17 Again, Seriously?
Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 06/07/18
Yesterday I saw my oncologist. She wanted to meet to go over how I handled the first round of chemo. I wanted to meet to rant and rave about the stupid rash that is refusing to go away. Scotty and I headed off hoping for an easy answer and remedy...
Here is what we found out: She has never seen a rash like mine before especially with the specific cocktail I am on...lovely. She is also not certain it is even a rash....awesome. BUT she has seen a few times, only in her breast cancer patients under 40, for the drugs to cause an acne reaction to occur...fabulous. Just for those wondering there is a chemo regimen that you do get acne with, just not mine.
So one of two things could be happening. First, I am just a really odd chick whose body freaked out and decided the best way to handle all the toxic chemo is to try exuding it through the pores of my upper body and face in the form of fire burning acne. Second, I am allergic to the chemicals in one of the chemo drugs. If it is the second then we will have to remove that drug and try a different drug but she doesn't want to do that because the specific drug I am on is what helps to make my combination of drugs more successful with HER2+ breast cancer. There is also a possibility that the new drug we could try, because similar to the old drug, would have the same allergy and we would have to remove that from my regiment, which no one wants to do. Moving forward we are going to treat the rash as acne with an oral and topical antibiotic. Never ever thought I would say this but I am hoping it is acne because I want this cancer shit dead and gone.
Does anyone remember the movie 17 Again starring Zac Efron and Matthew Perry? This is sorta how I feel my life is at this moment, only I am 37 experiencing the symptoms of puberty all over again. In all seriousness I was secretly hoping that the upside to this cancer crap was that I was going to get to be reborn, a fresh start, and my hair would come back in thicker. I still have faith all of that is going to happen however, I didn't take into account I would have to start at the baby stage and take a detour at puberty before ever getting close to reaching my current age.
What the heck am I talking about right? Explanation. Let's start at the beginning shall we.
First was the mastectomy surgeries. I was so weak after those that I couldn't do much beyond sitting down and standing up on my own for days. Every thing else I needed help with and I mean everything...sound like a baby?
Next I graduated to being able to shower (best day ever still), pull up my own pants, and open the fridge....toddler stage minus emptying out the Tupperware cabinet.
Then Chemosabe came to visit right around the time I hit my tweens and the crapola hit the fan. Now my noobs are getting filled up into foobs (fake boobs) so they are for this analogy, growing, and I have raging acne all over my upper body and face...welcome puberty and teenage years.
The only thing I am waiting for at this point is my hair to fall out...skip the whole middle age thing and go right to the senior years I guess. Life cycle complete at this point. Next step starting over healed. It's going to be a long year.