Hair falling out

This morning I woke up with the worst dream. I had clumps of hair falling out everywhere I walked. I woke up with tear stains on my face and shuddered at the thought.
I showered and got ready, then brushed my hair. Clumps of twenty strands came out in my brush, and my heart sank. There have been many times before I brushed my hair and shed a ton of it, but none to this extreme.
I wrapped the ends of my hair and pulled lightly. Twenty more strands came out. I looked down at my scrub top, covered in strands of hair. "Is this really happening? Is today the day?" I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to shake it off like today was any other day.
In the car driving to work I listened to upbeat songs to try and change my mood. Nothing was working and a dark cloud hung over me.
When I arrived, I continued to see patients and try and pretend nothing was wrong. All I could think about was not moving my neck, not touching my hair. I didn't want it to fall out in one huge clump.
I lasted the whole day at work wirth only a couple break downs at work. The doctor and the other girls comforted me as I vented about how horrible it felt to lover in fear of losing my hair. I decided out was time to shave my head, no messing around anymore. This was MY choice and MY decision. Cancer was NOT going to bring me down once again.

Living with side effects

I've tried to not be one to complain. Generally speaking, I probably do this more often than I think I do. ;) Nevertheless, I made a pact with myself not to walk around talking about how bad I have it. I am often humbled by people I run into and stories of things they have to face. And I know that what I am going through is only a small portion of all the things making the world go round. It's taken my time to write because I wasn't sure how to approach my feelings and reactions to what I am going through, without it sounding like I'm whining about my life. Finally after much deliberation, I remembered the reason I started this blog was to share what I am going through to help other people. Whether that be comforting someone going through something similar, teaching others about health and screening, or even making people aware of others who are going through hardships and how to support, I knew I wanted to do this. So here it is, the down and dirty of the crap I've endured. Enjoy. :)

I can't even remember my last blog, so if I repeat myself I apologize. Actually I take that back. I'm just too lazy to re-read my long ass posts so deal with it. ;) 

I don't remember the first two days of chemo. Since I had my port put in the same day, everything is all foggy from the versed that gave me. (It is given before surgeries to make you forget anything during and right after the surgery.) I remember sitting in the warm chair with a heated blanket, drifting back and forth into sleep. The following day at home was a lot of sleep too, with not much activity. Sunday was day 3, and I was starting to feel the side effects. When I heard about people going through chemo, I imagined sweaty nauseous people throwing up all over the place, just spewing puke. This what not the case for me. My stomach cramped a lot throughout the day, but my nausea pills took care of that. I would wake up and feel like it was bed time. I didn't feel rested or have any energy. It felt like I just came down with the flu. My body was heavy and stiff, my muscles were weak, and my eyes could barely stay open. This happened Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday. I decided to try working a half day on Monday and I could barely stand up. I am stubborn and independent, and I wanted to prove I was going to make it through this fight "normal." I could barely keep my eyes open, had no infliction in my tone and appeared as a walking zombie. Not to mention in the back of my head I was worrying about my hair. I was afraid to brush it, wash it or even touch it for that matter. I had this huge lump in my throat like I was awaiting a prison sentence. When will it come out? I've been told it falls out in chunks. Just big old chunks lightly pulling away from your scalp. Ew. NO thank you. 

Day 4 started off slow, but I started to get my energy back. With an extremely busy day of work, patients coming in and out, I didn't have much time for pity. From running around, cleaning the room, taking x-rays. getting the doctor, getting supplies and cleaning teeth, I barely had 20 minutes to sit down. It was an exhausting day, but my energy levels started to go way up.

I finally let go of the fear of my hair falling out. I know it's coming, but I have to enjoy it while its here. No more wasting time feeling sorry or worrying, its still here today. That's what counts.

The week went well from there forward. Friday, Day 7, I had a follow up for lab work. I was in a rush since it was my only day off, so I was fitting in 3 doctor's appointments. They drew my blood and talked with me, and I bragged about how fabulous I was feeling. They let me go without the results due to time, and I hurried off to the plastic surgeon an hour away. He put more saline in my expanders to stretch my skin some more. 

I receive a phone call telling me that I need to hurry back. My A and C numbers were 0.1 meaning I had almost no immune system. They needed me at the hospital immediately to give me a shot of Nuepogen to stimulate my bone marrow to make white blood cells. I was instructed to stay home all weekend and come back Monday morning for more lab work. Monday came and I had blood drawn again. This time I waited. ;)

My A and C count was 0. None. Going backward? So again, another shot of Nuepogen, no public and return in the morning for labs. It brought me back to earth to see how things were going. I realized how scary all of this is and that I am not invincible. I needed to start listening to my body and start eating, hydrating and resting right. I allowed myself to be sad that I wasn't as strong as I thought my body was. Then I told myself to build a bridge and get over it!

Yesterday as I was cleaning at home, my back started to hurt. It was a deep bone pain, similar to the pressure I felt when I was pregnant with Colton. His body was laying on my sciatic nerve and my back was constantly in a shocking pain. The more steps I took, the more excruciating it got. I ran to the couch and sat down. Sharp, stabbing, electric sparks shot up and down my tailbone, spine and back of my neck. I was rendered still in pain, as I cried and waited for the pain to subside. I grabbed my heating pad and sat on it and waited. It started to lessen and I felt a little better. I remembered that a side effect of the Nuepogen is bone pain. That means the shot is working, and your body is making your baby white blood cells (immature white blood cells) to mature into infection fighting ones. I was exhausted, in pain, and relieved that my body started to kick ass. THIS is what I was waiting for. 

This morning was another lab. One more blood draw and 40 minutes to wait for results. Lab work came back and this tough chick is back in fighting mode! Although the bone pain kept me up all night, and still shoots up and down my back and head today, I know my immune system is ready to rock. This is only cycle 1, and I have 5 more cycles of this roller coaster to attend. This party is JUST getting started!!!!!

Normal life or no? That is the question.

It's been a wild ride. I've kept myself busy, bound and determined to stay happy and inspired. I experienced new wardrobe shopping and late night karaoke with Kelly, whom also had the pleasure of driving me to half of my appointments.

I started work full time and ridiculously missed my patients and co workers who welcomed me back with a dozen roses and a breast cancer birthday cake.

On Valentines Day Kelly surprised me with tickets to go see Miranda Lambert, Dierks Bentley and Thomas Rhett. It was an amazing concert, my very first country concert! She slept over then drove me at five thirty in the morning to the hospital the next day.

Friday I started by having my mediport placed. The is a little tube that goes up into your jugular vein in your neck, then down toward your heart. There is a big circle placed right under the skin that needles are inserted to when delivering chemo or drawing blood. It is sewn at the top and will stay there until I am done with treatment. I was given medicine to make me sleep and woke up to go to chemo.

Chemo was three hours. I sat in my heated chair with a ton of blankets. Kelly and I hadn't had much sleep, so I laid around and slept while she watched me. The inserted the needle into my port and I didn't feel it because I was still numb. They have me anti nausea meds, flushes anas two different chemo medicine. I was selected for the trial to have those drugs once every three weeks for six doses.

Now I'm back at home and resting. I'm scared to lose my hair and feel like I'm just sitting around awaiting my fate. I'm thinking about having friends here when it starts to fall out, and have a party while I shave it off drinking a glass of champagne. I feel tired and nauseaouswirth almost no energy. Glad I got all my going out done before this shenanigans started!

Happy 29 Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me! I'm twenty nine years old now. I have to admit, I have changed more in the past year than I have in my entire life. Katie and Shelly threw me a birthday party with all of my old close friends. We got to catch up on gossip, drink wine and laugh, eat pizza and cake, and play silly crazy games. It was one of the most fun times of my life. ;)

I've found out a lot more information recently. After surgery, I've had frequent visits from the home nurse, helping to change my bandages and check on my drains. I have been recording how much blood is draining from all four drains. On my birthday, I had a visit to the plastic surgeon who got to remove my drains. That was one of the creepiest things I have ever felt! I had two tubes looped underneath the curves of my breast. When he took them out, he literally grabbed the tube and started to pull- you could see the tube slowly coming out of my side, as the tubing disappeared from underneath my breast. It felt like a baby snake was being pulled out of me!

After all of that was done, I got a call letting me know that my cat scan results were back and there was a mass located on my right ovary. With the BRCA1 gene mutation that I have, there is a 70% chance of developing ovarian cancer, so my stomach sank. They needed further testing with an ultrasound to determine what was going on. 

4 days later I arrived promptly and anxiously to recieve my results. I watched as they did the ultrasound- a FAR less fun time than when you're having a baby, by the way. I noticed there was a LOT of blood flow near the right, and hardly any on the left. The ultrasound tech told me that they'd call with results later in the day.

I received the phone call that stated it was a hemmorahgic cyst. I came in to see the oncologist to talk about future treatment.

Dr. Ruggeri is one of my most favorite doctors ever. With an accent, being like 80 feet tall and a sense of understanding, he makes me feel normal.  We talked about the cyst and he explained it is very common in women and that no further treatment would need to be done other than monitoring it. From the time of my cat scan to the time of the ultrasound (less than a week) it went from 3.3 cm to 1.3 cm. Hemmoraghic cysts tend to cure themselves, and it appeared mine was as well. ;)

He explained to me that I had the chance of becoming part of a national trial. They are studying to see if increasing the set amount of dosage of chemo in women who have high risk cancers or who have positve cancer in their lymph nodes, will decrease the risk of recurrence. There are 5 different categories I could fall in to- ranging from 6 treatments of 2 drugs at a high dose once every three weeks, to two drugs 4 times once ever two weeks followed by a smaller dosage of a different drug 1x for 12 weeks. LOTS of extra chemo. He told me that because of my age and all I had to live for, he would recommend I do it. I decided it was what I wanted to do. I know I wanted to be a part of something bigger than just myself, my cancer, and my problems. I know that if I contribute to this national study, I will help millions of women in the future of breast cancer.