thinking about death.

I keep looking at my case and my statistics, and I know I’m very lucky that my cancer was caught early. Right now, I have a 92% survival rate but that 8% is f*cking with my mind. (Excuse the language; I just feel like it’s the only word that truly expresses how I feel.) I should be grateful, and I am, I just don’t know why I can’t let it go and move on and go back to how my life was.

Sometimes I just watch baby girl and I cry at the thought of not being with her because of this disease. I know some of the tears are the normal emotions of a mother watching her baby grow up. I’ve been burning images of her in my mind so I will have them always and then the morbid thoughts kick in. I feel that doing that is just setting myself up for a cancer recurrence.

I spoke with a medical professional recently about how I’ve been feeling and she told me that my feelings were normal and common among survivors in the months after treatment. She explained that during the treatment process, patients are strong because they have to deal with the physical demands of surgery, chemo and radiation. That patients don’t have time to really deal with the true emotions of what they are going through. She even said that many patients actually go through PTSD once treatment is finished. I thought that was a bit of a stretch because when I think of PTSD, I think of soldiers fighting overseas and people dealing with abuse and violent crime. How could something like cancer produce a PTSD response in a patient? She politely chastised me for not being gentle with myself and my feelings and urged me to seek out a support group or speak to a therapist.

I do agree that I need to find a group with other young survivors and I am considering a therapist for some one on one sessions. I think I have to stop acting like nothing ever happened and acknowledge what I’ve gone through, beyond the physical issues.

Hopefully this new week will be a better one.

 

 

It’s the Final Countdown!

Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am. I am in the final DAYS of being done with cancer treatment.

I can’t believe I’ve gone through 4 weeks of radiation already. It’s gone by so fast and I love the girls who administer my daily dose of radiation. They are so funny and sweet and they feel like real friends. I will miss them when this is all over. My breast itself is doing okay. It’s red, swollen, cracking and painful. My nipple and aureola are much darker than normal and it’s cracking in the grooves. Usually if I leave my breast alone, meaning no bra, no contact, it doesn’t feel too bad. But with baby girl, it ends up getting a lot of contact. One time she hit it so hard, I saw stars. I think she knew she hurt me, but I tried to act normal so she wouldn’t cry.

Life is getting better.

When all of this first started, hubby began picking up extra shifts so we could make ends meet. He’s been able to cut down on some hours and we’ve basically cut out all unnecessary spending. For us, it meant that I started cooking even more than I already was. Some days have been harder for me to get myself together in the kitchen, so I’ve been relying heavily on my slow cooker. My mom even bought me a second one so that if I was unable to wash one up, I could use this other one to get food on the table. It’s actually worked out really well. I think I am becoming a slow cooker addict. LOL!

The rest of the house chores are not coming along as well. I’m still getting tired more easily and something that would normally take me an hour to do, takes me 2-3 now. I’m hoping that will all change after next week is done. Before I would try and get some things done when baby girl was taking her naps, but now I find I have to nap with her too. It’s not such a bad life, but I feel bad when hubby comes home and the house is still a wreck. (Especially when he’s had a 13 hour day!)

Lately I’ve become obsessed with frugal living websites. I think it helps keep me on track and inspired about ways to live more with less. A lot of the bloggers/readers keep lists of things they’ve done to save money for the week and I think it’s a good idea. Even though the main part of my treatment will be done, I’m supposed to go on more medications and visit with a physical therapist to work on my lymphedema issues. Unfortunately we’re still going to have medical bills coming in. Sometimes I come across across other patients who don’t have insurance and I think about how lucky I am that my bills are not totally outrageous. I can’t even think of how they can sleep at night knowing their medical bills could easily be in the $100k range. All because they were unlucky and like me got cancer.

That thought brings me back to the memory of this woman I met recently. She’s young like I am, but she’s in a very bad place. She was 6 months pregnant when I met her, and she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Her medical team told her that if she didn’t start treatment right away, she would probably only have 8 months to live. The problem was that she would have to abort her baby to start treatment. I was also under the impression that she did have other children. Can you imagine having to make such an awful decision? About a week or so later, I ran into a mutual acquaintance, and this lady told me that the stage 4 patient decided to keep the baby. My heart broke for her. No matter what decision she made, there was going to be heartbreak. I really hope her team was wrong with their assessment of her case.

Today, I am so thankful to be here, to be alive and thriving. Hubby and I are still trying to incorporate healthier eating into our lives. We’ve both been very bad with the exercise lately so we’re hoping to try and increase what we do. Baby girl is still so sweet and growing like a weed. For the most part, I’m very happy. Hubby and I are thinking of a way we can celebrate the end of my treatment together. Maybe we will do a day trip to Napa or even spend the night away. Hmmmm…lots of good things to think about.

 

Week 2 of Radiation

Life is getting better and better.

This week was the start of week 2 of radiation for me. I was able to get scheduled with the first morning appointment of the day, so I’m out of the house by 6:45 but I’m back home by 7:45. I get home just in time to make breakfast for hubby and baby girl, as well as pack hubby’s lunch. I’m starting to appreciate the craziness that is our mornings. It makes me feel as if nothing bad ever happened to me.

For those of you wondering why cancer patients undergo radiation treatments, I’ll give you the quick answer. Radiation targets the specific part of the body that had cancer. The radiation beams change the DNA of the cancer cells so that they can’t replicate and die off. Normal cells are also effected, however, they can restore themselves and recover. Combined with chemotherapy, the two are extremely effective in getting rid of the cancer for good.

So far my side effects have been mild. My right breast is sore and sensitive. I’m also suffering from lymphedema. Lymphedema is when there is swelling in the body because the lymph nodes can’t/won’t drain properly. I have to massage my skin in a specific order to get the drainage going. Hopefully this will subside within the next few months.

On a random note, I ran into one of my managers from my previous job. They had heard I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I had heard that they didn’t believe it. Anyway, baby girl and I were in Target just browsing (I needed to get out of the house) when my old manager completely walked by me. Didn’t even blink or recognize me. As she walked by, I called her name out and she turned and gave me the “Who are you?” look. I said “Hello, it’s me, Miss May, remember?” You should have seen the look on her face. She was absolutely stunned. She recovered quickly and we exchanged superficial pleasantries. I could tell she thought I looked bad. That night, I came home and really looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes are sunken, my skin super dry. I’m still puffy all over and I’m missing eyebrows and hair. I’ve just let myself go during this time. I’ve felt like I look a man with earrings. I guess my outside reflected how bad I’ve felt on the inside. So the next day I went to the Nordstrom beauty counters and asked for help. The girls hooked me up with eyebrows, eyelashes and moisturizers. I walked out feeling like a million bucks and I finally felt like a woman again. Isn’t it crazy that something as simple as eyebrows can make you feel better?

And on to even better news…my hair has started grown back! I have soft long peachy fuzz going on. My scalp is now much less visible.

Things are starting to looking up. 🙂

 

 

What a month…

I can’t believe it’s been almost 6 weeks since my last post. So many things have happened. I guess I’ll start with my chemo update.

Over the last several weeks, I had my last two chemo sessions. I wish I could say there was much fanfare, however, it was rather anti-climatic. My third chemo session and the following weeks went by rather quickly (I’ll get to why later) and my fourth chemo session just ended. With my third session, I was watching every little change with my body like a hawk. I did have a hives outbreak but I managed to control it and was not overly effected by it the same way I was when I had to go to the ER. My third session also got pushed back one week because my surgeon thought I might be having an infection and put me on antibiotics. My oncologist wanted to give my body time to bounce back, and so we held off on chemo. I was bitterly disappointed at this, but now that I’ve just had my final session, it seems like getting upset was a waste. *mental note: what people say about wasting emotions on little things is true!*

My last session so far has been uneventful. I’ve managed any itching and my body is fighting to get itself back right. My eyebrows have finally fallen out but luckily, I still have eyelashes. The hair on my head is also starting to grow back. Between the 3rd and final session, I went on an auto-immune diet. I stopped eating things that would trigger an inflammation response. I miss hot suace. I also cut out all edible foods from the nightshade family. This includes things like bell peppers, potatoes and eggplant. I have also dramatically decreased my tomato intake. That is much harder than the rest of the items. I do think it helped because I didn’t have as many issues as I’d had with my first two sessions.

My aunt celebrated my last session with me by taking me out to lunch and with a shopping trip. I didn’t buy much, really just a t-shirt, but it was nice to spend the last day of poisoning my body with her. This week I have my consultation with the radiation group to find out how much radiation I will need. I am praying that I only have to do 3 weeks instead of 5. For those of you that don’t know, I will have to go in every day (minus weekends) and get a blast of radiation targeted at my breasts. This is the final attack on any random cancer cells that may have survived surgery and chemo. Personally, I feel that I am cancer free. Scratch that, I KNOW I am cancer free. However, I will take any help I can get in making sure it stays that way. 🙂

Now back to why the last month went so quickly…we had an unexpected death in the family. Granted, most deaths are unexpected. The person that passed was not someone I was close to, but hubby and other family members were. For a good week, we were out of the house from morning until late night getting everything prepared for the deceased. After that, the family was split up with hubby and baby girl spending time with family, while I stayed home and recuperated from chemo. The whole situation got me to thinking about how much I want to live and what I need to do to make sure I do live. I’ve got some agonizing choices to make in the next few weeks, and when I’m ready I will share them. Right now I am still somewhat raw and unsure over what to do.

On the brighter side of things, I have met so many cancer survivors that my heart is filled with joy for them and myself. A friend of mine recently came to me and told me her life story, how she survived cancer at a really young age and how it made her really decide to live life with gusto. I hate to think that this is what it took for me to rehaul and re-evaluate what I’m doing, but that’s just what happened. My friend humbled me with her kindness and how much she understood what I was going through. I think I cried for days when she hugged me afterward.

This has completely changed me. I’ve begun making sure baby girl and I get out of the house everyday. I cook much healthier meals for hubby and I. I’ve begun a serious exercise regiment. And I’ve started planning more trips for us as a family. I am seriously considering not going back to work at all to focus on baby girl and hubby. Hubby and I talked about it last night and we are both totally okay with less material wealth if it means we have each other and can spend more time together. That’s real wealth.

It’s a Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood

Today was beautiful.

Hubby decided early on that he was going to get me out of the house and into sunshine no matter what.

So, we packed up the car with snacks, hubby, baby girl and me and headed down the coast. He decided to take me on one of my favorite car rides, down Highway 1 from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz. It was the perfect day for a road trip.

We stopped along one of the state beaches near Pescadero to stretch our legs. This was the view from the parking lot:

We sat for a little while and enjoyed the peacefulness of the area. There is just something rejuvenating about the ocean air. Even baby girl was quiet and at peace.

Then we continued our journey down the coast. Hubby had never stopped at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse and so we made another detour. The views from the area are amazing, with nothing but beautiful beaches as far as the eye can see. I mentioned to hubby that there is also a hostel at the lighthouse that gets really good travel reviews. Hubby actually seemed interested in staying there.

This whole stretch of Hwy 1 is slowly getting more businesses along the way. There are now “u-pick” berry farms to visit, as well as a new-ish brewery to quench your thirst.

We finally got to Santa Cruz around 3 pm and boy, was it packed. Instead of battling for parking on the street and in the boardwalk’s parking lots, we headed over to the pier nearby and found a spot quickly and easily. It’s $2 for every 20 minutes, which means $6 an hour, but it’s still a deal when it comes to your time and sanity. This was the boardwalk today as seen from the pier:

We had corn dogs, garlic fries and chocolate dipped ice cream cones. 6 hours later, and I’m still guzzling down water from all the salt and grease I had from today. With all the tempting fried goodness found on the pier, we did our best to minimize how much junk we ate. But boy, was it good going down! 🙂

As you can see from both pictures, the day was just beautiful and perfect. Things like this remind me of how lucky I am in so many respects. I will never make the mistake of taking life for granted again.

 

Wide Awake…

I’m on day 4.5 after chemo and it’s not so bad.

Except I dread nights. I’m still itchy from whatever allergic reaction I had, and even the softest blanket we have in the house makes me itch. For awhile, I’m nice and cool and then I’m roasting hot again. Did I mention it’s hot? I’m burning up.

The side effects aren’t too horrible. I have a hard time eating due to mouth sores, but I am controlling that with special mouthwashes. A lot of my meals have been very soft foods and smoothies. Unfortunately, I am on the team of people who gain weight on chemo. So far it’s been 4 lbs. It’s a little depressing but at least I know the weight will come right off as soon as I’m done with my ‘roids.

Things are starting to getting better, even with the rashes and my leg issues. I saw my dermatologist today and we actually went over all of the meds I was given during my surgery. It makes sense now why my body is having so many reactions. I’m one of those people that barely takes aspirin when I have a headache, so to see this list, I’m shocked I’m still standing.

So anyway, it’s close to midnight. My kitty is sitting next to me and I’m debating if I should try and fall asleep or watch the new “Hemlock Grove” season 2 series that will start soon. Then again, there’s always shopping on Amazon too…

LOL, can you tell I’m getting back to normal?