Monday, April 1, 2013

Happy Easter!

It finally hit me the weekend before last that I don't have chemo anymore!! I know I'm a little late but that was 3 weeks since chemo so that Thursday would have been chemo day. But it wasn't! Now its been 4+ weeks without chemo and I'm loving it!

I went to my oncologist last week and she told me to come back in 6 months! I think I'm recovering pretty good from chemo. I still have a little bit of foot/(c)ankle swelling but other than that I feel great. I told her I have a little pain in my arm so she told me to get checked for lymphadema. I should have called physical therapy weeks ago but I keep putting it off. It can't hurt to go to get tips to prevent lymphadema. So this Thursday I go to the physical therapist. The pain I was feeling at my oncologists office went away but my arm is still feeling sore.

We also talked about tamoxifen which is the drug I will be on for the next 5 years. She said I could start it that day but I kind of thought it would be a little much to be taking Tamoxifen AND doing radiation. I spoke with my radiation oncologist about it during my CT scan last week and he agreed with me. Obviously it made me feel better that he agreed with me but I think I would have waited anyway. It would be hard to deal with the side effects of the Tamoxifen AND radiation at the same time.

When my oncologist and I were talking about tamoxifen we also talked about how chemo and tamoxifen can put some women into early menopause and it will be hard to tell which one is responsible if it does happen. Then she told me I absolutely cannot get pregnant on tamoxifen because it is terrible for the baby. So I asked (again) how long I have to wait to get pregnant. She said we can talk about it in TWO years!! Wahoo!

Last week, as I mentioned above, I had a CT scan for radiation. They use it to map out exactly where the radiation is going to go. I also got my little tattoo's. So now I'm just waiting for them (my radiation oncologist and the physicists he works with) to map it and then they'll call me. Next I will do an x-ray and kind of a trial run and then I start radiation the next day. I'm kind of sad because in a way it feels like I'm done with all my treatments and now it feels like I have to restart it.

My hair is growing back slowly. It's looking very light so I'm scared its grey! But my mom reminded me that there's always hair dye if it is. But she thinks my hairs growing back like it first grew in when I was a baby. Light at first then progressively darker as I get older. My hair was strawberry blonde when I was little and was lighter in the summer. Ugh I miss my hair so much. I hope it grows faster than everyone else's. Ha!

We had a great Easter weekend with family and last week I went to Mackenzie's Easter egg hunt at her daycare. She was so cute. Last year she didn't really get the concept of picking up the eggs but this year she loved it!

I picked up Time Magazine today because of this cover. 
I'm interested to see what it says. I have a little bitterness in me that thinks someone out there knows the cure to cancer but its a better business to keep it secret. I mean if there was a cure to cancer who would get the $15,000 per cycle chemo money that my insurance just paid. There is encouraging news that comes out almost every week about new genes being discovered or as I mentioned before they are working on a vaccine for my type of breast cancer. I can't wait until someone figures this thing out. Because cancer really messes up a lot of peoples lives. And I hate it. 

My friend Beka is raising money as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Woman of the Year and posted this video today: video. This kind of stuff AMAZES and excites me so much! I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Also if you'd like to donate to Beka here is the link: donate here!

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