My journey with cancer

Blood tranfusions

2012-06-01T09:17:00.003-07:00

So, we figured out one of the reasons that I was feeling so crappy. My blood was low. A normal blood level is 12 and mine was down to 7.4 so the doctor scheduled me for a blood transfusion. I went in early Wednesday morning (the day after my chemo) to the hospital and got ready for the transfusion. The nurse warned me of the side effects which she said could be a racing heart beat, shortness of breath or a feeling of imminent death. WHAT ?????? A feeling of WHAT ?????? All I could think was thank GOD my daughter wasn't in the room, she would of had a nervous breakdown immediately had she heard that. Exactly what does imminent death feel like? I didn't want to find out. Thankfully, I didn't have any side effects and the blood has made me feel much better. My boys graduate from middle school next week and it's just my luck that the bad chemo is on Monday. There are so many activities for graduation I'm not sure how I'm going to get through all of them feeling lousy. I asked the doctor is I could postpone the bad chemo a week and he isn't advising it so I've decided to just suck it up and do what I can.

I've also decided that since the hot weather is inching up upon us I don't like my wig so much. It is hot and itchy. I am getting more and more comfortable being "bald". My mother and my husband don't like me bald but I don't care at this point. Hair is the least of my worries. My largest tumor seems to be almost gone with the chemo treatments but I have discussed with the doctor that I am still opting for a bi-lateral mastectomy. I'm not going through this again if I have anything to do with it. If I'm going to go under the knife anyway why not do it all? I meet with my surgeon in a week and I'm sure we will discuss this more then.

Nikola needs her tonsils out so we have scheduled that for June 21st so we will be invalids home together for a couple of weeks :) She has been so sick since April, we are both anxious for her to have them out, I just want her to feel better again. Can 2012 get any worse? Oh, I take that back, I'm sure it could and I don't want it to.......

I can't find my hair !!!!

2012-05-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

Last week was a very difficult week for me. I had my bad chemo and my magnesium levels were low so they had to give me a bag of magnesium with all my other "stuff". That was Monday. Tuesday I felt pretty good. HUH? That doesn't usually happen after my bad chemo. So, I worked on Tuesday almost all day, went and got my cap and gown, and planned on attending my hooding ceremony for my masters graduation. All I could think of was when they went to put the hood over my head, on stage, my cap and wig were going to come tumbling down. Just like Humpty Dumpty. That would be my luck. Thankfully, that didn't happen and I made it through the night with my Mom and daughter by my side. Although, I didn't think to try my cap and gown on UNTIL the hooding ceremony. When I went to pick it up they said that they only had size 5'2" or 5'10" so I chose the smaller of the two because I knew I didn't want to have to staple it up (since I don't sew at all !). I got out of my moms car, go to put the gown on and realize that while it is a bit short (not such a problem) it is also made for someone MUCH thinner than myself. This is a problem. Between me sucking in my stomach and Nikola helping me we got it zippered but all I could think of was the scene from the movie "Steel Magnolias" where all the woman are making fun of the older woman dancing at the wedding saying she looked like a sausage stuffed into the dress dancing around. That is what I looked like. I immediately wanted to get back into the car and go home. My mother convinced me not to, I unzipped my robe and walked into the gym. My angel (Lisa) who has helped me numerous times throughout my masters program immediately gave me a huge hug and I told her my dilemma. She hooked me up with a larger gown and all was good. :) Crisis averted. I wasn't able to make my graduation on Saturday but at least I participated in one of the activities.

I guess I outdid myself on Tuesday because I was good for nothing the rest of the week. By the time the weekend came I couldn't even get out of bed. When I went for chemo yesterday (#9, almost halfway through) they told me that my magnesium and potasium were both low. They gave me boosts of both and I feel much better today. I need to eat better to avoid lousy weeks like that. I have also learned that I need to carry baby wipes around with me for emergencies.....yes, another bathroom story. So, I was in Target with Nikola and Christopher last weekend and of course the urge came upon me again. When will this diarrhea stop? I rushed to the Target bathroom, did my business only to discover that the stall I was in had no toilet paper. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ???? I figured that I could do one of two things. 1. Ask the occupant next to me to pass over some tp or wait for my daughter to come searching for me (and god knows how long that might take.....). I chickened out asking another occupant but the bathroom was filling up. What do I do? It was like divine intervention. I look at the floor to my right and the occupant has put down some toilet paper....I know I didn't ask (did she have mental telepathy?). As gross as it might seem I picked up the paper off of Targets bathroom floor, I was desperate. Lesson learned-----CARRY BABY WIPES wherever you go ! These side effects of cancer stink (pun intended :) ).

Oh, and finally, about the title. The only thing I was able to do this weekend was to go out Sat. morning for our usual breakfast with Theresa and my mom. I was trying to leave the house and I couldn't find my hair. Really? Why does everything have to be so difficult some days? I eventually found it but it's getting hotter and itchier as the weather is getting warmer so don't be surprised if you see me sporting the Telly Savalis look around town. I was pretty comfortable wearing bandannas until a friend called me Aunt Jemimma ----yeah, not so into them now.

Tired

2012-05-04T07:42:00.001-07:00

I'm 6 treatments in with 14 more to go and it's hard to swallow. Not literally but figuratively. I am so tired all the time. There are mornings that I wake up and all I do is count the hours until I can crawl back into bed. This is not me. I am an on the go person....go, go, go....all the time. Not anymore. I come home from work and lay down, I go to bed at 8:00, I even put my head down on my desk in the middle of the day and catch a 10-15 nap if I can. Maybe this is God's way of telling me to slow my life down.

I will say that I am overwhelmed with the generousness (is that even a word??!!) of my family and friends and all that they continue to do for me. I can not possibly ever thank you all enough....except to tell you all that I hope you never have to go through this but if you do (God forbid) I will be there for you ten-fold. And please do me a favor and do self-exams and get your yearly mammograms....we're all at that age. I never believed myself in the self-exams--I always said, "it all feels the same, I can't tell anything apart" but trust me, if you have a lump like I did you know it is different. I am very lucky to have caught it at stage 2 and it was just a fluke that I found it. I will get through this, it is just that some days seem longer than others.

It's finally gone.......

2012-04-24T10:12:00.001-07:00

One of my summer hats......off to the boys baseball game.........

My new wig which is much more like my natural hair and color..............

Well, last week was tough. I had my difficult chemo and it really knocked my socks off. I slept a lot and then woke up on Thursday morning to my hair falling out. I knew deep down that it was inevitable but I was still hoping that I would be the 1-2% who didn't lose their hair. I decided to have it shaved on Thursday night instead of watching it fall out 10-15 strands at a time. I went and purchased a second wig which I like much better-it looks almost exactly like my hair. However, like most people told me, it is not really comfortable. It gets hot and is itchy so I've taken to wearing bandannas most of the time. My second family (my college roommate and her Dad and step-mom) bought me a different bandanna for every day of the week and I am wearing them with pride. I'm hoping I bounce back a bit this week since this weeks chemo is the easier of the two---that's kind of an oxymoron isn't it?

Wigs, Hats and Hair, OH MY !

2012-04-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Well, first and foremost I would like to thank all of my friends and family for my wonderful birthday wishes! Even though I had to have chemo on my birthday you all made it a whole lot easier :) My great brother (down from New York City) accompanied me to chemo and kept me very good company. My best friend surprised me at chemo on her lunch hour (it was a fantastic surprise Tree!) and I met a fellow breast cancer patient who made the time go by so quickly! My mom made my brother and I (his birthday is April 4th) our customary birthday dinner (homemade lasagna, YUM!) and ice cream cake. The evening was an unbelievable hit when my brother gave me my present which consisted of several wigs and hats. Here are some pictures of me wearing the hats and my husband wearing the wigs. We laughed so hard we cried. At one point my cousin Lynn had to ask me if I could breathe I was laughing so hard.

My pink cowboy hat................I might just have to wear this one to the Country Music Fest in August!

Chris looking like Cher...............AND it took him 20 minutes in the bathroom to make sure it looked good before he would come out....this made us laugh even harder.

Hey look, the Rogaine worked !!!!

Before Rogaine.......

I think I'm stylin' in this one...........

Little Christopher....he looks like his Dad when he was this age......

Christopher and Nikola having fun !

So, the wigs were a huge hit and you might just see me around town running errands in one, you never know. I still have my hair but am supposedly supposed to lose it tomorrow, day 17. Isn't it amazing how precise that the doctors can be? I'm thinking about having the whole shaving my head party instead of waiting, my step-fathers funeral is this Saturday and it would just be my luck that it would fall out on that day, during the services. That's just how my life goes.

I've now had 3 chemo treatments and I'm still feeling pretty good, my difficult treatment (every third one) will be on Monday :(. My girls are taking me out Saturday night for my birthday which I am really excited about--hopefully we will be able to post pictures if they are not too obscene. LOL. Have a great week everyone!

If I don't laugh I will cry

2012-04-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

Last week was a tough week and I didn't expect that. First week of chemo, how bad could it possibly be? This stuff is supposed to be cumulative. Not in my life. I had the chemo on Monday and I was exhausted on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and all week I had diarrhea. I lost 6 pounds (not complaining) but not a very comfortable way to do it. I started to feel like myself again on Friday and was back to normal over the weekend.

Friday afternoon I picked up Nikola and her boyfriend from school and we went home. Shortly after arriving at home I had a "little accident" concerning a wayward fart and my underwear. Sorry, that's the best way I could say it. I went into the downstairs bathroom only to discover that there was no toilet paper. At this point I am sitting on the toilet, no TP, no underwear, no pants. Well, isn't this just great. I text Nikola upstairs and she doesn't answer. I text again. Still no answer. I call. No answer. So, I do the next best thing and call my roomate from college, Pam. Those of you who know of Pam or have heard me tell stories about her know that she has the best sense of humor especially when it comes to matters of the bathroom. I knew she would enjoy this. I called and said, "Please laugh with me or I am going to cry". We tried to figure out what I should do while we were both laughing through tears. She offered to bring me tp but that would take at least an hour and fifteen minutes. We finally decided that a towel would do the job (I could just throw it OUT later) but that didn't solve my problem with the underwear and pants. I certainly couldn't go parading around the house for clothes with the boyfriend at the house. SO, I call Nikola again. No answer. I text her emergency downstairs. NO ANSWER. I call her again and she finally answered. I told her to get downstairs now. She peeks her head in the bathroom and now SHE can't stop laughing. REALLY????? She grabs me tp and I tell her to go get me underwear. I wait, I wait some more. Ten minutes go by and she never comes back. I have found a pair of pants so what other choice do I have but to go commando for the time being??? Pam asked me if I was going to post this and I said "sure, why not?"

Fast forward to Sunday and I develop a UTI. JUST GREAT ! Monday I'm back in for chemo and I tell them about the UTI so they want a urine sample. I go to the bathroom and what do I do? I drop the flippin' cup IN the toilet. Can nothing go right? I pick it up, rinse it off and finish with the sample. So, now I'm on anti-biotics and this weeks chemo wasn't nearly as bad as last week :) They tell me that my hair will start to fall out about day 17 which is tomorrow.....I'm not prepared but like everything else if I don't laugh, I'll cry. Look out wig, here I come !!

1 down, 19 to go

2012-03-27T07:30:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone. Yesterday was my first chemo treatment and so far so good. It took almost 4 hours but they gave me some benadryl so I had a little nap during it :) This was the week with the two chemos and the herceptin (the 2 chemo only happen every 3rd week-the weeks in-between are only one chemo and herceptin) and all went well. I was a bit nauseated last night and had to pee quite a bit (they told me to drink lots of water) but other than that it was OK. It's hard for me to understand that they put these toxic chemicals inside of you and then want you to drink as much water as possible to get it out of your body.....just doesn't make sense ! When I arrived home I was greeted by a beautiful bouquet of flowers to cheer me up all the way from New York City, courtesy of my great brother ! Then dinner at my moms to celebrate Nikola, Christopher and Casey's birthdays. A very long day but a productive one in the end. Thank you all for your words of encouragement and prayers, they are all truly appreciated! 1 down, 19 to go !

Update

2012-03-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update today. Last Friday I found out that I don't have the genetic gene for breast cancer, phew! Now I don't have to worry about the kids so much, especially Nikola. I'm going about life, business as usual and just waiting for the chemo to start next Monday. I have one more biopsy on Wednesday for the research study, blood work on Friday and then Monday. People have been so great, so concerned, so helpful. The outpouring of love is just amazing :) My hair was getting really long and out of control but I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to spend the money on a haircut when it was going to fall out in a couple of weeks. Last Saturday I had had enough, I went to my hair dresser and said cut it, I'm not going to be miserable for the next couple of weeks just to save a buck. I was so desperate I had resorted to using my daughters preppy headbands (I felt like I was 14 again!). So, my hairdresser and I decided to cut it short and it would be like a transition cut. It's neater and much easier to handle although my son Christopher immediately told me more than once that he didn't like me with short hair to which I replied "You better get used to it because it's going to get worse before it gets better!" Theresa was able to send me the wig pictures and if you go back to the previous post you will have a few laughs......

Wig shopping

2012-03-15T08:59:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday my dear friends Tree and Rebecca came with me to go wig shopping. Nikola and her best friend (and my second daughter) Mikayla came too. They all knew this was going to be difficult for me. I don't quite know why but losing my hair has been the biggest obstacle for me. Take my breasts, I don't care but my hair??!! I know that it is inevitable so we made the journey to Craaaannnston. A good portion of my Italian family comes from Cranston so I should of known. BIG HAIR.....it felt like I was back in high school in 1984 :)But, the doctors office recommended this place so that was where I went. Almost $600. later, a wig, 3 head coverings, hairspray and a styrofoam head and we were on our way but not before my dear friends gave me a breast cancer pandora charm for my necklace. I have the best friends in the world! I can't seem to upload the pictures right now but I will have Tree help me so you can all have a good laugh :) I know I did when I saw the pictures !!! This first picture is the wig I ended up with....it didn't have so much hair and I felt most comfortable in it.......

This is Tree and I.....this one is only bangs with a head cover (I didn't get this one.....)

Oh MY !!! This was the first one I picked out but it was just TOO much hair.......

TOO PUFFY........Scary, not so nice wig lady behind me.............

All of us together (me back with my own hair) and NICE wig lady.....her name was Nici I think :)

And Finally............me with my new wig, Nikola and my other (surrogate) daughter Mikayla....... :)

Treatment # 1

2012-03-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

By nature I am a scrapbooker and a writer. I always wanted to be a writer growing up, I even went so far as to take 3 years of communications/journalism classes in college. However, I met my husband and I chose a different road. One where my writing skills were used very infrequently. I eventually went back to school, finished my bachelors degree and went on to earn my master degree in elementary education. Ah, things were coming together. Not so fast, God has another plan. I found a lump in Jan. of 2012, went to the doctor, had a mammogram, had a biopsy and on Feb. 6, 2012 found out that I had breast cancer. Stage 2 ER/PR-, HER 2 +. So, I figure if I blog about my experience I can keep everyone posted and I can then use the journaling in my scrapbook and I will enjoy the writing experience throughout it all.

My recommended treatment is 20 weeks of chemo, surgery and then more chemo and radiation. Holy crap 2012 is not going to be what I expected. The first step was to install a port and to do more biopsies of my lymph nodes. I went in yesterday for the beginning of my cancer treatment, finally! I had my first dose of herceptin which took 90 minutes to infuse into my vein. My wonderful daughter came with me and kept me company, made me laugh and we watched "Jersey Shore" together :) I am so blessed to have 3 of the best kids in the world who have really stepped up to the plate to help me in any way that they can. The first treatment wasn't bad, just time consuming and I actually felt really good UNTIL the middle of the night. Midnight, chills, aches and a 101.5 fever. Three advils, some water and some sleep and I'm back to normal.

I called the doctors office this morning to find out the results of the biopsies of my lymphnodes. I was nervous. And the results were.....negative :) Thank God, prayers are being answered. Finally some good news after weeks of bad news. More appointments coming up include the results from the genetic testing and a final biopsy sometime next week. I will keep you posted.

I'd also like to thank everyone one of my friends and family members for their love and support through this. I could not do this without each and every one of you in my life. See ya cancer, hope you had fun while you were here but it's time for you to go :)