Chemo Starting August 2018
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Santabarbarian—that sounds awesome! Hanging out with your daughter and friends while getting rads. I looked up proton rads. Not many places have it available. Bummer.
Wanderweg—I bought Nioxin 4 and 6. Those are the levels for marked damage. Level 4 is for natural hair color, Level 6 is for color treated hair. I just bought both and plan to rotate. It’s very minty cool on the scalp. Peppermint and menthol. We shall see.
No eyelashes or eyebrows growing yet. Boo.
Happy Saturday wonderful ladies!
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The front is THIN
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That's a lot of hair considering you kept slamming chemo till mere days ago. You have gorgeous eyes and you skin is glowing!
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Hi, all, hope it’s not too late to join the group. I finished my chemo on 11/24. Still no sign of hair growing back yet
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MGJ, OMG look at all that hair, you lucky gal. I’m just hoping for some peach fuzz in a couple of weeks. My DH said he can’t see anything yet.
Hughope1, I was scheduled for a total of 17 treatments. I had 6 with the chemo so had 11 left. I had my first after chemo treatment on Thursday and it was a walk in the park. No real SE so far so I think I’m good. 10 more to go.
Hongh, never to late. Most of us are done with chemo, we have a few that still have some treatments to go. Most of us still hang around to support each other through the rest of our journey.
Hughope1 and santabarbarian glad you continue to feel better. MGJ, hope you are recovering, and everyone else let’s continue the fight. I feel 2019 will be our year.
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Welcome Hongh! It's never too late to join! I finished Taxol 9 days ago. This is a great group. So supportive. Please share if you’d like.
Santabarbarian—Thank you! I feel my skin has AGED! I'm already my plotting my return to my Dermatologist for a real overhaul as soon as I get the ok. I've never really liked makeup so I've concentrated on good skin so I can go makeup free. Fraxel laser treatments, Latiesse, chemical peels, Botox, fillers, Ultherapy, Sculptra, Kybella. SPF everyday and always wearing hats while exercising outside and on the beach, etc. The list goes on. Makes me sound vain but I love great skin. This damn disease nuked the pretty out of me but I will get myself put back together. (Minus, the fake boobs I had!)
My hair also never all fell out. It was always trying to grow through AC. I actually had a bunch of growth with the last AC. I didn’t expect that in the least.
MACTAZ—I’m sending you positive hair vibes! Ohm. You will have flowing locks soon!
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Welcome Hongh. How are you doing?
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MGJ - But wow, that's a good amount of hair! I am taking some comfort in the fact that while I only have peach fuzz, it is finally starting to darken. It's changing fairly rapidly now. This is me the day after Christmas and then today, at 9 weeks PFC. At least it looks not totally bald now. (I wish these pictures didn't load so giant.)
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Welcome Hongh! We're glad to have you here at any time. I finished chemo a few weeks before you and it's just this week that I have visible hair.
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wanderweg: it's coming round the mountain :-)
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Hi Santabarbarian, I am doing fine, waiting for the surgery, a little nervous but also want to get it done ASAP so I can leave all these cancer thing behind me.
Wanderweg, that’s really encouraging, hopefully I can see some new growth in couple of weeks
This is a magic place , you gals are wonderful, I visited this site very often and just decided to join recently. Hope 2019 will bring us new hope, new life
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Wanderweg what a change, it gives me hope. Since everyone is sharing here I am about 2 weeks ago but. I was lucky as I never lost my eyebrows or eyelashes. There hasn’t been any change. I know I need to be patient, not one of my better qualities.
I agree, wish they would load smaller.
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I'll jump in when I get my phone back. Long story. It was found 5 days after it disappeared and the lady who found it called my last missed call, who happens to be my sister. She found my phone 90 miles away on the LA metrolink commuter train. Shockingly it still had enough power to call my sister with. SO WEIRD.
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I love that SB — make the most of having to do daily rads. Sounds great!
Wanderweg — it’s Hask Biotin Boost Thickening shampoo. I just started using it, so the jury is still out. But it is sulphate free, and inexpensive!
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look at all you gorgeous gals! Super happy to hear about path results, that’s amazing news!
I have white duck fuzz, no lashes and 4 eyebrow hairs on each side! Surgery Tuesday, fingers crossed for pcr.
Welcome Hongh! Never too late to join this party!
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Sending you dead cancer vibes, K Willi!
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KiWilli, will be thinking of you and sending all good thoughts for speedy recovery and a great PCR report.
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MACTAZ - Doesn't that fuzz just make you want to run your hand over your head all the time? I pretty much can't stop myself.
Thanks, cefinkc, I will look for that!
KWilli - I'll be thinking about you Tuesday and hoping they find only dead cancer cells!
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wanderweg, I always catch myself rubbing my head. My hubby does it too!
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santabarbarian I am so pleased to hear that the surgery went well. Keep me posted, you are in my thoughts and prayers.
What strong women we all are, never know how much we can endure until we don't have a choice. xoxoxox
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wanderweg - OMG. I thought rubbing my head was just a weird me thing! The hair coming in feels odd. I’m forever rubbing my head without even thinking.
My husband calls the head rubbing as comforting myself, but it just feels good.
Nice to know I’m not the only head rubber here
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Kelly-Anne - It does feel good! And a couple of times I day I tilt my head toward my husband and say, "Feel my head!" He humors me every time. :-)
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Wanderweg—oh, it's getting dark. Nice! I think it's getting ready to go crazy.
MACTAZ—lots of fuzz! Looking good.
Santabarbarian—I forgot you lost your phone That is a bizarre story for sure. To be a fly on the wall with where that phone has been.
KWilli—sending you positive vibes for surgery! Fingers and toes crossed that the cancer is DEAD!
I'm still missing fuzzy bangs. I am a huge head rubber. My husband rubs it at least once a day. I rub it all the time. I grab the hair, I tap on it with my fingertips, I rub the scalp with sliced ginger per my acupuncturist. I ask all the time if the fronts coming in. I'm noggin' obsessed.
Got a call yesterday from my breast surgeon who wants to see me for a follow up. The scheduler wanted to know if I still had my right boob (and I still do) so she wanted me to get another mammogram. (I'm getting the right boob off after rads. For my piece of mind.) I told her that 3D mammograms never showed my multifocal 2.4 cm and 1 cm tumors when they were clearly visible from the skin, so why do another? I had a right breast MRI in July. Plus, I just had chemo so wouldn't that have nuked anything in the right boob? So maybe I need another mammogram? Meh. Idk.
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MGJ - Noggin obsessed. That's a great way to put it. If you're having a mastectomy of the right boob after rads, why would they want to put you through the discomfort of another mammogram. Sometimes I think they just schedule things on autopilot.
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wanderweg—Exactly! My last mammogram was in March with both boobs, one full of visible CA, 3months before I got the diagnosis. I think I will pass unless the surgeon insists on it. And then I'm going to a different mammogram center if he insists on it, but I doubt he will.
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We never stop having to advocate for ourselves! It's exhausting! But when we do, it can really pay off.
I met w my surgeon today. The details of the path report were interesting... The tissue & large node showed evidence of small bits of cancer that had died (bits of scar tissue). As did one of the three nodes that were taken.
I told my surgeon how much I appreciated her only taking three extra nodes given how well it turned out what a bummer it would have been to have all my nodes get taken unnecessarily. If I had not inquired that would have been the outcome.
My motto is ask for what you want and the doctor will stop you firmly if it's a truly crappy idea.
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And now we know that we are all noggen obsessed!
I start Radiation tomorrow. They called this morning and said my work up was all done and that we could start tomorrow rather than next week. I’m so glad we’re getting started. I’m blonde (or was...) with fair skin so here’s hoping I don’t end up over cooked.
Santabarbarian, good luck with the surgeon. My experience is they are all a little stuffy.
Have a good night everyone.
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hello gals, met with my 2nd Opinion BS today. He was great at explaining things to me. I will go ahead with sentinel node extraction, he said there is on average no more than 2.7 sentinel nodes extracted but some times there are very small nodes all clustered together and then there could be more. He didn’t think no more than 3 sentinel nodes needed to be extracted in my case. He also said, unless there is significant disease in the sentinel nodes he would not recommend removing the auxiliary nodes. If there is significant disease aux extraction would be the normal protocol although there is a process of identifying the nodes within the lymphatic system and preserving those.
In any case, he didn't feel, based on his exam and review of my images, that I should have any significant disease in the nodes although they always have to say would need to be confirmed during surgery.
I have decided to tell my BS that no more than three sentinel nodes should be excised and I do NOT authorize aux node extraction. If significant disease shows up I will deal with it later.
Also reaffirmed that a lumpectomy is not a wise choice for me due to multifocal disease so UMX here I come.
Santabarbarian, I totally agree with you. If I hadn’t started questioning about node extraction my BS would have taken all sentinel nodes and I’d any cancer was found, significant or not, would have scooped out all my auxiliary nodes.
Takes to all you gals and appreciate all the help.0 -
Sorry, one more question. I’m fretting over this isotope shot right before surgery and have several questions since nobody talked to me about this.
A. is it more than one shot? B. How long does it take to do the whole process? C. Is the blue dye put in at this time or during surgery? D. Is there any special pain killer I can tell them yo use? SORRY GUYS I’M A CHICKEN 🐓.
Thanks all. 🤗
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Mactaz,
There were three shots. the fluid itself has lidocaine in it and it's a brief sting. Only one of the three hurt. Did you get anesthetic cream for your port? You could use that? Or if someone else drives I am sure you could pre-medicate. Honestly not that bad though.
It was very brief per shot. About the count of three for each. Mine was not actually blue dye, just the isotope. The shots take only a minute to administer. Then you get dressed and you wait 15 mins, and they look at you in an MRI thingy to make sure it has been uptaken properly.
You will do great. I am so glad your doctors listened to you. My doc told me the trends are towards less invasiveness. I read something recently saying that rads was better to treat residual disease than node removal.
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