Mambo No. 5... Oops, I Mean Chemo No. 5

That damn chemo brain got me again.  Actually, maybe thinking of the Mambo No. 5 is a good pick me up- it's so much more fun to chant "Mambo No. 5"!"

So, yes, Friday was chemo treatment number 5.  In a lot of ways, I can't believe that I'm finally here!  I only have 1 more to go! The road has been a tad on the long and windy side (especially when you're equipped with rubbery chemo legs), and mostly uphill,and I'm pretty sure my feet have been bare, and did I mention it's been a 101 degrees with zero clouds, or maybe those were just hot flashes.  Regardless, there I was bright and early on Friday morning, staring down one more mega chemo treatment in the eye. ...  Kinda feeling a little like John Wayne, without the cool gun and the cowboy boots, and minus the horse....  I will be so glad when this is behind me!  I won't miss these treatments one bit.  Sorry Charlie!

I have a standing date with my oncologist prior to each and every treatment, and this was the first time that there were things that I could check off on the "Complications" list they hand me every time I walk in there: mine is usually blank!   There have been very few snags along my chemo journey until the 4th treatment (Aka the Mack Truck Chemo Treatment), other than the pesky little cold and the rash from the Perjeta, and I feel very fortunate to have tolerated treatment so well.  (And hell, I'm very thankful that most of the issues on that sheet don't even come close to pertaining to me!  With everything else I have going on, I don't think I wanna worry about most of that stuff!) At any rate,  I think she was shocked that anything was actually awry- but my "issues" were really bothering me.  I guess that looking back on the situation, my extreme fatigue (I didn't sleep a wink on Thursday night thanks to the steroids) made everything seem just a bit worse than what it actually was, but shouldn't I be allowed to complain just a tad?   I was probably the equivalent of a tired, hungry, wet 3 month old baby at that point on Friday morning.  (The 1 hour and 30 minute wait did nothing to ease my cranky baby syndrome!  And when you add to it the small fact that we had to leave the house at 7:00 in the morning to get there for the appointment, well I am pretty sure I earned the right to be just a teensy, tiny little bit on the cranky side.)  I know that by the time I finished telling her through my sniffles about the last 3 weeks, that I needed a kleenex.

I was having a very persistent, unpleasant, and annoying tingling in my legs and fingers, it was the kind of thing that was keeping me awake at night, I couldn't get comfortable (and we all know that this breast cancer patient has more than enough issues with sleep at this point).  It's a known side effect, so truth be told, I had kind of anticipated it's arrival, however, that does not mean that I have to like it, nor do I have any intention of accepting it as the norm. I had actually thought that if it hadn't appeared by the 3rd treatment, that maybe it wasn't going to.  Boy, was I mistaken!  I suppose I could have lived with the prickling in my fingers in toes had they not been accompanied by extreme water retention (aka the jelly fish issue) in my ankles and fingers.   Those two things combined, were not a wonderfully warm and fuzzy combination.  Why is it that hearing that something is common only makes me want rid of it more?  I don't want to be "common".  And I want it gone... Vamoosh!  Where's my wand?  (Oh I forgot, I got a cape instead of a wand...)

The tingling and the jelly fish issue, coupled with some of my other teensy, tiny little complaints (sinus wonkiness, rubbery legs, aching finger nails....etc, etc, etc.)  made the doc think twice about our course of action on Friday.  She suggested giving me lasics with my treatment on Friday, decreasing my steroids, and cutting back my Taxotere.  I was very hesitant to cut back on the Taxotere,  and I came right out and told her so.  I was so afraid that cutting back would somehow compromise my ultimate goal. She assured me that this tiny little decrease probably  wasn't going to change anything....  So, that's what we did.

I slept most of the day as my sweet nurse kept filling my veins with the wonderful poison they call chemo.  It certainly makes the day go faster (my treatments are 6 hours!).  And sleep is mostly what I've done since Friday, heck, I had to catch up after that sleepless night on Thursday.  I'm not 20 any more, and even pre-cancer, sleep was extremely essential!  I definitely feel better today than I did yesterday, and tomorrow I will feel even better...

Thanks, Boobs! You've Made This Decision So Easy!

I recall sitting in the waiting room of the surgeons office, days before Christmas with my good friend, Deanna who had volunteered to come along for moral support.  Of course, one of the main topics of conversation... breasts.  I remember her telling me about a friend of hers who had done a battle of sorts with breast cancer, a friend that had "amazing" breasts.  I remember thinking to myself "I wonder what it's like to have amazing breasts?"

I've never been overly fond of my breasts.  I'm sure that no one would call them "Wonderful" or "Spectacular" or even "Amazing" I most certainly would not. (They are certainly not breasts of "Superwoman" magnitude.)  I would be lying if I did not say that there have been several dinner table discussions between my husband and I about having a "boob job" (prior to all of this cancer craziness, that is!), actually a "boob job" was actually a birthday present one year!  In December of 2012,  I was scheduled  for a consultation with a surgeon.  However,  upon reflection, I realized that  having a "boob job" and running a business 7 days a week probably wasn't going to work out very well and so the whole project was tabled for the time being (and I will admit, I was chicken!).  Looking back on the situation, I have to wonder if I had worked up the nerve to go see the surgeon,  if they would have found the tumor in my left breast during all of the pre-surgery exploration...  I will never know!

Let me explain why I'm not giving any wonderful shouts out about my twins...  The first reason, and ultimately the most annoying of reasons to not like them: the left one never caught up with the right one.  The left one has always been smaller, wimpy!  It wasn't something that I dwelled on, nor did I think about it often.  It was not really a big deal, actually, in normal clothing it's really never been noticeable, except to me. However, in a bathing suit, or a formal dress (such as a prom or wedding dress), it was always a very annoying problem. (Seeing as how I don't spend much time on the beach, and my social life doesn't usually include formal ball gowns, it wasn't an issue that I have encountered often in my adult life.)   All of my prom dresses, and both of my wedding dresses had to be "specially" altered for my "special" left breast... (Wouldn't it figure that's the cancer breast?)  The second reason, I always kinda thought they could have been just a little bigger and certainly just a little bit perkier.  When at my normal weight, in most clothes, they just weren't that prominent.

And my third reason, as if those aren't good enough reasons, my left breast develops a huge, cancerous tumor that completely disrupts my life and threatens my very existence.  I'm sure it's very clear why there is no love lost between me and my breasts.  Actually, this was just news that sealed the deal!  I'll get you stupid boob... you picked the wrong girl to mess with.  Sure, you can leave me no option but to endure months of chemo treatments... but just you wait...  I'll do you one better!

What I'm sure is a very difficult decision for many women, was not for me, or my husband.  I have never had any other plan from the time that this all started than to have a double mastectomy.  And I had good reasons, other than just the fact that I didn't love my boobs to begin with.  Even before the final "It's definitely cancer" diagnosis, I was hell bent on removing both breasts.  I knew it was cancer, and I definitely knew that if I were to battle this once, I was going to do everything in my (super) power to not have to do it again.  I have no intentions of leaving the right breast alone to give it time to brew up some cancer of it's own... TAKE EM OFF, DOC!

I have no emotional attachment to these breasts.  While I'm frightened by the surgery itself, I am not frightened to loose my breasts (of course, that's easy for me to say, there is a highly talented reconstructive surgeon just waiting in the wings to rebuild my breasts!).  Frankly, their threat to my life and my well being is enough to break any kind of emotional attachment, if there had been any in the first place.  And as I go through chemo treatments, my desire to have "them" gone, gets stronger and stronger.  While I'm sure that surgery is going to be no fun, I know that removing my breasts and the tissue surrounding them will (hopefully) render me as cancer free, which has been the ultimate goal all along.  I have been completely committed to this decision all along.  I am completely at peace with it.

Please don't fear... I have no intention of positing pictures of myself post-mastectomy.  Don't be afraid to come back for fear of seeing them, they won't be here.  While I make no attempts to hide my plans, and I will tell anyone who asks, my ultimate goal is to be returned to my pre-cancer self asap!  I will be as honest as possible about my experiences, but there are some things that I'm just not gonna share with the world!

Can Superwoman be Super Without Her Cape?

(A special thank you to my Chemo Angel, Eve who sent me the above picture on a card!  It was absolutely perfect and I adore it!... The fact that it had a pooch on it didn't hurt either!  Thank you, Eve!)

If I thought my body didn't feel like my own before the last chemo treatment, what am I to think now?  4 treatments have left me really feeling like my brain (or one that sort of resembles my brain) has been put into someone elses body.  Not only do I not recognize the bald head and the face with the "Chemo Glow" that stares back at me in the mirror every morning, but the body doesn't even slightly resemble the one that I started with back in January.  My energy levels have dropped to a level that I never even thought possible, it doesn't matter how much "energy" food I eat, it's just not there.  I would kill to pull my hair up in a pony tail (but I don't have any), and my finger nails hurt so bad, that typing feels very strange.  And have I mentioned that coffee tastes horrible?  This is the cold hard reality of my situation right now.

I can't say that I wasn't warned.  A customer that battled and survived breast cancer 5 years ago told me "Don't plan on loosing any weight with breast cancer, if anything, you're gonna gain it..."  I remember thinking at the time... "Oh the news just keeps getting better!"  And then I thought, "Nope, not me!  I'll keep moving and I'm not a big eater, so I'll be just fine!"  WRONG!

I am still moving a lot, but the eating thing... well, that isn't working out so well for me.  I have insane cravings, almost all the time.  The steroids and the chemo make me hungry for calorie laden foods at all hours of the day.  I'm eating foods that I would only look at and dream about pre-cancer.  It's completely out of my control.

I am having a difficult time adjusting to the body that I'm living in.  I don't really care that it's temporary, I just know that I hate it, and I can't wait for it to be gone.  I will not be the least bit sad to see it go.  There is nothing that I like about this body, and for the first time in my life, I find myself unable to find something good about the fact that my body has swelled up like a loaf of bread dough on top of a hot stove.  Cheekbones?  Those are gone, replaced with chubby little chipmunk cheeks!  I swear they're so chubby that they're impairing my vision.  Bony ankles, nope not here, these look like they belong to the Pillsbury dough boy!  Even my chicken legs are gone. My long, slender fingers have been replaced with pudgy fingers that I most certainly do not recognize (and they don't work like the long, slender ones did either!)  I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be able to continue to wear my wedding and engagement ring much longer.  None of my clothes fit, and if my feet continue to puff up, my shoes aren't going to fit either.  Never ever in my life have my shoes not fit.  I don't even think I could stand to have my tennis shoes on right now- hells bells, I probably couldn't tie the damn things.

All of this is quite disturbing, everyone keeps trying to tell me that once the steroids are done, and the chemo is finished that my crazy cravings will disappear and I will drop the weight! (If I hear it one more time, I cannot be held responsible for my actions... Surely they can't lock a cancer patient up, right?) But, what if I don't?  I'm not a person who does chubby well, it's just not in my nature, and I'm sorry but I don't even want to accept it or consider it, or live with it.  It's making me nuts!  I've pretty much maintained my high school weight (or less) for most of my adult life, until now.  Sure, there were times when under unusually high amounts of stress, or around the holidays, a pesky 5-7 pounds would creep up on me, but those pounds bothered me so much that I would immediately do whatever it took to get them off my body.  I've never had to resort to going out an buying larger clothes.  Never... until now.

I can't wait to drop these pounds.  Superwoman can't be Superwoman if her cape doesn't fit... and if her cape doesn't fit, she certainly can't fly... and she's still got a lot to go through!

Chemo Has Taken My Tumor and My Brain...

And I want my brain back- it can keep the tumor.  I will admit to a certain amount of skepticism when I had several different people tell me about chemo brain, I probably even said to myself at some point along the way "It won't happen to me!".  Although they were people had been there, done that, it just sounded like there was no possible way that it could actually exist, or maybe only happened to people who went through this when they were older.... surely 39 is too young to be brain dead?  Truthfully, even the scientists are skeptical that it exists.  However, after 4 chemo therapy treatments, I am here to tell you that I am a victim of "CHEMO BRAIN".  It is real, it does exist, and I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing.

The effects of chemo brain have been getting noticeably worse as I have progressed through treatments.  My 4th treatment on Friday was harder than any of the treatments that I've had to date, so I guess it would go without reason that the effect on my already disappearing brain function would be high, and it was.  Coupled with insane nausea, and exhaustion like nothing I've ever felt before, I just wasn't expecting brain function to be nil.  I made an attempt at calling about a telephone work order and couldn't remember the phone number that I was calling about.  I've been asking my telephone number, and I can't recall that either.  I sure hope that I don't wander away from home in the middle of the night with no ID, I may never find my way back home again.  I start doing things, and have no idea what I'm doing.  The smallest tasks are excruciatingly challenging, and not in a good way.

As someone who is mostly "sharp as a tack", with the occasional blonde moments only peaking out every once in a while, this has been a big challenge.  I feel like I'm in a fog, it's like my brain has taken a permanent vacation and left no forwarding address.  I start walking up the stairs, and forget why I'm going to the office.  I turn on water, and walk away forgetting that it's running.  And the worst part of all of this, the only time that my brain seems to function in a normal, every day way, is the middle of the night.  Why is that?  I can be wide awake at 2 AM having world changing thoughts raging through my brain, but I have difficulties making coffee at 7:00 in the morning.  I feel like I'm a 39 year old dementia victim.

Of course, there is a flip side to this coin.  As a highly functioning, OCD type, perhaps I would be going seriously crazy if my brain were functioning at the level that it usually does.  I mean that I had one of those brains that would go in 100 different directions at the same time, and usually come up with some pretty decent ideas.  (I wasn't ending world hunger, but my brain has had some good moments!) I can only imagine the kinds of things that I would be thinking about if my brain were normal.

The brain that I'm functioning with borders somewhere between a carefree 7 year old, completely fascinated by bubbles in the tub, and the shape of the clouds in the sky, and a 20 year old with some sense of responsibility in the world, but not enough to actually loose sleep over anything that they aren't taking responsibility for.  I guess this brain is doing it's part to keep me from focusing or dwelling on all of the stuff that I feel I should be doing (because I've always done it), and makes me focus on the fact that I should only be focusing on recovering from chemotherapy and cancer....

So, I guess I am stuck with this brain for a while.  I certainly hope that my old brain returns to me after this is over, or we may have big problems!  (I don't think my husband much appreciates this brain that I'm using now!)  For now, I guess I shall just enjoy being blissfully unaware of the fact that there is boxer slobber on the trim around my bedroom door... because well, my brain just doesn't see that as a big deal right now.