One year ago I was told I had cancer and so much has changed since then. In my quest for authenticity on this blog I will say it hasn’t all been bad but it sure as hell hasn’t been great!

Overall I think what has changed the most is the level of exhaustion that I feel. After having a baby with colic that never slept I really felt as if I had a grasp on what “being tired” actually meant. I was wrong. I have tried so hard to keep up on my family, kids, job, home, and life all while going through treatment and surgery after surgery that I just want a break from it all. There has been loads of collateral damage because of cancer and the overwhelming need to just rest. If anything my love for coffee has been reinvigorated because of it.

If there was statistical data compiled on what I spent the most time doing over the past year it would be a toss up between sleeping and sitting in the bathroom. Although this is disgusting it is a fact of life when you have cancer. If anything I am very appreciative of all the years I didn’t spend in the restroom and hope that there are many more years ahead that will not generate extended toilet time.

My body has become a constant source of bewilderment. Never having been a weak person it is a struggle to accept that I am still pretty frail. No one explained to me how much strength I would lose after my bilateral mastectomy. I took for granted so many minute details of life before that surgery and I get a bit melancholy thinking about what my body was once capable of doing. Now, a few months after being cleared to workout, I struggle with maintaining the extension of my arms while gaining back muscle. Gone are the days of push ups, planks, and reaching to the top shelf in the kitchen. It doesn’t help that I am constantly reminded of the need to workout by every person I see in the healthcare field because exercise prevents reoccurrence…it is also suppose to prevent cancer but here we are.

I have redefined what friendship means to me. Someone in my cancer support group posted a meme that said, “if you want to know who your real friends are get a disease that will kill you and see who sticks around till the end.” Normally I hate these things but it really resonated with me. Lots of people show up in the beginning but as cancer gets real most of them fade away. And, as horrible as it sounds, once people realize you might not die from cancer they feel like you don’t have a disease that is going to require a support system or their friendship. Add on top of all this there is a preconceived notion that because you are sick you have a lot of time on your hands therefore, you should be making a bigger effort to maintain the relationship. I don’t know why people think this but I do know that this past year I have experienced kindness from people I never would have expected it from and heartache from the people I expected too much from. This is probably one of the hardest side effects of cancer because no one tells you about this and even if they did you can’t prepare for it because until it gets real you have no idea who is going to stick and who isn’t.

When I look back at the past 365 days I would say the thing that makes me think it hasn’t all been bad is Scott. There is no way I could have done this without him. I remember the night I told him they were 99% certain it was cancer and a lot of it with three tumors. I begged him not to touch me because I did not want to become emotional and if he did I would lose it. I kept moving backwards away from him, and he kept coming towards me, until he picked me up and sat down with me on his lap. He never listens. He also has never let me down. My love for him has grown to a level that is unimaginable and incomprehensible.

So, one year down and hopefully many, many more to come.

I had my treatment on Friday but before it I was able to attend my youngest daughter’s performance at school. The school district has 3rd and 4th graders do a music program through Carnegie Hall and the school puts on a showcase of what they learned. I was able to attend Reyna’s performance a few weeks ago (they are at different schools) and it was fabulous. While watching Reyna’s I was fine, not emotional at all, just happy and proud. Sitting there watching Emery I was a mess knowing that I would be leaving to head back to the oncology department at the end of the assembly.

As I sat there and watched I couldn’t help but realize that I might not have been sitting there watching my child if I hadn’t been diligent about checking my breasts and going to the doctor. It seems like such a small every day task that had I overlooked or put off longer (going to the doctor) would have resulted in my presence ending on this Earth. I am sure that people think I am emotionally unstable because they have no clue what is going on in my life but with these thoughts in my head I had to make a very conscious effort to not start crying. Every little thing my kids do I enjoy, no matter how big or small, and I am just overwhelming thankful that I did not wait and because of that I get to be here to experience my babies lives.

This was round 15 of my targeted chemo treatment. I was lucky enough to get a great nurse, one I had not had before, but who I have talked with numerous times over the past year. Unfortunately my mate in the chair next to me was having a rough go with his chemo and vomited the entire hour I was there. So, so, so glad I never vomited! His sweet wife must have been there with him and kept calling him, I think, asking to come back in. I was listening and shouldn’t have been but his ringer was not on silent and she honestly would call every 5 minutes (at one point I started to time it on my phone). Each time he would say as politely as possible while vomiting “NOT YET”. By the time I left she was still waiting to come in and sit with him.

When people say you are strong for fighting cancer I know it isn’t me that is the strong one, it is my family. It is my kids for trying to deal with things they should never ever have to deal with as children. It is my parents that have to watch their child go through something painful and scary. But most of all it is Scotty, my partner in life that takes the brunt of it. They are the strong ones. They try to give support even when they don’t know how, they try to make us laugh when things just aren’t funny, and they try to remain positive even when you can’t. That poor man next to me was trying to shield his wife from one ugly part of cancer. I get it. But all I could think of was that they loved each other and it made me very happy that Scott has stuck by my side through this rough ride.

I did have one odd thing happen at my infusion and that was at the end when they removed the IV from my port. Once it was taken out my port wouldn’t stop bleeding which has never happened. The nurse applied pressure for probably a minute or so and it bleed through the gauze. We got more and tried again….then again. Finally we got it to slow down enough that they let me leave telling me to check it in an hour or so. If it bleed through the gauze I was to call back otherwise all good. Well it did eventually stop bleeding, about two hours after I got home from the appointment, but I was left with a bruise on my port area.

I didn’t think to much of the bruise in fact the picture above was yesterday (5 days later) and you can see the bruise is super faded. However, I had a video appointment with my oncologist and she immediately started asking me questions about the bruising because it was visible in my tank top. In retrospect I wish I had been more concerned about it and kept it covered because now she wants me to start doing blood tests again. I feel okay so I don’t think my blood counts are low but she wants to start checking them again. This is frustrating to me only because I have THREE MORE TREATMENTS. Once we start checking counts it brings back the possibility of postponing treatment. I am so not doing that. NO FREAKING WAY. Of course my oncologist explained that typically patients don’t have bleeding issues on the targeted treatment. But then again they also don’t have the insane diarrhea, eyelashes falling out, finger nails cracking in half (which never happened on the hard chemo), or painful redness all over their feet either. I am just special I guess.

Three more treatments.

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting real bright people.

After how bad round 13 went Scott decided he was not allowing me to go alone for this one. The poor man is so busy at work that he was only there long enough to make sure I got the IV in my port correctly and then had to go take a phone call that took almost the entire infusion.

I hope that you looked at that picture and thought, “hot damn that is a lot of hair!”

It might be hard to see due to the sunshine bursting around my head like a halo but look closer and you can see my hair has volume! In fact, my hair has so much volume that I am forced to use my 11-year old son’s Gorilla Snot gel to wrangle it into submission and even that can’t keep it down on the sides and back.

You might have also noticed I am dressed much nicer for this round and that is an understatement for sure. My dear friend Esther’s celebration of life was being held that afternoon and we were going to have to rush to get there on time from this infusion. I am having a difficult time finding clothes to cover my port and scars. This is a big reason why I am working on a fashion component to eventually have live on the website. Baby steps as I continue to do my full time job at home and raise my family.

Since everything had gone well with the IV and my infusion, plus Scott being outside on a call, I was left alone in my chair. The infusion room was very quiet on Friday which was abnormal. I later found out it was because they started offering services on Saturday with the exception of chemotherapy. Pharmacists can’t mix the medicine until one hour before you receive it so all chemo has to be done during standard working hours. They also like to have an oncologist on site while administering the medicine in case of any abnormal reactions. This all meant that most of the people in the room were cancer patients.

Shortly after my infusion started a sweet older lady came in with her husband and picked a chair in my section. She started talking to the nurse about how bad her nails had started to hurt from the chemo she was receiving and if she could suggest anything. The nurse responded no and after getting her all set up left. Of course I had to tell her what had worked for me so I leaned over and said that I had rubbed tea tree oil on my fingers and toes every morning and night that thankfully helped me keep all of my nails fairly healthy during my hardest rounds of chemo. She thanked me and then we started talking.

I found out while talking with her that she was in her early 60’s and was starting her second battle with breast cancer which had metastasized. Her original diagnosis 9 years ago was stage 1, one tumor, estrogen positive, no lymph node involvement, with treatment of a lumpectomy (she got to keep her boobs), radiation, and then chemo. She believed it would never come back.

How can I express to you the fear that sets into my heart when I hear this? The hardest part is that I don’t want to look scared, I don’t want to sound scared because I know that she is feeling everything I am feeling but magnified ten millions times worse because what is only a possibility for me has become a reality for her. I ask her what her treatment plan will be now and find out that she will be receiving a drug I had which makes her ask advice on dealing with the side effects. She laughed a little and said how only a stupid disease like cancer would be able to make a 62 year old woman ask advice from a 38 year old. Then she told me she knew it was a death sentence and that even though she hates chemo (almost didn’t do it since she hated it the first time around) she is trying to prolong her life. There are no words of comfort I have to offer this stranger so I got up and hugged her, my sister, who wants so desperately to be able to go on living her life and loving her husband…just like me.

Every time I walk up the stairs to the Oncology Department I tell myself to try not to talk to anyone. My heart just breaks after each round because I meet another great person that is doing everything they can to be here another year, another month, another day. I walk the halls and check each chair in search of the older women I have met at each infusion hoping that they will be there and then heartsick when I can’t find them.

One day I hope to understand why cancer takes some and leaves others. I ask God quite often why I got spared and others didn’t? It makes no sense to me, and although I will be forever grateful to get more time with Scotty, my kids, and my family I know that not every person is that lucky. I know that even though the cancer is not in me right now it can always come back and that is such a hard thing to accept.

Oringally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 02/25/19

Over the past two months I have been really struggling with why I have been spared from this deadly disease and others haven't.  I mean there has to be some reason why I am still here but others are not, right?  As I look at my life, I have to say, it seems like I am not all that important.  Don't get me wrong, we are all important, but I am not making a difference.  It feels like there has to be more that I can do to help my fellow sisters in this fight...

One of the biggest issues I had after hearing "you have cancer", was trying to decipher what was going to happen to me, and in layman's terms, not medical mumbo jumbo.  I also was desperate to SEE what I was going to look like after surgery (it was the driving force behind starting this blog).  As I kept researching the list of questions became bigger and the answers fewer and further between.  It seemed like there was something missing within the internet.  This only got worse as I progressed further along in my treatment.  It was as if this was a continuous cycle of questions without answers and little help from doctors or the internet.  

In my mind a light bulb went off.

I chewed on this for a bit and then talked to my friend Beth in Indiana.  Beth has become my soul sister since diagnosis.  We have never met but began messaging each other almost daily on Facebook after realizing we had a very similar diagnosis and experienced the same weird side effects.  In one of my messages I expressed to her that I felt we (women with breast cancer that is HER2) needed more resources on the internet that expressly addressed issues that we kept discussing on our private Facebook group.  Beth agreed with me which helped me feel less like a conspiracy theorist and that I was onto something.  

Next up I talked to my husband and brother about the idea (I have no idea how to make this all happen) and they suggested a few things.  They thought it was a great idea so for the last month I have been learning how to create a website.  On the table next to my laptop is a notebook full of ideas and information (yeah it's old school but it can go to all my appointments with me) that I am slowly getting pieced together virtually.  It is exciting, very nerve wracking, and most days makes my stomach hurt more than the medicine I am on, but, I think it is going to help a lot of women if I can pull it all together. 

So what the hell am I talking about right?

I am creating a website that eventually will have content and links that will directly discuss all the things that I wish I had been able to find at the beginning of my treatment.  Specifically I am working on the following right now:

Treatment

Fitness

Health

Fashion

My hope is that I will be able to connect with people more influential than I am that are experts within their fields to help me help my breast sisters.  Why can't we get workout videos online that are focused for women that have gone through a mastectomy?  What is the best diet for those receiving chemotherapy?  Is there a bra that will fit correctly and not rub and irritate scar tissue?  What brands of clothes hide all the scars on your body best?  I realize that for most people this might seem trivial in the grand scheme of things.  My only response is that I wish I had access to something like this in April when I first was diagnosed. 

So...here goes!  The blog and I are moving to https://www.her2andyou.com/ so bookmark it!  Over the next few months I hope to be able to finalize a few things that I have in the works and make more pages live.  Until then keep up to date with me on the blog portion of it.  If you are reading this and are a newly diagnosed, a survivor, or a thriver and feel something needs to be included please send me a message either on the contact page or in the comments.  

As always thank you for your support and love.  

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 02/19/19

I genuinely do not know how to put into words how hard cancer is on your heart.  Before I had cancer I felt like I was a compassionate person and tried my best to be supportive of my friends and family that were going through trials in their lives.  Now, after having cancer, I don't know if I had an accurate understanding of just how difficult life can be.

To hopefully make this easier to understand I have a question.  Think about a time when you really wanted something.  Lets say to find love and not be single anymore or to have a baby.  That desire and longing stays with you all day and all night.  Everywhere you go you see happy couples or five pregnant ladies.  It is as if every person on the planet has what you want and it looks easily attainable, right?  

This is a little bit what it is like when you get cancer.  Unfortunately it isn't the sunshine and roses of falling love or the unimaginable joy of getting to hold your sweet baby, it is a fist closed tight around your heart that never fully lets go.  Suddenly, all you see are people that are healthy, people that are able to live their lives without any of the pain and anguish that comes from getting cancer.  Because here is something that people don't realize, once you get cancer you become engulfed in a community of people that also have cancer.  Some of that community becomes like family and they have a disease that is trying to kill them.  It would be so much easier if you only met assholes with cancer but I can guarantee that will not be the case (at least most of the time).

I try not to discuss people by name on my blog because I don't know that they want to be on the internet and discussed publicly but today is different.  Today I am going to tell you about my dear friend Esther.

Esther and I were acquaintances at first.  We met years ago in the locker room after swim practice.  I was hugely pregnant with Brody and she asked when I was due.  That was over 11 years ago.  Though we swam on different sides of the pool every morning we chatted in the locker room.  A few years ago I had to stop swimming in the mornings and though we didn't see each other in the locker room anymore we kept in touch via Facebook.  

After I had received my cancer diagnosis and made the decision to be as open as I could (posting on social media and this blog) Esther sent me a message on Facebook.  As out in the open as I was about my situation, Esther was the exact opposite with hers.  See Esther was also going through treatment for cancer, not breast, and not curable.  That message began the beginning of a very special friendship for me. 

As we continued to message one another we found out that we were both undergoing treatment at the same hospital!  Although we were on different infusion schedules we tried to stop in during each others treatments to say hi.  We started to meet each other for lunch or to grab a coffee.  She said one day we might be decades apart but because of cancer it was so nice to have someone to talk to who just got it.  And, she couldn't have been more right.  

The past month and half we had not been able to get together in person.  She had a family cruise planned and then I was out of town.  We had finally locked down a day for me to come up to see her and I canceled because my diarrhea was insane.  Then the next day we had scheduled she canceled because she wasn't feeling well.  During that time her body had stopped responding to the chemo she was receiving.  We messaged each other frequently and there was hope that she might get onto a trial for a new targeted therapy for her specific cancer but before she could find out she needed an emergency surgery to remove tumors on her spine that were starting to prevent her from walking.  I really don't know what happened during the surgery, it was successful in removing those tumors, however afterwards I never received any more messages from Esther. 

Her closest friend sent me an email explaining that Esther had asked her to keep me updated.  Whatever they had found during the surgery made them decide to stop all treatment.   So, Esther came home from the hospital to prepare the journey that would lead her back to her heavenly home.  They didn't know how long she would have before it took over her entire body but they estimated a week or more.  My only question was when I could come up and see her.  I realize I should have asked more questions about the specifics on what happened but it didn't matter.  All that mattered was that I see her one more time so that I could tell her I loved her.   

I headed to the store and got a mix of yellow flowers, her favorite, and drove to see my friend one last time.  There was so much happiness in her house when I got there.  She was surrounded by an enormous group of people that loved her and there was laughter ringing from every room.  At the center of it all laid Esther in her bed flanked by her husband, children, grandchildren, swim friends, church friends, really there was hardly room to see her!  It was a testament of a life well lived and loved beyond measure.  

It was hard to know that this was probably the last time I would get to see her here on Earth.  I might have held it together while I was in her house but I sobbed like a baby before I could start the drive the home.  It is so bittersweet because I want her to stay but I want her out of pain (ultimately I just want cancer to never have existed or to only infect really horrendous people).  

Last Monday I received word that Esther had finally earned her angel wings.  Naturally I was sad, nothing can prepare you for death, even knowing it is coming.  Yet I am overwhelmingly grateful for the time I got to spend with her and the countless messages we sent that I can read over and over.  She was an incredible woman who took a painful and cruel sickness and turned it into a request from God to fill every day with pleasure and the people she loved.  Man could she make you laugh and bring a smile to your face.  I just have to think of her and I smile.  People always say "she lit up the room" but Esther did.  I will hold my memories of her close to my heart...until we meet again.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 02/18/19

There is a lot of superstition around the number 13. Casinos in Vegas omit a 13th floor, you need 13 witches to have an official coven, and all sorts of ominous events happen when the 13th lands on a Friday (also the day I met with my nurse coordinator to receive my official pathology of my biopsies confirming my cancer) so it makes sense that this round was a bit different than the others. 

To start off Scott had a business trip to Kuwait so he wouldn't be around.  He would flip out if he knew I posted this picture of him standing in front of the Persian Gulf.  This man of mine hates pictures so what you see below is his very first attempt at a selfie.  Not too bad!

My parents were also gone visiting my older brother in Texas.  Essentially my little team that have my back when I am feeling like crap were all unavailable. 

At my infusion I was assigned a new nurse.  I will be honest and say she tried to explain to me that she came from a different hospital but sadly, I didn't believe her.  First, she acted as if she had never seen a port and kept asking me why I had one.  Second, she "massaged" my port for over 3 minutes.  When I asked what she was doing (hello round 13th, not my first rodeo) she explained she needed to bring my port closer to the skin.  If you haven't looked at my pictures of my port then take another look.  It protrudes out of my skin over a fourth of an inch.  The first time it was accessed the nurse told me how they love ports on skinnier people because they stick out so much like mine making it so easy to access.  After this super odd massage she tried to insert the IV needle.  Aside from the first few times my port was accessed it has not been excessively painful (it hurt those times because it really wasn't healed all the way in my opinion.)  This time it was super painful and I use a numbing cream because why not?  That is me pointing at the cream covering my port.  In this picture with cream all over it and a plastic bandage you can see it looks like a lump on my skin, not flush, or even buried deep down under fat or tissue. 

Once the needle is inside the port they have to flush the port.  When this happens you get a very odd metallic taste in your mouth.  In addition you do not feel the fluid go into your body because the port goes directly into your vein and then very quickly to your heart.  As she attempted to flush my port I could see my skin around the port creating a small bubble and I could feel the liquid because it was cold.  I really didn't want to be rude but was freaking out that she was going to actually have the medicine just drip inside my body, so I told her I didn't think it was actually in my port...

The first time I said something she didn't listen and kept pushing more fluid from the syringe.  The next time I said something she gave me a big explanation about how there was too much blood coming back in the return and I needed to lay down so she would be able to access the port properly.  According to her every nurse should have had to make me lay down because my port was so far under my skin.  Please imagine a look on my face that says WTF.   Thankfully she had to leave me alone for a few minutes because I was now bleeding all over the place and that needed to stop before we could actually begin the infusion and get a new needle in the port.

Thankfully the nurse went and talked to another nurse outside of my room that I had infuse me before.  They spoke and then the nurse came back with all new needles, syringes, bandages and saline.  Did I think this was going to go well? NO, but I was hopeful.  After another 8 minutes (this usually takes about 8 seconds) the needle was finally in correctly (it hurt like crazy which is still a little unbelievable to me) and I could start the actual infusion...39 minutes from when I sat down in my chair.

It has been a week since the infusion and so far the symptoms for me are the same; a gnarly amount of diarrhea and  really intense stomach cramps followed by nausea. Though I feel like the nausea is not as prolonged this time around and is a little less sever in the morning but seems to pick up around noon and hang outs all night.  There is also this exhaustion level that I cannot seem to kick no matter how much I sleep.  All in all I am getting super good at hanging out near my bathroom!

My acne rash is still here even with all the medicine we switched too about three weeks. I feel like this is also something that is going to be with me until I finish all of the chemotherapy drugs.

I do not know if this is getting easier.  If anything I would say I am getting used to it, even immune, or just more accepting of how things are.  Do I think there will be a day that I have a solid stool?  Truthfully it doesn't seem likely.  However, if my oncologist felt I needed another 20 rounds of chemo to prevent this cancer from coming back I would gladly take it. 

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 01/31/19

If there is one common theme in my life it is that I am a bit of an odd ball in the medical field that gets unusual side effects from medicine.  Really this is not a joke or being sarcastic.  Check this out...

1.  At 11 we discovered I had a bleeding disorder.  It was genetic.  Neither of my parents have it (Yes they are my biological parents I've done 23 and me, ha!). 

2. After the birth of my last child the bleeding disorder disappeared but knew symptoms popped up

and led to the discovery of my having PCOS.  My endocrinologist was baffled that I had 3 children.  (I filled out a lot of research studies after this).

3. I got breast cancer at a young age and have no genetic link.  (Common misconception is that breast cancer is predominantly genetic, it isn't, however under 40 it does account for a majority of the cases.)

4.  While on hard chemo I had odd side effects that my ONC would say she had never seen before in a breast cancer patient on that specific chemo regimen.

So why I am still surprised when another doctor tells me they don't know what is causing something to happen to my body!? 

I am just accepting that I will have diarrhea till I am done with chemo.  Fine.  I can stay in my house and near the toilet till the end of May.   Annoying?  Yes, but let the drugs do their job so hopefully I am only in this position once.  Do I wish that the constant bathroom breaks would be giving me a svelter figure?  You bet your ass I do, but some how this is NOT happening.  All I can say is, LAME!

One thing I am not willing to accept is the acne rash.  It is back and horrible on my chest but all over my chin too.

How can I explain how utterly devastating it is to wake up and look in the mirror at a person that is so hideously ugly.  Before anyone sends me a message to tell me I am beautiful please image all of this happening to you...

I've lost my breasts. 

I've lost my hair. 

I've lost my eyelashes. 

I've lost my nose hair (something I never thought I would be upset by but I am and I desperately want them back).

I've gained over 20 pounds.

I am grateful to be alive.  Heaven knows I am...BUT I also don't know who the person is in the mirror.  I can't accept that when this is all over my face and chest is going to be covered in acne or scars from this rash that has taken over my body.  I feel as if I am mourning the outer beauty I once had.  And let's be totally honest here I wasn't some drop dead super model, my personality it really what makes this package, but I wasn't a total dog.

My eyes are nice, but without eyelashes they scare me (I wear fake ones now).  My face is decent but not with the acne rash covering it or the scars and discoloration that will be left after it goes.  My hair, oh how I miss my hair.  It is slowly growing but all that has done is make me look more like a teenage boy.  I think the only thing going for me right now is that I do have boobs...that are 100% fake.  So the best part of me visually is not even me.  That sucks.

It seems like I should be able to fix the things bothering me which is why I am irritated that I can't find a doctor able to tell me why I am getting this acne rash.  Just another reason for people to look at me and go through this list of questions in their head:

1. Is that a teenage boy?

2. Is that a young man?

3. Is that a woman transitioning to a man?

4. Is that a man transitioning to a woman?

5. Is it just a very masculine looking lesbian?

I don't care if someone is any of the above and I will tell you I have so much more empathy for people in the transgender and homosexual community because people really look at them differently. I am just a woman with cancer.  There were a few months when I was totally bald that I could tell people understood it was cancer because you get the pity look.  Yet once that hair started to sprout in it is just utter confusion on peoples faced and I just want to slap them.

Mainly I want to look like me and I fear that when all the treatment is done I am going to have to re-evaluate who the person in the mirror is again.  Back to the reason for this post, the rash.  I was able to get into see a dermatologist this week.  He looked at me, pictures of me, asked about all my treatment and medicines, spent half an hour researching my chemo meds and then decided he really isn't sure what it is.  The decision is to try a few different avenues.  First, we are switching my allergy pill to see if this will help if it is an allergic reaction.  Second, we are increasing the antibiotic I am taking for the acne so it covers if it is just rando acne that has suddenly decided I need.  Third, we are trying out a different topical cream in case it is something developing from all my skin changes due to chemo. 

Is this working?  It has been two days so far and the answer is no.  As with most things it is going to get worse before it gets better according to the doc.  Let's just all cross our fingers it doesn't.

Last night I told Scott I am going to have to save up money to have some sort of facial to get rid of all the scars and discoloration when this over.  Cancer ages you.  Well, it is aging me.  The stress, the medicine, everything takes a toll on you in ways I think I am still struggling to comprehend. I am grateful to be alive, I know that this is not always the outcome, but I also want to figure out how to get back to being a version of the person that I used to be.  That is the real struggle these days.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 01/24/2019

I have been waiting to do this post until I was done with all the post op appointments to make sure everything was good with the new foobs.  Last week we met with my plastic surgeon for the last time.  I have to say I am going to miss him and his nurse so much.  I told Scott I might need to start thinking about actually getting plastic surgery so I can keep seeing them because they are the greatest team I have worked with.  

Just know there are a few foob pictures in this post at the bottom so if you don't want to see them feel free to skip this one.  They will probably be the last pictures I post of my physical foobs because I think Scott is uncomfortable with them being on the internet.  Well unless I decide to do the nipple tattooing which at this point I haven't decided.  It is just more doctor visits and possible complications.  

Foobs are really odd appendage.  Where breasts made me feel like a woman, attractive, and attached to my sexuality I don't get any of those feelings with the fake things.  What I don't think anyone understands but me and my fellow breast cancer survivors is that there is absolutely nothing sexual about my foobs.  First they are 100% fake.  Every part of what looks like boob is completely man made, not created by God.   There is 0 breast tissue left in my body.  In fact my friend said my plastic surgeon is a "breast architect" and that is about as accurate a statement as I can come up with for what is sitting on my chest.  It is really astonishing what science and medicine is capable of these days. 

I have had my breast skin, tissue, and nipples fully removed.  The expansion process then allowed my skin to stretch enough to make room for the plastic surgeon to have space to put something in to create the shape of a breast.  I opted for silicone implants and my only request was that we get as close to what I had before and make them softer than the expanders.  Those bad boys were HARD!

Due in part to my age I was able to get my skin stretched pretty close to the size of breast I had before cancer.  Once you get rid of all your breast and associated boob stuff (tissue etc) nothing is referred to in cup size.  You don't have boobs so it is all medical terminology.  My expanders were filled to 485 cc's.  To buy a sports bra to fit them I needed a 36DD.  I was not a 36DD before cancer.  I was a 34C.  So they seemed enormous.  Remember I had this hard circle like expander inside my body that needed to stay in place to stretch the skin so there is no "squwishing" your expander into a bra.  

Going into the exchange surgery you don't know what size implant is going to fit, it is an estimate and you have a range of sizes that enter the room with you.  When it was all said and done I had 500cc silicone implants put in plus fat grafting to create a more natural looking shape.  For now I don't really know what size they are.  That sounds odd, I know, but you have to wait about three months for everything to settle and swelling to go down after the exchange surgery.  Judging by looks and feel they seem close to my size before cancer. 

It could be my memories of the expanders are too fresh but the foobs look real.  They don't look like fake boobs to me.  Never planning to have a boob job I had some very real fears that I was going to look very unnatural.  It was irrational but I didn't want to look like I had fake boobs or was a pornstar.  It is just not me.  My plastic surgeon really listened to what I wanted and did a job better than I could have hoped for.  When I see women that have had breast implants their boobs look enormous.  Very wide, very high, very hard.  I guess sort of how I felt my expanders looked.  I think this is because they have actual breast tissue inside still.  Since I have none of that and the implant is under the muscle the foob really does look more natural.  I don't know.  This is a completely stupid trivial "thing" to have been worried about...but I lost sleep over what the foobs were going to look like.  My advice if you are going through this is to make sure you are very vocal with your plastic surgeon so he or she knows what you are hoping to achieve.    

I was very lucky that I didn't have any complications but it is is also due to following the restrictions and having such a big family to help me out.  Though I am still not cleared for full activity I am able to do a little more than walk and am back to doing all my stretches again!  As of today I do not have my full range of motion back but I am getting closer each day.  Hopefully I will be able to start swimming in about six months which should help a ton because my chest muscles are so weak (they did cut into them twice so I shouldn't be surprised but I am). 

Side note.  If you are wondering why my implants are under the muscle and not sitting on top it is because this pushes everything closer to the skin.  As life goes on and we continue to monitor my breasts for cancer recurrence it allows any new tumors to be closer to the skin therefor easier to detect.  Because I have no more breast tissue I can not have mammograms, all of my exams will be physical exams with my general surgeon and oncologist.  

Alright time for  the pictures.

First is the picture before I went back to surgery.  My doctor had marks all over my body.  Like everywhere.   Remember all the bruising from the fat grafting a few posts back?  Yeah there was marks all over my thighs and lower abs too but I feel like you get the gist with this one image.  Look at those expanders!  I do not miss them.  Loved having them so I could have a foob but good riddance.  Can you see how far over towards the outside of my body those rock hard rounds are?  This is part of the reason I had so much anxiety about the foobs looking super unnatural.  My old cancer infused breasts did not hang to stick out to the side of my body.  

This is about two weeks after surgery.   You can see they look softer, smaller, and are less towards the edge of my body.  I still had bandages on them because they just glue you back together in hopes of minimizing scaring.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 01/22/19

Friday I got my 12th infusion.  It was a little sad while I was there because most of the patients that I have continually seen at each treatment were missing.  Since I am far from quiet it didn't take long for me to get to know a handful of other people going through similar experiences.  Ironically not everyone in the infusion center is getting chemotherapy, nor do they have cancer, yet the only people that I have got to know are all there because of cancer.  The majority of the people I have met are women, over 60, and unfortunately stage 4 for whatever type of cancer they have (none have had breast cancer they range from brain or liver to colon or blood).   Almost every first meeting was the woman approaching me to ask how old I am.  It is obvious I am there for chemo because the bald head gives us away.  They always tell me they are so sorry that I got cancer because I am so young. 

These women have become my friends over the past nine months.  I worry about them, my kids and I pray for them, and I anxiously await the day of my next chemo appointment in hopes that when I go around the corner one of these women will be sitting in a chair receiving her infusion.  And this time none of the women were there.  Two weeks ago one of these women that I call my friend reached out to me in between treatments to let me know that the chemotherapy she was getting had stopped working and her tumors were getting bigger.  She wanted me to know and I am hopeful that I will be able to go visit her at her home this week (I tried last week but she was too sick for visitors).  This was fresh on my mind as I looked around for any of my friends before my infusion and one of the reasons I was so sad when I didn't find a single one of them. 

The obvious reason that none of them were there is that they were scheduled on a different day, or at an earlier or later time.  But with all of them being stage 4 the chances are slim.  Since it is medical information no one can tell me how a patient is doing but they could tell me if they had been in or not.  None had.  I left notes for a few of them and asked if they would give them to the girls if, or when, they came in.  Most of them don't have social media or text and those whose numbers I have are terrible at returning phone calls!

I just hate cancer.

So my infusion actually went well.  The targeted chemo is suppose to be easier on my body however it is tearing up my insides.  I have taken more anti-nausea meds with the targeted chemo than the harsher chemo (really I felt better on the harsh chemo than the targeted, now I just fill sick all the time).  When I wake up in the morning I can't eat anything until about lunch time until the week before my next treatment.  It is a bit like morning sickness.  Another weird thing is that the targeted chemo is not suppose to effect my taste buds or eating habits it does seem to be.  Two nights ago Scott took us to go get ice cream (I don't remember why, a celebration for something the kids had done...my brain is stupid these days).  I got one.  Within 45 minutes of eating it I was on the toilet 6 times in less than an hour.  Needless to say we both decided maybe I should lay off ice cream until I am finished with all chemo. 

I have also had a significant increase in migraines.  Since switching to just targeted chemo I have one a week, MINIMUM.  They suck so bad and the migraine pills don't seem to stop the pain or the weird vision issues associated with them.  Oh and since we are talking about vision that is messed up too.  I can't decide if my prescription has changed all of the sudden or the chemo has done something to my eyes.  I am constantly needed to rub my eyes to relubricate them and blink to get my contacts back to the right location on my eyeball so I can see.  You might think, "geez Alicia just wear your glasses dingbat!"  HA! I have tried and it is the same.  I have to keep; blinking and trying to focus even in those.  The solution is to just go to the optometrist but I feel like it is a direct correlation to the medicine and I need to wait till I am finished.

The most recent reaction I have had is a weird rash that has showed up on my chest.  I will post a picture below this.  It showed up Friday after my infusion first just as a red mark from my port down in between my foobs.  It is kind of hard to see it in the picture but it looks and feels a little bit like the acne rash I got after my first infusion.  Trying not to be a crazy hypochondriac I have been just watching it for the past few days but it is getting more raised bumps.  Today I decided to send the oncologist a message because I want to make sure it isn't going to spread like last time and I have a sneaky suspicion that it is creeping up my neck and onto my chin already.

I only have four more infusions to go so hopefully new side effects will just stop already!!!  Though my track record makes me a little nervous as what is going to show up after the next one.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 01/16/19

My family draws names for Christmas, I mean come on!  The size of our family alone makes is outrageous to buy for everyone.  Not only does it get expensive but it was starting to become an all day event.  So a few years ago we went to drawing names.  My sister Alexa was not really okay with that and continues to give small little gifts each year.  This year when she did it I thought we should start doing that too!  

I hadn't bought anything on Christmas morning when we were all together but we actually didn't fully celebrate Christmas on Christmas.  My oldest brother lives out of state and his son had a band event right before Christmas.  We decided to all wait till they got here to exchange gifts so I had time to figure something out!

Reyna had given me this beautiful Hallmark angel ornament that was for breast cancer on Christmas and a portion of the profit was donated to breast cancer research.  Each year I get an ornament that has to do with something that happened during the year and save it for my kids.  One year we were Inside Out for Halloween so I got each of the kids an ornament of the character they were.  My hope is that one day when they have their first Christmas tree I can give them a box of ornaments that represents memories of their life.  I told Scott I wanted to get the kids this ornament for this year.  He said they had to go all over to find the one that they got me and it was the only one.  It didn't look good.  

However, a day or two after Christmas we went to the Pleasanton mall with my older sister Deni and her family and the Hallmark store had all kinds of breast cancer stuff.  The kids found necklaces they wanted and bracelets.  Low and behold there was a few ornaments sitting there!  I grabbed three for the kids and gave them to Scott to buy.  He looked at the box and said maybe we should get my parents one.  So I went back and grabbed one for them.  He took that box and said maybe we should get everyone an ornament.  After all cancer has changed my entire family.  I looked and Deni and asked if she would put it up or if it was weird.  She thought it was a great idea so I went back and dug to see if they would have enough. This meant I needed nine ornaments.  Guess how many breast cancer ornaments they had left?  That is right, nine.

When we got together to exchange gifts I stood up and said that I had bought something after Christmas for each of the families.  I said some things about how much I loved them, how they have helped me, how lucky we are to have each other, and I honestly do not remember because I was trying so hard not to start sobbing.  I told them they didn't have to put it up but I hoped that when they looked at it that it was a reminder of what our family is capable of overcoming.  

I know I say this in a lot of my posts but I just adore my family.  My love for them is huge.  I do not know what I would do without each and every one of them.   My crazy chemo brain didn't even think to take a single picture so I asked my siblings to send me a picture the other day if they still had the ornament out.  Alexa was the only one with it still out and these were the pictures I got from her goof ball kids.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 01/16/19

So my blog about not posting due to the holidays was not totally truthful.  I did step back because I wanted to be with my family more but I was also just emotionally drained and physically felt like poop.  I am finally over the six week mark of the last surgery but between fat grafting and chemo my body was tapped out.  Plus there was too many emotions swirling around in my head that if I had not moved faster in going to the doctor I might not have been here to celebrate this holiday season or  I could be sitting here with a much different outcome.  It is overwhelming to realize how quickly life can change.

Over all I feel super proud of myself for not crying from Thanksgiving through the New Year because I really did feel like that every day.  There were a few days I spent in the shower ugly crying and I am fine with that.  The fact that I am here with Scotty, the kids, and my family is sometimes too much for me to handle.  I ask God too often why cancer has to affect a specific person and not someone else.  It would make so much more sense for this horrific disease to inflict terrible people that need to be off this Earth like rapist, murders, drug dealers.  Why does it have to take good decent people?  I think when I get up to the pearly gates I am going to have the most questions about this than anything else.

We took family pictures and if you look at my face you can see that I am really trying hard not cry.  I get a bit overcome with gratitude to be alive and next to these people.  I am so lucky to have a big a family that truly loves and enjoys each other.  They are marvelous.  If I had infinite funds I would buy a huge plot of land and build a compound so that we could always be together.  In my head this is what heaven would be, me with these people next to me at all times.

This is just my siblings and I.  Thankfully my hair had come back in enough that my scalp was no longer visible.

Here is the original Lowry family before we all got married and filled it up with babies.  I know that everyone thinks their family is the best but I it isn't, mine is.

Of course you need a picture of my sweet little family too.  Man do I love these people.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 12/29/18

I took a little break from all things social media related the last month to be a bit more focused on the holiday and my family which means there is a bit of catch up needed now.  First I received my pathology back on the tumor that was removed from my mouth...it was benign!  So fantastic news there, thank the Lord.  Second I have had two more rounds of chemo, the last was yesterday (pictures below).  Last of all, my hair has grown so much that in the morning it is starting to stick up a bit!

Round 10 was hard because I was so exhausted from the exchange surgery, my weird eye dilation, ever increasing blood pressure, and mouth surgery.  To say I was over it all would be putting it lightly.  Of course when I sat down to get started on my infusion I was placed next to an older woman with Leukemia.  We got to talking and I found out that she is stage 4 and will be doing chemo till she dies.  A little perspective to remind me that I need to snap out of it and be thankful for what I am dealing with.  

Yesterday I had round 11.  Since switching to the targeted chemotherapy I have been going to these infusions on my own (they are about an hour and I don't get sick immediately).  This time I had loads of company!

Scott came since he is off work for the holiday and my oldest brother John and his family is in town from Texas too.  

Tyler, my nephew (next to Scott in the picture) tagged along as well for a pretty amazing reason, his Eagle Scout project.  In order to obtain the rank of Eagle Scout you have to put together a service project.  Tyler has decided to organize a group of people to get together and sew port pillows for cancer patients.  My mom has been making these and I bring a bag with me to almost every infusion I have.   A port pillow is a small pillow that is strapped to the strap of the seat belt so that it does not lay directly on your port.  Since it takes weeks for the actual incision to heal my port pillow became my best bud.  

After weeks of trying to get a cancer center in Texas to accept the donations he asked if maybe he could just donate them to mine center.  We talked with charge nurse and she was overjoyed that he wanted to donate them at our location!  So he brought two big bags yesterday and he will go back to Texas with the forms signed, geared up to get a group together to sew a bunch more!

I know that I have said this throughout this blog but cancer touches everyone in your family.  My brother and his family don't live here, they are as far removed as you could be from the day to day of this stupid disease and still they are effected by it.  And here I am again in awe of how my family has stepped up and made a bad situation pretty great.  

I will update this with a picture of the port pillows we donated yesterday when I get it from my brother...sorry!

UPDATE -- So John snapped a picture of Scott and I while I was getting infused.  Just wanted you to see how adorable my husband is.  He went shopping (no surprise there) and came home with one shirt for him, the one he is wearing.  It is a breast cancer under armor shirt.  Notice his wrist?  He refuses to take of the breast cancer bracelet until I am done with all my chemo.  Seriously I question how in the world I found him and cannot express how filled with love I am for him. 

Below is my totally rad nephew Tyler and one of my nurses, Jody.  Those bags she is holding are the port pillows that my mom finished up to send with us.  I think since I started chemo I have brought in five bags that size so this marks 7 total we have donated already.

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/30/18

It really is a pretty special day when I get to keep my clothes on for a medical procedure and that is exactly what I got to do on my birthday!  It really was a treat.  I was able to choose if I wanted to be put to sleep for the procedure and I opted not to do that.  With all the other surgeries I have needed over the last year it seemed unnecessary if I was not required.  So Wednesday my mom and I headed off to the oral surgeon.

I think that might have been the highlight of my birthday.  How often do we get to spend our entire birthday with our mom (of course not being able to drive is what forced her to stay with me but I think she enjoys hanging out with me too)? 

The doctor was very cool and let me take a few pictures before and after the procedure.  First I got the required lollipop of numbing.

Then I had to hold open my mouth for the nurse to touch all around and make sure that everything was numb enough to get all the shots.  Last time I will get a picture of this thing in my mouth, HOORAY!

After that they brought in the tray of tools to get started....

The estimated length of the procedure was thirty minutes to one hour.  They really had no idea how long it was going to take until they got in there and started digging around.  At first the guess was that the "thing" was a blocked saliva gland.  However, as the doctor started the procedure and began removing it he said he felt like it was a type of fibroid cyst.  Still this was not something he was overly concerned about, I guess that is good but really I am winging it with this entire new development.  Inside the jar is the "thing" they took out of me.  He was funny when I asked if I could get a picture of it he said, "I don't care you grew it!"  Makes me wish I was awake during my mastectomy surgeries so that I could have had a picture of the three biggest tumors inside me.  Gross but I would have loved to have seen them.

In a little less than forty minutes I was stitched up and ready to go.

Today is Friday so I am two days out of this surgery and I can say that last night and into today have been more painful than the actual day of.  It might just be because of the location of the stitches.  Every time I move my mouth to talk, drink, or eat it irritates it.  But like all things I compare it to the nipple juice and feel like this is nothing I can't handle!  Hardest part of this entire situation is waiting till the pathology report to come back so they can tell me everything is fine and it is just some weird, freaky, oddball thing. 

Quick update on my eye  issue.  It would seem that the most likely explanation for it was that I had an averse reaction to the scopolamine patch that was put on me for my exchange surgery (this helps prevent nausea due to all the medication during surgery).  One of the side effects is that the eyes can dilate to different sizes.  It is not super common and although my plastic surgeon said he hadn't seen it before he had heard of it and pulled up a bunch of information online for me to read about it.  Even thought we might know what caused it they have decided to play it safe and I have to keep track of a list of things should they happen to me so we can make sure that I didn't have a stroke or something else that might require a CT scan of my brain like seeing spots, migraines, persistent headaches, losing consciousness, losing control of my hand, arm, or another part of my body...again, yippee.

I think that this part, the past week, has been a reality slap in the face for me.  This is my new life.  Even when I am done with treatment for my original cancer there will continue to be a cloud that lingers over my life.  There will be days I am sure that this cloud will be hard to see and the sun will shine brighter than ever, but ultimately, the cloud will stay in place because anything "not normal" will need to be ruled out as "not cancerous".  It is tiring, nerve wracking, and just something I really would like to not have to accept.  But I have no choice and that, well it sucks.   

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/20/18

In between surgeries and allergic reactions I had round 9, my third round of targeted chemotherapy,  last Friday.  What was most exciting about it was that my eyes were dilated making it really hard to see.  My mom and the kids were worried I was not going to get to the Oncology Department safely so Brody was my guide.  He was so sweet!  Brody held my hand and made sure I was with my nurse before he would leave my side (kids aren't allowed in the infusion area).  I guess I don't get my eyes dilated that often because I was shocked at how blind I was till my eyes went back to normal.

I was pretty much blind taking that picture, now seeing it I think that I look like I am high.  What a mess.  Also I was not feeling too peppy here because I had stopped all pain meds.  My nurse was freaking out because my blood pressure was high which lead to a lecture on taking care of myself.  I had to explain I had just had surgery and then she chilled out a little bit but man she was mad at me! 

For those of you keeping up to date on my blog you might remember my bud Josephina.  Well she was who I shared a room with during chemo!  I was so happy when I saw her that I moved my arms too fast and yelped when I went to hug her.  It was pretty funny because then she yelled out and started cussing in Spanish.  She was in a very different mental state than three weeks ago and I asked her about it.  I guess that her nurse was concerned and had put in a request for her to be sent for a psych evaluation after that appointment.  At first she was upset but after meeting with her social worker (all of us diagnosed with cancer at Kaiser are provided one) she realized that she did need to refocus.  I told her I was proud of her and that I had left the last appointment so worried about her.  Before I left we hugged again and asked the nurses to try to keep our appointments around the same time if they could.  Keep her in your prayers if you can.

The last update I need is my hair and then I think we are all caught up on the happenings of my ridiculously dramatic life.  Last Friday was also one month since my hair started to grow back.  Though I am taking vitamins and eating everything suggested to aid hair growth there has been no chia pet response that I had hoped.  Instead it is slowly filling in. 

I really should start doing my makeup for these, craparoni I look tore up!  But I really don't have the energy right now.  Perhaps the pictures in the coming months I will make more of an effort...I'll try.  So around my ears you can see that the hair is starting to grow over my ears which is pretty darn exciting!  One noticeable difference with the hair coming back is that I have a ton more gray and what isn't gray is significantly darker than my hair before chemo.  I think it might actually be black.  For now I am not sure if it is going to have the chemo curl but I am happy it is growing at all.  

Since hair is growing on my head that means hair has started to sprout up in other places....which I am sure everyone is wondering about.  The first place that my hair returned was the damn chin hair that I have to pluck.  I swear that was the one hair I hoped chemo would have killed forever!!  My leg hair returned this week too which is ironic because I can't shower or bathe yet, so I am going full amazon at this point.  As for my armpits I can't lift my arms up high enough yet to look in there but I am not able to feel anything so I think I am in the clear still.  But one place I am desperate for the hair to start regrowing is my nose and it has not started!  I am so annoyed by that because as the weather is getting colder my nose drips like a leaky faucet. It is disgusting and so embarrassing!

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/21/18

I keep trying to start writing this entry and end up deleting it over and over because I don't know where to start.  Mainly the problem is that I haven't written anything on here yet about a lump that developed in my mouth months ago because discussing it makes it real, and for me, reality sorta sucks these days.

During my appointment with my oncologist last month we decided it would probably be best to have the lump in my mouth removed.  Since I was cleared for my exchange surgery last week she suggested I contact my dentist and see if they could get me on their schedule to have it removed.  Though we don't think it is going to come back malignant (it would be rare for breast cancer to metastasize to the mouth) if it did then my treatment plan would need to change.  Yesterday my dentist referred me to an oral surgeon and they wanted me to come in right away.  Due to the exchange surgery I can't drive which made it a bit tricky figuring out the logistics but my sister Deni was able to help me out.  

Before she showed up my vision started getting...weird.  My first thought was my contacts so I went in the bathroom to check them out and see if I needed to get a new pair.  However when I looked in the mirror my eyes were dilated but not like last Thursday and Friday.  This time one eye had a huge pupil and the other a tiny one.  I took a picture because I wanted to be certain I wasn't going crazy.

These pictures make my nose look enormous.  It's 3:23 in the morning and I am sitting on the couch in my family room cracking up.  They are really terrible images but I want you to see what I am seeing.  

Okay so obviously this is not normal and I was a little freaked out.  Not sure what to do I sent a message to my oncologist in case it was from my chemo Friday and also to my plastic surgeon in case it was from the surgery.  In the mean Deni showed up and I showed her.  Any of you that know Deni know she has the world's worst vision.  In fact I think her prescription is so high she might be legally blind without glasses or contacts (no joke) and she thought my eyes looked wonky.  

Not sure what to do because I was not getting a response from the doctors I message my friend that is a physicians assistant and also has the same type of breast cancer as I.  She had her exchange surgery too so I felt like maybe she would be able to shed some light on my situation.  Her response was that I should go to the ER or urgent care and to post it in my facebook group to see if anyone else had something similar.  What I found out was that no one had this happen and everyone thought I needed to go to the ER...I went to the oral surgeon appointment instead. 

At the oral surgeon's office we found out was that he also thinks we need to remove it because I do have cancer but feels like it will not be malignant.  He wanted to remove it tomorrow, today actually, but I have an appointment with my plastic surgeon to remove all my bandages and HOPEFULLY be told that I can shower.  No way I am missing that appointment!  Instead it got scheduled for my birthday which just seems crappy but I want it done.  The procedure is going to be a relatively easy and short lasting only about 45 minutes to an hour and hopefully only needing two to three stitches.

I should insert that I texted Scott asking him if I should go to the ER or not and he showed up at the oral surgeon's office.  We both decided that seemed crazy and since we still hadn't heard from my doctors to call the advice nurse.  The advice nurse talked to an ER doctor who said I had to be seen immediately so if I couldn't get a doctor appointment then to go straight to the ER.  Thankfully they had an opening at 5:30 in the after hours clinic so no ER.  Of course the eyes had started at 11 in the morning and by the appointment were almost back to normal, go figure, but I had taken pictures!

We were with the doctor for over an hour.  First he wanted me to go have brain imaging done to rule out that I hadn't had a stroke.  Then he made me do all these random test in the room to see if I had control of my body.  After that he made us wait why he contacted an ophthalmologist.  In the end he decided that he had no idea why my eyes were doing what they were doing and he wanted to wait on doing brain imaging.  

The only thing that was for certain was my blood pressure.  It has steadily been increasing since I was diagnosed with cancer and once chemopause set in, well, that only made it worse.  Typically it has been around 133/85.  At chemo on Friday it was stupid high at 150/90.  They thought it was because I was in pain from the surgery and not taking any pain meds.  At the doctor appointment yesterday it was 157/100.  Needless to say it needed to be dealt with so I am now starting a medicine for that.  

Finally a little after 7 we left the doctor and went to get the kids from Deni and Tone.  It was a long day and I feel silly saying this but I spent a lot of it very scared.  Scared that this random bump in my mouth is going to end up being malignant, scared that there is something in my brain causing my eyes to not work correctly,  scared that I will end up having a stroke because my blood pressure suddenly is unable to be normal, just scared period.  

As I sat there on the table in the doctor office and looked over at Scott I started to cry. I do not understand why my body is suddenly so weak.  It frustrates me that a body that was once so strong and healthy suddenly seems to have forgotten how to function.  I wonder how long Scott is going to be able to handle having a wife that was once his partner, his equal, someone to shoulder the weight and ease his burdens, that is now dead weight.  He sits there so calm, responding to work emails, answering work calls, and then patiently helping me remember all the questions I need to ask the doctor because I can't seem to recall half of what I should anymore these days.  Then he sees me crying and he tells me no matter happens he will take care of it.  Where would I be without him?  I never want to find out.  

I am so glad that this day is over.  

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/19/18

My biggest concern about my exchange surgery was that my foobs would be softer.  It was selfish but I really wanted the kids to hug me for real and one day not to feel like a science experiment when naked in front of my husband.   I should have been asking more questions about fat grafting.  For instance how painful is it?  How long before the swelling goes down? And holy crap when does the bruising stop????  I am really glad I chose implants and not the DIEP Flap surgery option to recreate my breasts.  In that procedure you use your ab muscles and fat to recreate your boobs.  Many women are excited and happily pick this option because it means they get a tummy tuck, liposuction and breast job in the name of cancer.  I now know it would have been fat grafting on acid.  NO WAY!

Below are pictures of the two locations on my sides that were used to harvest fat to recreate my fake boobies.  The first picture on the top left is the night I came home from surgery.  Bottom left is the next evening and the largest picture in the set of three is four days out of surgery.  Below the set of three is a picture from today,six days out of surgery. 

Left Side

Right Side

It looks like I was hit by a bus and I can say it feels a lot like it too.

Part of the reason that this is so painful is that I had another reaction to the pain medicine.  I know I have chemo brain but I am pretty sure this happened after the mastectomy surgery too.   It started off again with my skin beginning to itch uncontrollably.  Then I noticed that I couldn't focus my eyes and the light was starting to hurt them.  In the mirror I noticed that my pupils were enormous.  Scott said I looked like one of our girls beanie boo stuffed animals.  Since the doctor called to check on me shortly after I realized my pupils were crazy we decided to stop that particular pain medicine.  This is now the third or fourth pain medicine I have tried since getting cancer and none of them seem to like me so I opted to stop all pain medicine and take Tylenol.

My eyes are almost back to normal as of today thankfully.  It was impossible to read, type, or write with my eyes dilated but now I am close to being caught up on work and life.  Inject a sigh and head shake here.  For now I am back to sleeping in the chair and having to wake Scott up to help me get out of it to pee in the  middle of the night.  Wednesday I am back to the doctor to get checked out from the surgery and hopefully told I can shower.  If I get the okay to shower I MIGHT try to sleep in the bed.  I don't know though, I have a very real fear that Scott will roll into my side and I will karate chop him in his sleep...I think I will stay in the chair for a bit longer!

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/18/18

From the moment this entire situation started I knew that I was not going to let cancer take control of my life or my body which meant I was not going to lose my breasts forever.  It was never an option for me.  Ironically I don't think I felt like I had this huge attachment to my breast before but when you are told that you might lose them for the rest of your life, well, things change.  In a day where men and women look more androgynous, I guess I am old school.  I want to look feminine and that is ridiculous because I am not a small petite beautiful woman (in fact if I had a quarter for every time someone told me I had an "athletic" build, I'd be rich) .  I love that Scott is significantly taller than me because he makes me feel like I am a small petite beautiful woman.  And right there is why I so desperately wanted to have breasts attached to my body, even if they were 100% fake.  

On Tuesday the 13th, seven months after my diagnosis, Scott and I headed off to the hospital to have my expanders exchanged for implants.  We got scheduled for the first surgery so it was an early day getting us up before 5 and my mom coming then to stay with the kids.  It was silly but I was nervous for the surgery.  

We didn't have to wait long before the nurse came and grabbed me to go get ready.   I got to sport the newest in hospital fashion by modeling the yellow canary gowns with red socks.  Kaiser is going to new gowns and socks for patients that are at risk of falling.  Now if you go under anesthetic for a surgery you will get these fabulous gowns to wear and one day matching yellow socks.

My plastic surgeon came back and we went back over the surgery.  I had already met with him twice before so I felt really comfortable about what was going to happen.  What was happening was not just a boob job which people are always happy to tell me I am getting.  It frustrates the hell out of me when people say that.  What he had to do for me was completely recreate breasts inside of my skin.  The first step had been surgically installing the expanders and cadaver skin.  Next was the physical saline fills to stretch the skin.  Last is the exchange surgery to form the fake breasts inside me.  So using the space provided by the expanders he would have to take fat from other parts of my body to put around the silicone implant.  This is called fat grafting and it essentially allows him to build a fake breast that looks and feels more like a real breast.   Since he has a lot of little things he needs to do to create these for me we go into the operating room with three sizes of implants.  He doesn't know which size will fit in the actual space until he has me open.  I left the type of implant up to him since I honestly had no clue what was best.  After tons of discussion about what I hoped to achieve and what he felt comfortable being able to create we went with a high profile silicone implant.  That is at the end of this picture.  It will hopefully offer me the most projection.  If a woman with breast got this type of implant it would be a whole heck of a lot of cleavage because it pushes everything out.  Since I don't have any of that it offers the best chance to have a breast that pushes forward and looks less flat.  I honestly have no idea and just hope for something pushing forward. 

I got all marked up with where he would have to be making injections and cuts, which places he would be taking things and replacing things so in the end I looked like the pig in Secret Life of Pets.  However I trust my doctor fully and know that he will make me look as good as he can. 

Shortly after I was taken into the operating room where I helped them get me in position and my arm strapped down.  Then I was out until I woke up in recovery.  The entire procedure took a little over three hours and aside from the doctor telling me everything went well I do not remember much until we got home.  

That is me still high as a kite from the meds administered during surgery.  I didn't realize until that night I never asked what size implants we were able to get in!  Wednesday when I go back to the doctors office we will find out so there is something to look forward to.  I am actually really excited to see what they look like as well.  Already my chest feels lighter and softer with the expanders gone.  

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/11/18

There has been little discussion on here in the recent months about boobs and it seems ironic as this is what got me into this situation in the first place!  So it seems appropriate to bring the boobies back to the discussion.

Since the bilateral mastectomy and the expanders are filled to capacity, my noobs have turned into rock hard missile launcher foobs (fake boobs).  It is pretty incredible how realistic they look with clothes on and I feel confident saying that if you didn't know that I had my breasts removed it would be hard to tell that they are 100% fake...until you try to hug me.  These bad boys are so hard that an over excited hug could leave you with bruises.  No exaggeration folks.  They are the most unnatural "things" you would ever feel.  Reyna will not give me a hug that is in the front of my body, we have to side hug.  In her defense her head hits right at the foob level so she gets a pretty gnarly head slam from them.

This is an actual picture of the type of expander I have inside me.  The picture is the wrong direction but I am too tired to edit it.  My magnet is closer to my armpit than my nipple.  The gray circle is the magnet.  When you go into the doctor's office to have them filled up to stretch your skin they use a device very similar to a stud finder for the wall.  It is rubbed along your skin until it finds the magnet and once it does the device beeps and the doctor stamps your skin to mark the spot.  That is then where they insert the needle to put the saline into the expander.   Really it is fascinating and if you are okay with needles pretty incredible to watch. 

The most common question people ask about the expanders is what they feel like.  How to explain this??  Like I have a pair of bowling balls sitting on my chest, but they aren't heavy like bowling balls just hard...or as if my breast were made out of cement, but again not heavy just hard...oh like glass but less breakable...I don't know how to answer it.  Most of the time if I know the people well enough I just say FEEL THEM!  After feeling how hard they are it often leads to wanting to know if I am in a ton of pain.  Thankfully the answer is no.  One reason is that I have yet to regain sensation in my chest area (I might never regain that) or another reason is that I have a decent pain tolerance.  I am leading to the latter because only one of the fills actually gave me some discomfort.  All of that said I will be so thankful when they come out and that is set to happen this Tuesday!

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/11/18

I realized that I never posted a weekly hair update!  So here it is...

I feel like there is more noticeable darkness on the top of my head this week.  Whether or not my hair is actually getting longer is questionable right now but for sure the "spotty" patches are slowly filling in.  In the pictures it is hard to see but there is a large amount of gray that has filled in.  My mom and older sister love to point them out when they see me.  

Since I was taking my picture on Friday for this blog Rey and Em were asking me why I was doing it.  After we discussed documenting my hair starting to come back they asked if it was going to be dark like Emmy's or lighter like Rey's.  So I put Emmy's hair across my scalp.  Reyna thought it was the funniest thing ever, see her in the background.  Stinker!  

Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 11/05/18

It is 2:33 in the morning and I am wide awake because I am on fire.  My body literally feels like it is burning. One would think I must be sick with the flu or something, but I'm not.  What I am is paused, chemopaused, aka chemically induced menopause, and let me tell you it SUCKS.

Previously I had discussed chemopause and the disappearance of my period but since then there hasn't been any one side effect that was directly related to it (except the 15 pound weight gain that I seriously hope is).  But now that hot flashes from hell have decided to reek havoc on my body I can tell you that these are definitely from being in chemopause. 

Who the hell decided to name them hot "flashes"?  Flash implies that they are going to be fast, over suddenly, even fleeting, or blink and you miss it.  SO NOT TRUE!  They last longer than a few minutes,often times they hit off and on for over three hours, and they are so much worse at night while I am trying to sleep than any other time.  The only part about them that is worthy of the word "flash" is that as soon as they start my body "flashes" into a sudden sweat.  I look like I should be on some weird Saturday Night Live skit due to the amount of sweat suddenly pouring off my body in 70 degree weather.  It is embarrassing,  disgusting, and super weird. 

For now I am unsure if this is something I will be staying in.  A lot of women that are under 40 with breast cancer are kept in a chemical induced menopause because they have hormone receptors that feed the cancer.  Since I do not have that specific hormone receptor my oncologist and I have not discussed this yet so there are a few things that could happen.  First, I could be told we are going to keep me this way and I will eventually be put on medicine to maintain the menopause.  Second, I could be told I don't need to be kept this way and my body will eventually turn the chemopause off and start functioning like a young lady (okay I am closer to 40 than 30 so young-ish, middle age, I don't know) again.  Last, my body could decide that the hard chemo was too much and just stay this way.  This is not common but I have met quite a few ladies that never naturally went out of chemopause.  Guess it is one of those fun wait and see games cancer plays with you.