August 2010...anyone starting chemo besides me?!
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Hello ladies, I am recovering well from my surgery this week and feeling good today. Still have not gotten the final path results but hopefully I will get those on Monday. I saw my onc yesterday and he gave me the ok to switch to every 3 weeks herceptin instead of every week. It was just in time too - I resisted getting a port so have been doing everything through the veins in my left arm. Well between weekly herceptin and other IVs for MUGA, surgery, etc. it took them 4 tries to get a good vein yesterday! So hopefully now that I don't have to go back for 3 more weeks my veins can get a break and I can finish out the year of herceptin without needing a port. Yesterday was 3 weeks post chemo so to celebrate I went out to happy hour with friends and had my first alcoholic beverage since before chemo started!
Yesterday was also a big day for me and my DH because we found out he has gotten a job in Birmingham, Alabama. It doesn't start until the end of August but I am already searching for jobs for me and starting to look up apartments. I am sad about moving (and also not looking forward to the hassle of moving) but I have been living here in Tallahassee since 2001 and I'm excited about moving someplace new and doing something different.
I hope everyone is doing well!
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jsw - How is it getting the herceptin without a port?0
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Jsw glad your surgery went well. Wasn't it nice to have your first alcoholic beverage? I had mine a couple weeks ago and boy did that margarita go down good!
Congrats on your husbands new job. Moving will be a great change of scenery for you new cancer free life!
{{hugs}} to all!
Mary
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JSW: I lived in Bham 40 years before I left 2 years ago to come to Huntsville. I'll be glad to answer any questions I can about the area. You'll like Bham, I think. And there is great medical care there with UAB and other places. UAB is a comprehensive cancer center, the only one in Alabama.
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Lizzy love the pic! i am gonna work un updating my pic with one of me currently- with the little hair i have
I cant wait to rock a hairstyle like Natile Portman!
Has anyone heard from calamity? I hope she is doing okay
Radiation starts the 7th- i am having trouble finding childcare- seriously its gonna be for 30 mins max a day and people want to charge me $50 for the week- that equates to $20 bucks an hr! My husband doesnt even make that!!!! Wonder if they will just let my son sit in the waiting room with a portable dvd player???? I will ask on friday- my simulation appointment....
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(btw they have a private waiting room inside the area where rads goes on LOL- when i re read it, i sound like i would let him wonder off!)
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texas - The setup and sim appts may take a little longer but when you actually go for the rads you sit in the waiting room and then are only gone max 5-7 min for treatment.0
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thanks omaz! they told me cuz they're doing an extra spot beyond the breast field (my sternum area) it would take maybe 15 mins- yeah so i cant see me needing full day childcare LOL, i understand people have their policies on fees but cant they cut a gal a break???? LOL
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jsw I don't think that is a creepy doctor. My doctors are all so cute I welcome the side hugs. Never had one in a paper gown though....only the ratty cloth ones. Perhaps I'll wear my boots next time:) Let us know how you are coming along from your re re excision. libray lil0
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texas - I don't know how big your treatment center is but there was always someone coming after me who was in the waiting room. Usually it was the same person day after day.0
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Hi Everyone!!
JSW: Great news on the job!!! Hopefully you heal quickly and get started on the rads soon! It will be nice to get that all out of the way and have some time to recoup before getting into the serious work of moving.
Texas: Do you have any local breast cancer coalitions in your area? Maybe the American Cancer Society or the local hospital can give you the number for one? Maybe they can give you the money you need for child care while you attend radiation?
Libraylil: Thats a funny thought....ratty hospital gown and high heel boots!! WooHoo...what a look!!
MMahle: Welcome back!! I hope you get good results from your CT!
Have a great day everyone!
Debbi
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Texas--I had to take my youngest to rads a couple of times when they moved my appt--he just sat in the waiting room watching TV. My youngest is 9--and although, nobody was really "watching" him--he just sat and waited. Unfortunately, had to happen when they moved appt and hubbie was not home or having to take my oldest somewhere.
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Hi Debbi - How are you doing?0
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Good evening, all-
My hair is growing back!!! I have porcupine stuff now and a very odd thing is I have about 4-5 strands that are about 2" long!!!! It is so weird! It is just nice to feel some hair coming back.
Mmahle: nice to hear from you again. I sure hope the CT scan shows nothing and perhaps the headaches are precipitated by a changed in diet like consuming more caffeine, for example. Let us know what the results are as soon as you here. Thanks for stopping by again! BTW, my brother lives in Houston. He seems to really like it. Also, on the headaches, if it is tension, I just started doing yoga again. The restorative effects of yoga cannot be overstated. I have "Living Arts AM and PM Yoga." They are 20 minute beginner discs. I have been told time and time again about the benefits of yoga, which I have done for years on and off anyway, post bc and chemo. You might want to try those brief sessions.
JSW: glad you are feeling well. I know you mentioned you might have the final path results on Monday and, even if it is not Monday, be sure to let us know. I think I speak for all of us when I say we will be thinking of you. Also, congrats to your DH on his new job and to you on the move. I will probably be heading to FL about the time you are leaving!
That is so weird you mention alcohol! I have been really thinking about having a white Russian! We are coming into summer also and I love Bud Limes! So exciting to be able to drink again...even though I have not actually done it!
Omaz: how are you doing? Finding out anything new about the LE? I started lifting some 5 lb weights and doing yoga again. I cannot believe how weak my arms have gotten. I have trouble opening a Gatorade bottle and I also feel like there is some "chording" in the bc side arm. I am just hoping for no LE. I want to do some pulldowns again and do pec deck...I want to get back in shape that is! Starting slow though. You scared me with the LE business and I decided I better get moving before fluid starts to get trapped in that arm.
Texas: if my mother saw that pic she would tell me I should be embarrassed and that it looks like rats had been chewing on my hair all night!!!!! I just have this new desktop and I am having so much trouble getting stuff off my Palm and Blackberry and, to be honest, I don't have time for that "s!!!" That is a pre-baldy shot. I am not one to celebrate my bald head!
As for the TEAS url, thanks a lot. That is helpful. I have a math one for you and what is cool is you can choose your weak spots to be quizzed on, as follows: http://www.thatquiz.org/
Hope it helps. Take notice as at the bottom there is an "anatomy" link. I have not even checked that out yet.I would totally see about bringing your son with you. I am sure you are not the only mom who has been in this situation. Take him along. I hope the hospital gives you some options. I am really surprised they don't have a daycare on prem. Sadly daycare does not seem to want to cut anyone a break. A young single mother I worked with was spending roughly 35% of her pay on daycare. It is crazy.
Sptmm: how was the soccer tournament? I hope you had some fun. We finally have some decent weather coming up after tomorrow night's little snow treat! I just can't wait for spring.
Libraylil: you are gonna be one hot momma with the boots and the scrappy gown! Yowza!!!!
I am going to take one of my early evening naps. I only got 4 hours sleep last night, turned the heat down to 55 because good ol' tamox was turning up my heat and then I put the fan on in my bedroom! I need a little nap before I make turkey meatloaf! Love it with red peppers, onions, mushrooms, sweet baby rays bbq sauce, garlic salt, pepper, a little tobasco, worchesteshire sauce, a little A1 and some onion powder for good measure! Sooo good! I am also the most boring person I know as I cancelled plans tonight because I am too tired and I want to stay in, cook and watch tv! Either this cold weather has gotten to me or I am just growing into a bore!
Good night all-
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LizzyMack when the warm weather arrives you have to try Firefly Tea. Tea flavored vodka , add a little water and some lemonade. Even though you were not raised on sweet tea like us down south...its my favorite summer time vice. A couple of those and DH starts to look a lot like George Clooney libraylil 0
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Libraylil: LOL! I will have to try it b/c lord knows, with my no boobs and barely-there-hair, whatever I am looking at is going to have to be through my Firefly Tea glasses! I am going to need to see Clooneys where there are none!0
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Good evening everyone!!
It was a beautiful day here today....great day to be outside!! Today's hockey game was welcome reason to get out in the fresh air!! Isn't it funny how the bright sun and warmer temps can make you feel better in every way! Hopefully spring is right around the corner!
Omaz: I am doing okay...thanks for asking! Still suffering from anxiety issues, the counselor was a total loss, will have to find a new one. But today's weather definitely helped my outlook! And I have been exercising every day and as far as I can see, no swellling...so that has relieved my fears about the lymphedema. How are you???
Lizzy: The tournament was good. We had a good time....and they got first place. They even beat the gargantuan players from Hempstead....I swear everybody else's kids always look bigger than ours. But seriously, this was supposed to be a U14 team but I several of them had five o'clock shadows, and probably drove themselves to the game..LOL. But, we beat them anyway...power to the little people!!! Weather was great here today, hope you got a chance to get out and enjoy it!!
Cal: Thinking of you, hope you are feeling better.
I hope everyone is feeling good and getting back the business of normal life! I am approaching the year mark from when I first discovered my lump (mid March), although I didn't actually get my diagnosis for a couple months after that. But I have been remembering that feeling a little bit lately when faced with certain situations, the "What If"....I guess we will all experience that deja vu forever with certain triggers. It is amazing though, how real the feeling is when it comes back.
Have a great week everyone!!
Debbi
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sptmm62 - I am glad you are not seeing any LE with exercise. My LE therapist thinks that once I heal up from rads I should be ok too and just wear my sleeve during exercising. I still do the self massage too. I am thinking it will be ok. Now I am just recovering from a cold/cough and the tiredness from rads but this week I hope to feel better and get back to walking and maybe go for a swim. My rad onc said swimming is fine. Hope we all have a good week!0
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JSW- totally missed the post about a move
you can think of it as leaving your cancer in tallahassee Lizzy- thanks for the link! i was having fun on the anatomy and only got 50% lol i mixed up the tibia and fibula and the carpals and metacarpals lol (and the ones in your feet too tarsals or something) Re:rats chewing on your hair- lol that is so funny! my mother critasizes me on a lot- that would totally be something she'd say. I look at your hair in a full and thick club do- not a brunch with mother do!
libraylil- i need to try some of that tea too! i personally am not a tea drinker- but i can throw back some long islands!
rachel- mines 3 so there may be some laws against it LOL
Debbi- no local stuff, but there is ACS in corpus i think- its not really about the funds, i can come up with it if need be, but if i am gonna be paying the full time daycare price i might as well keep him there all day... but i am a stay at home MOM so dont know what i'd do with myself LOL
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totally got 100% on digestive system- who knew i knew what the difference was between asecending colon and decending colon LOL
ALL- I SUGGEST PLAYING THIS QUIZ SITE lol TOO FUN!!!
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texas you crack me up. If you like Long Islands you'll roll with the Firefly Tea.
JSW Where are you relocating to? I missed this.
Lizzy just think of all the new hairdo possibilities. We have a group of young guys working at our school on annual fundraiser. One told me Friday he didn't realize I had BC, he thought I just had a really cool haircut. Your hair before looks good...no rats involved.
libraylil
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Good afternoon ladies! Thanks for all the kind wishes about moving. Lil my DH got a new job in Birmingham, Alabama so we will be moving there sometime this summer. Now my job search starts (there was potential for him to end up in several different places so I decided not to start searching until we found out where he would be).
Omaz Getting herceptin without a port has been no problem. The nurses say that the herceptin is much easier on the veins than chemo so now the only problem is that the vein we have used most frequently is getting some scar tissue buildup and not cooperating as much. So hopefully now doing every 3 weeks will give my veins a rest and not cause as much scar tissue. I have heard that some women complain about a weird taste or smell with herceptin and I do not get that at all so I wonder if that is something to do with the port? Because I also hear people get a weird taste or smell when the port is flushed.
Texas I hope you can sort out things for your little one so that you don't have to pay for full-time childcare. But I guess if you do end up putting him in full-time care that would give you some extra time for your studying? It sounds like you are doing pretty well so far!
Lil My father-in-law loves Firefly! It is his new favorite drink. I am a bad southerner and don't like the taste of iced tea so I don't drink Firefly.
Lizzy I will definitely let you gals know when I get my pathology results. I'm hoping it will be today sometime though my surgeon did say to call on Tues morning if I hadn't heard anything yet.
Also I met with my rad onc this morning. She was very nice and thorough. I will be going in for the CT & simulation on March 23 and hopefully starting rads the following week as long as I am all healed up from last week's surgery at that point. They just built a brand new "Cancer Center" here in Tallahassee and that is where rad onc is now - I was impressed with the building and it seems like it will be a pretty comfortable place to visit every day for six weeks!
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jsw - You are right, there is something they flush the port with that I can taste/smell immediately when they do it. After that though I don't notice anything from the herceptin. I do get some diarrhea the next day and sometimes an upset stomach. 8 more to go. My skin did well through rads, I can send you my product list and methods if you want to PM me. I don't know if the combo will work for everyone but I had good luck with it. I think also having an excellent rad onc is important because how they set up your plan makes a big difference. Ask her to show you your CT with the plan lines on it, it gives you a good idea of how it works. Also when you are all marked up take a picture so you know where to put the lotion when you start. Later on these areas will get pink then it's pretty obvious.0
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HI all-
sorry I haven't posted - I've been reading the boards every few days and catching up. It's been a whirlwind since my dad died last Monday....just trying to get some normalcy around here now!
We're all doing okay, even mom. Just one day at a time. I miss my dad but I understand that God is bigger than all of it!Mentally and physically I'm doing great. I'm off the lexapro, ativan and xanax as of a week and a half ago. I found the lexapro was just making things worse and I didn't want to need the other two just to get thru the day. I went against my doctor's advice and took myself off the lexapro, but only after having my naturopathic doctor rework my entire program. He put me on a homeopathic rescue remedy along with some neurotransmitter support and some other things --there was a LOT of prayer going up -- and literally within 24 hours it turned around - even in the midst of making the arrangements for my dad. Don't ever let anyone tell you that panic is not physiological. I absolutely saw a drastic difference almost immediately. Dizziness-gone. Shortness of breath-gone. Feeling of dread and depression-GONE -- all that fast! Yes, I've had a lot of tears over my dad, but I'm OKAY - finally okay and dont' have that feeling of being trapped in my own body!
I was warned about going off the antidepressants but I really felt that they were just compounding the problems since apparently I do not respond well to medication (remembering that the tamoxifen started this whole roller coaster....I never had panic or brain fog before that....) I had no withdrawl symptoms whatsoever from the lexapro even though I pretty much stopped it cold turkey (held my breath- I was nervous!) and I'm finally sleeping like a baby at night without any drugs at all.
That being said, I would never, EVER tell anyone not to take tamoxifen or antidepressants, but everyone's body is different, as we all know, and I just can't seem to process the medications properly. Perhaps it's chemo that made that change in my body, I don't know. But I would encourage any of you, if you feel that something is affecting your body/brain connection- whether it's the breast cancer experience, medications, treatments, etc, not to stop seeking until you find the help that your individual body needs; wherever that comes from! If you've been given an antidepressent that doens't work, demand another one. Don't stop seeking until you find what works for you. And DO NOT allow ANY doctor to brush off your feelings and symptoms.
So meanwhile I'm moving ahead with life - I am no longer living in fear and dread - I've got my head down, plowing ahead by going the alternative route to try to balance my hormones, taking lots of estrogen-blocking supplements, exercising (something I could not do on the tamox because I would become so light headed), being held up in prayer by an amazing church and friends and family and just trying to enjoy life.
I will need to meet with my oncologlist soon and I'm gearing up for that. She's going to be unhappy with me, but I cannot and will not go back to what tamox did to my thinking....I know I'm a rare case and she's tried to tell me that those aren't symptoms, but I learned that they most certainly can be for some people, just by what i read on line! Some people can die from taking something as benign as an Ibuprophen.....so nobody can tell me that the kind of side effects I had were just in my mind.
Anyway I'll try to be checking back but I'm super busy now that I'm back on track! I have to catch the kids up with school that we lost during the week of Dad's death and trying to keep an eye on my mom....and busy selling to try to take a chunk out of the massive bills. But life is good. God is good. He's got it all in His hands and after living in the shadow of cancer since June, I'm okay with that now.
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Cal - So good to hear from you and I am so truely happy that things are going well!0
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Cal So good to hear from you again! It sounds like you are really doing well and I am glad to hear it.
Omaz Thanks for the offer of your skin regimen during rads but my rad onc was very specific about that stuff. She said not to use anything without getting approval from them first and said that they would be giving me some special cream to use. Apart from that special stuff she said to just use a mild soap like Dove or Ivory and that pure aloe vera gel is ok too. So I will start with just what she recommends and see how we go from there. I do have fair skin and tend to burn easily so I am anticipating it will be rough but I just want to get through it!
Also, I finally just got a call this morning with my pathology results from last week's surgery - all clear! No evidence of any cancer cells remaining! So I am very relieved and feeling like I'm finally getting to the other side of all this mess.
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Whoo Hooo jsw - what a relief!!0
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Congrats JSW!! That's great.
Cal, glad you are back and doing well.
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Lady - How are you doing?0
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Congrats JSW!! That is awesome news!!
I got my CT scan results and Thank GOD it was fine! At least BC isn't causing my headaches. Now just to figure out what is.
Hope y'all have a great day!
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