meredith's garden

wow!

2010-03-05T16:29:00.000-08:00

i suck at blogging... i can't believe how long it's been since i've been on here! sorry!

well, here we go. i'm done getting filled, and so far have not had any problems :) there was a minute when we thought i might be getting red, so i went on 10 days of antibiotics to be safe, and haven't had any other issues. my boobs are currently "over filled to prevent shrikage after surgery" so i am a bit top heavy, but i *love* it :) if i ever lose the weight i gained, i may have to grow bigger feet to keep me upright :) the goal was to get my boobs bigger than my stomach. but my stomach kept growing, so the boobs had to, too. they're awesome. you should all see them ;)

last weekend i went to the 10th annual YSC conference in atlanta. it was fabulous!! i had a blast, went to a lot of workshops, did a lot of networking, and bought a lot of very clever t-shirts :) there were 900 women there- representing 42 states and 8 countries. unbelievable. anyone that thinks bc is for old ladies is sadly mistaken... but we all had a blast. there were 6 of us from my support group that went, and then we adopted a fabulous woman from florida that came on her own. the 7 of us hung out and ate and talked all weekend. we can't wait to do it again... there was a pj party on friday night, and a dance reception on saturday night. it's been a looooong time since i went out dancing!

on thursday i'm giving my very first speech. not sure how it's going to go, but i'm speaking at the kick off breakfast for the ACS making strides walk. i'm the "survivor speaker". my job is to make people dig deep and get motivated to raise funds. i'm very nervous. there are going to be more than 400 people there! crazy... i'll let you know how it goes. wish me luck!

thursday

2010-02-04T17:42:00.001-08:00

got my first fill up on monday, and all went well... then went to the physical therapist today for a check-up, and was told that i don't need to be there :) my scars are "beautiful" and my range of motion is as good as it can be. that's awesome, because if i had to fit in pt *and* fill ups every week, i'd be in big trouble.

i got my little one from thailand on tuesday. he is adorable, and i heart him muchly :) he's going to be just fine- he already said "bye" to me on wednesday- his second day at school!! it amazes me how happy he is. he's not afraid of anything. i am quite sure that i'd be a nervous wreck if i were in his shoes.

miss symone started ballet on tuesday. that was quite an experience... she was *adorable* in her leotard and tights and ballet shoes. there are a total of 13 girls in her class- and they're all between 3 and 6 years old. the littlest one looked like she was closer to izzy's age than symma's age. she was terrified, and ran off the floor screaming when the teacher tried to hold her hand. her daddy (who was dressed like he had just come off of one of kj's work sites) took her back out on the floor and did ballet with her. i thought i would die from the cuteness. loved it. unfortunately, symma kept running off the dance floor and coming over by kj and me. so i don't think i'll be able to watch next week. i think i'll be in the hall reading :(

tomorrow we're taking symma to "disney princesses on ice". she's so excited! though she told me tonight that she doesn't think they're "real" princesses- they're "just dressed up". oh well- i think she'll still enjoy herself.

izzy's doing well, but she's been fighting a cold for a week or so. sleep has been sporadic for everyone in the house. last night we all slept all night, though, so that's good :) and now poor kj is snerfing, too. there's been so much snot running in this house it's ridiculous. hopefully we won't catch the stomach bug that's been going around!!

back to the grind

2010-01-27T19:42:00.000-08:00

so, i'm back at work. and i have to say that i can't complain. i don't have any pain, i'm not any more tired than i normally am, people say i look healthy... but boy do i wish i was independently wealthy so i wouldn't have to be there every day! there's no other job i'd want to do, but i work 10 hour days every day, and only get paid for 8. plus, i'm never "done". there's always more work to do, more lessons to prepare, more papers to grade, more assessments to do.

i will be getting a new student very soon, and i was fortunate enough to meet him today. we typically don't meet a child until they show up at our door on their first day. so this was nice. he is a very special child, and i really am looking forward to working with him this semester. he and his family (which includes 4 siblings and his parents) came to our country from a refugee camp in thailand in december. they speak no english at all. he came to school today in shoes that were about 3 sizes too big for him, and no socks. he also didn't have a hat or mittens. he came to school to meet us with his father and his sponsor who did all of the interpreting for us. when the family went to enroll in mps, they immediately started an iep referral for cha tu. he has some physical deformities, as well as a heart condition, and communication delays. needless to say, this is going to be very difficult for him. but when he was at school today, surrounded by what i can only imagine has become a bunch of white noise, he smiled. a lot. he didn't look afraid, he shook my hand, and he seemed happy. he wanted to see his classroom, and when i took him up, and all of the children said "hi", he smiled and said "hi" back. melted my heart. it's going to be an interesting semester :)

yay!

2010-01-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

the drain is out :) hooray!! my restrictions have been lifted and i will be going back to work on monday... all is well.

i asked my doctor how long it would be until my little boob catches up with my bigger one. he said that i have 400 cc in the full one, and 200 cc in the little one. assuming that he's able to put 100 cc in at a time i should be equal by the end of february. i get my first fill on february 1st. then a week or 2 after that i'll go for the next one. then i should just have to do some "touch-ups" to make sure they're both the same. they have to "settle" for 3-6 months again (this is when i got the infection last time, but we're hoping to avoid that this time!) and my final surgery can hopefully be in summer.

i also asked him how i got a leak in the last one. he said it was definitely not anything i did- i was afraid that wrestling with izzy, or sleeping on my stomach had caused it. he said it was a needle stick. we have no idea when or how that happened, but the hole was not a broken seam, it was a pinhole. he also said that you can stand on a full expander and it won't pop, so i don't need to worry about my chest popping when i live my normal life. i forgot to ask him about the strength of my final implant, but i assume it will be the same.

my third big question (that lots of people have asked me and i didn't have an answer for) was how my experience compares to someone that has a boob job for cosmetic purposes only. basically, when you're getting implants in healthy breasts, you don't need to use expanders. they put the final implants in right away the first time. he said it's incredibly painful for about 2 days, and then it just becomes minor discomfort for a couple weeks and is fine. they don't have to go through the disection, which i think is the cutting away of muscle from the skin... and since their skin is healthy, and has not gone through chemo which makes it more brittle and prone to wound infections, they can stretch their skin much faster.

that's all the news i have for now :) will try to do a better job of keeping you updated as this goes on... we'll see how i do!

drains

2010-01-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

drains are freaking disgusting. no one should have to have one. the medical community should really come up with something better. they're gross. they leak. they get infected. they hurt. they're really inconvenient to shower with. and they're gross. i cannot *wait* to get mine out. the only reason i'm still at home is because of the drain. i'm not allowed to drive- because of the drain. i'm in no real pain, and there is no reason for me to be sitting at home doing nothing except for the drain dangling out of my side. it is so gross. twice a day i get to "strip" it, and measure the nasty juice that has been coming out of my body. seriously? they make little old ladies do this? how the little old ladies can even hold the tubing tight enough to strip it is beyond me. how they are able to contort themselves so that they can reach the tubing is also beyond me. it's ridiculous. they *need* to come up with a better way. because this is the third freaking time i've had to deal with it, and it sucks. and i'm done. annoyed. angry. and grossed out. ugh.

healing fine :)

2010-01-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

so, all is well here... just hanging out at home, healing... i went to the doctor yesterday, and i finally got to shower last night. thank goodness!! then lindz took me to see "new moon". fun! i've done nothing but watch teevy and movies. watched the whole first season of "weeds", watched "twilight", "4 christmases", probably some that i'm forgetting. haven't managed to figure out izzy's scrapbook yet, but i'm going to! had a couple of visitors come help me pass the time, and have folded some laundry. i think i'm going to try and make a vegetarian stew tomorrow... though it may have to wait till next week since i'm not allowed to go grocery shopping on my own, and kj just went last night. we'll see what ingredients i need...

tomorrow night we're going to dinner with tracy and jason- so glad we've managed to get a monthly date on the calendar with them- we're trying to make a real effort to stay more connected to our friends this year. it's so hard when we all have kids and need sitters in order to get together. i can't wait till the kids are old enough that we can bring them and have them all sack out together in slumber party formation while the grown-ups play games and catch up. babies and toddlers just don't do that very well...

the good news is that, so far, i haven't spent my days eating everything in sight. hopefully i won't put on too much *more* weight. maybe i'll even be able to take some off! that would be nice- the weather is getting better... maybe i'll go for some walks...

in any event, all is well here- thanks for checking on me!

the latest surgery

2010-01-08T09:52:00.000-08:00

hello everyone :)

i realize that any readers i did have, have probably given up on me by now, but thought i'd add in the latest news just in case...

i had the next step in my reconstruction on wednesday. dr. h replaced my leaking expander with a new expander (on the right side) and placed a new expander on the left side. my concave boob is now at about a half "a" cup. better than it was :) kind of like a fat man boob. the goal is that by the time we go to florida in april my boobs will be the same size so i don't have to worry about wearing my prosthesis in a swimming suit.

this was just about the worst time i could have picked to have surgery as far as school goes, but i decided that having 2 equal boobs in florida was more important. call me selfish. it means that the week i go back to school, report cards will be due. if i'm allowed to go back in 2 weeks. if i have to take 3 weeks off, then they'll be due while i'm at home. oh well. we'll figure it out, i'm sure.

in any event, i'm home from the hospital, and get to see my girls tonight :) yay! they've been with my dad and jill since wednesday when i had surgery. i'm back to the 10 pound weight restriction, and no driving, so i cannot take care of my girls again. blurg. they're going to be home tonight, and then they're going to go to my mom's tomorrow night. we'll see what happens sunday- probably back to gpa grob's. not sure yet. my girls are both *really* bad at getting ready in the morning and tend to require a lot of strength on my part which i am just not able to do at the moment. wrestling a 2 year old (yes- she turns 2 on sunday!) into clothing that she doesn't want to wear is exhausting when you have full strength and 2 arms... i have neither right now. and then there's symma. we won't even go there...

so, i'll be home for the next couple of weeks, and will be loading pics on my flickr page, and hopefully making my first digital scrapbook. that is my goal. i made a scrapbook for symma of her first year, and haven't done anything for poor izzy, so i'm hoping to do a digital book for her while i'm off. wish me luck!! i've got no clue how to even start, so this should be interesting... maybe i'd be better off doing a traditional scrapbook- at least in know how to do that! we'll see... anyway, look to flickr for updated pics soon- i haven't updated since halloween- crazy! and i'll try to keep this up to date while i'm home, too :)

still cancer free!!

2009-12-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

i got my results, and all is well :) hooooraaay! you may remember from back in february that there were some nodules on my lungs they were "keeping an eye on". these nodules have not changed, so that means that they are scar tissue, not cancer. yay! they were also watching my bones for any changes from the scans i had in june. i still have the abnormalities, but they have remained stable, so they aren't cancerous either. double yay!

yesterday i received confirmation that i received a scholarship that will cover my travel and lodging for the Young Survivors Coalition Annual Conference in atlanta :) i'm really excited! i'll be going with about 5 girls from my support group, which will be a lot of fun. i'll be leaving on friday february 26, and returning on sunday the 28th. i was diagnosed with cancer on february 27th last year, and i think that this will be a great way to spend the anniversary- learning all of the newest information out there on beating it (and keeping it away)!

it's been awhile...

2009-12-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

so sorry! i've gotten some complaints, so here i am :) plus, i'm home sick (cold/flu), so i have time to write...

everything has been going really well! i've got what i think is a "normal" amount of energy back, so that has been really helpful in my day-to-day life. i was able to get a lot of my christmas shopping done before this stupid cold/flu thing took me down on sunday night. now i'm getting a bit nervous... the holiday is creeping closer- we don't have our tree up, i haven't wrapped a single gift, i haven't done our cards, and i'm not finished shopping. but, i have a really hard time worrying about it... i'm healthy, which is so much better than it could be :)

we lost my aunt mona last week... she had breast cancer a few years ago, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor a couple of months ago. she'd been experiencing seizures and communication difficulties for the past 18 months or so, and since the brain tumor diagnosis went down hill pretty fast. i know that she's very happy to be reunited with her hubby, and happy to be done suffering. the fact that it was most likely metastasized breast cancer has been a bit difficult for me to deal with, but i know that she had a different kind of cancer than i did, and different treatments.

this weekend i got to make cookies with my family- cookie day is my favorite day of the year, and i can't tell you how happy i was to be healthy enough to be there :) it's one of those things that i didn't realize exactly how important it was to me until this year. i always looked forward to it, but this year i really realized how special it is... we make cut-outs at my dad and jill's with my cousin kate and her girls and my cousin adam and his wife michelle, and my aunt mary and uncle dan. and this year we had a special new addition- adam and michelle had a little boy 3 weeks ago- his name is noah and he's beautiful. he was an angel all day, and let everyone pass him around. and my nieces are so big (lydia is 12- she was our 2 year old flower girl in our wedding if you remember that, and pj is 10)- i can never get over it when i see them. they are old enough to take care of my little ones, and they all played together so well. it was perfect. i'm really hoping that i didn't infect everyone with my cold... i swear i didn't have any symptoms until about 6pm on sunday, and then it was just a bit of a scratchy throat. of course, by 9pm i knew i was really going to get hit hard, but by then it was too late. i hope i kept my germs to myself!!

yesterday i had my post chemo blood work and ct scan. this is to set up a new baseline. i'm not expecting any surprises, but it's making me very nervous. i'm supposed to go to the oncologist today to get my results, but i'm too sick to be around cancer patients, so i'm waiting on a phone call now. i'll let you know when i hear from him!

i have gotten so many wonderful gifts since finishing chemo:

cousin beth sent us a check to pay for our continued cleaning help- so, so generous!!

lindz and erik gave me a beautiful necklace- so pretty!

my friend kate gave me a book and a magnet to help continue to encourage me in my fight :)

we've had many dinners continue to come in which is so sweet. i'm feeling guilty about them now, since i'm feeling good, but people still want to help, which i can't ignore!

i've also gotten countless cups of chai and pumpkin spice lattes :) people know what i love!

thanks so much to all of you for all of your support and love throughout all of this! i'm so glad to be done, and while i'm not very good at keeping this up when i'm healthy, please know that it's because i'm busy, and active! which is a *good* thing :)

ALL DONE!!!!!

2009-11-18T17:56:00.000-08:00

yep, you read that right- i'm *done*!! just got home from my *last chemo ever*!!! yay!! my blood work looked really good today- heather said it was almost "normal". i take that to mean normal for regular people :) now i have to get through one last cruddy weekend, and i'm on to bigger and better from there on out. i'm done with this cancer stuff :) hooray!!

maybe this can become a regular blog. where i keep you abreast (since i only have one!) of all the regular old normal stuff going on in the polewski house. we'll see how that goes. i'll try :) of course, if no one's reading, then i probably will go on hiatus for a while.

in any event, they say i should be feeling pretty much back to precancer status in about 2 months. and my next surgery will be scheduled for some time in january. all is well in the world!!

11 down!

2009-11-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

sorry i didn't get on earlier in the week... i got my 11th chemo on wednesday! yay! only one more to go :)

i met with my oncologist this week before treatment. we talked about my "after care" program. basically, i will see him every 3 months for the first couple of years. they will do blood work at each appt. if i have any concerns, pain, lumps, or bumps at any time, he'll address those. i'll have some post-chemo "baseline" scans done in december. at that point they'll be looking at the nodules i've had in my lungs all along (that they are *not* concerned about, at all, unless they would change), and the "weird" spots in my bone marrow they were looking at in june. they aren't anticipating any problems with any of this stuff, just want to keep an eye on my insides :)

i see dr. h again on monday (plastic surgeon). my onc says that as far as *he's* concerned i can have my next surgery 3-4 weeks after chemo. that would put it right before xmas, which does not sound like a good time to me. but i am hoping to try and get something scheduled in january. we'll see how that goes :)

as for how i'm doing, well, i'm tired. really, really tired. all the time. my oncologist and his staff insist that this is normal, and that i should rest. so i'm trying. it should all start getting better soon, and within a couple months i should be back to "normal". whatever that feels like!

number 10

2009-11-05T16:38:00.000-08:00

is done!! hooray :) i'm feeling pretty good today, though it's 2o to 7pm and i'm still at school. stoopid report cards. hate them. anyway, chemo went well. my blood counts are low, but just barely *over* the limit, so no problems :) i've gotten my flu vaccine, and will be getting my h1n1 tomorrow. anyone have any opionions that they'd like to share about getting h1n1 for my girls? it makes me nervous to have to sign a waiver that (as i understand, but have not yet read myself) clears the makers of any responsibility if the vaccine is later found to cause problems... please weigh in!!

i'm going home now. gotta help put the kids in bed, and then crash on the couch for an hour before i give up and go to sleep myself!

3/4 done :)

2009-10-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

got number 9 yesterday :) yay! not much else to report... but i'm glad that i have another one under my belt. have a busy, busy weekend planned- let's hope i can stay awake for it! thanks for all your good thoughts yesterday- they helped!

xoxox to all of you :)

tomorrow...

2009-10-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

should be number 9 :) keep your fingers crossed... i didn't end up having the neulasta shot, so i'm nervous about my blood counts, but we'll see.

i'm finally done with my antibiotics. i took my last one on monday. so, if i'm still infection free next thursday, i'm in the clear. yay! i haven't had any redness or pain since i left the hospital, and my incision is healing nicely, so i'm not too worried.

i had a good weekend- very little pain. i'm still really sleepy, and took a lot of naps, but i felt good when i was awake. my dad and jill took both girls from 4pm on saturday till 5pm on sunday. it was wonderful. kj and i slept in on sunday and then went to brunch together. then we lazed around on the couch watching football and doing schoolwork/laundry/dishes for the rest of the day. i also managed to get my garden pulled out and dragged down to the curb. all in all, a great day :)

i'm realllly tired. i've been coming home from work, eating dinner, and then resting in my room till the girls get ready for bed. then i help with their bedtime, and sit on the couch and watch tv till i go to bed. i'm not very helpful for poor kj.

the good news is that (after being fired by our last one) we have found a new cleaning person :) she's coming this friday for a walk-through, and then will begin cleaning next week. hooray!!! kj and i have always had trouble in the housekeeping dept, and now it is the absolute *last* thing i want to spend any amt of energy on. and kj just can't keep up. so, we're going to try having her come in every other week until christmas, and then we'll see how i feel after that. of course if kj gets laid off we'll have to change that plan. but i'm not thinking about that right now! he's been working solid for awhile, now, and i'm hoping he makes it through till at least january. fingers crossed :)

i'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow- hoping for lots of white blood cell production tonight- do you think peanut butter m&m's help make them? cuz if so, i'll have a *ton*! maybe even extras :)

2/3 done :)

2009-10-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

had chemo number 8 yesterday :) hooray! had a hoooooorible night of sleep, though. for some reason, it felt like there were bugs crawling up and down my spinal cord. like i would assume restless leg syndrome feels like, only in my back. gross. and frustrating. and that was *with* my sleeping meds. ugh. after about 2 hours i was finally able to fall asleep on the couch. i'm so glad i was able to get chemo though that i don't mind too much.

my white counts were a bit low yesterday. they actually had to separate and count them out by hand to make sure my nuetrafils (sp?) were high enough. i guess those are the important 0nes
for chemo. i may be getting a neulasta shot to help boost the cells.

i had them check to see if i was anemic and i'm not... but no one is surprised by how tired i am. i did get a nap in while i was getting treatment, so that helped some :)

hoping for the steroids and sleeping meds and chemo to play together nicely tonight so that i can sleep... we'll see how it goes :)

the stuff of fancy...

2009-10-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

i want to be rich. so rich that i can have a massage whenever i want one. so rich that the massage will take place at my house so that i don't have to get dressed and drive home. so rich that i would be able to sleep after my massage, or put on my robe and go lay by my pool until someone brings me something to drink, or read, or whatever else i want to do.

barring that, i'd like to have enough motivation and energy that i bound out of bed each morning at 5:20am ready to face my day. i want to spend the day teaching engaging lessons to children that love learning. and at the end of the day, i want to come rushing home to play with my amazing children w/o ever sitting down on the couch or in front of the computer. i want to cook my hubby dinner a couple of times a week so that he isn't the only one feeding everyone. and then, i want to tuck my joyful little bundles into bed, and have enough energy left over to clean my house, and do our laundry, and then sit down with my hubby to watch a show.

just thought i'd share :)

7 down!!!

2009-10-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

i got my chemo yesterday :) hooray! 5 left till i'm finished. so, if there are no further complications, i should get my last one on november 18th. i see my oncologist again on the 11th. feeling really good today, which is a good thing because i have parent/teacher conferences till 9pm. then i'm off tomorrow with my girls. we're going to get an emissions test- jealous, aren't you???

things that i learned/had reconfirmed with dr. c yesterday:
1. the random muscle pain i have been having is most likely related to the surgery. any pain that would be a red flag for metastisis would stay in one spot and get worse over time, not better.

1a. i've also been veeeery tired, which has been frustrating. i keep thinking that since i haven't had chemo for a month, and my surgery was 3 weeks ago i should be feeling better. dr. c says that i am right on track. it will probably take 3-4 months to get back to "normal" after completing chemo. and in the world of surgery, 3 weeks apparently isn't all that long. he told me to lighten up on myself considering i'm also working full time and have 2 small kids. so, i guess i'll try to stop feeling so guilty/useless.

2. we will do a "baseline" scan at the end of chemo. not sure if it will be a ct, or a bone scan, or what. perhaps it will be a combination of a few scans to make sure we have a good picture of everything. we're still keeping the wierd bone issue from june in the back of our minds, as well as some small nodules in my lungs that they saw in the very beginning, but have never changed.

3. they have checked with everyone they need to check with, and will begin giving my name/email to newly diagnosed women under 40 so that i can get them right into my support group, and help them navigate the early decisions that need to be made when you're still in a fog :) yay! i think that will be a really good way for me to pay forward all of the support i've had through this :)

4. my type of cancer tends to recurr earlier, rather than later. dr. c says that at 3 years we can start to relax a bit. he feels we'll get there :) my remission date will be July 15, 2110. that is one year from my mastectomies- which was when they took the cancer out, and i was considered "cancer free". you are considered "in remission" one year from when no new cancer has formed.

5. everything looks good now as far as the infection goes :) he's checking on getting me another week's worth of antibiotics to "make sure" but is very happy with the way my incision looks. he also checks my lymph nodes, lungs, and abdomen every time i go in.

so, all is going well. i'm tired, but the steroids should keep me zipping till some time tomorrow... i'm hoping for a good weekend :0) we have plans on friday evening, saturday evening, and sunday afternoon. busy, busy, busy. too busy to be sick!!

no news

2009-10-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

i've really got nothing to report, but thought i'd fill you in anyway :) i went to dr. h yesterday, and he did take out my stitches. i don't have to go back to him until after chemo now, unless something flares up somewhere on my other boob, or my incision. not sure about the antibiotics, yet. my current prescription is finished on friday, and i forgot to ask dr. h about it.

tomorrow i go in at 2:30pm to get my labs drawn. then i go up to dr. c to find out if i can have chemo or not. i'm *really* hoping i can get started again. i want to finish this. i'll ask him about the antibiotics. i'm also hoping he'll have some fabulous explanation for why i've been *so* tired since surgery. i haven't bounced back at all. i feel just as worn out as i did when i was getting chemo, and i've been off of it for 3 weeks. i feel like i should feel better than i do. so we'll see if they've got an answer for me.

i've got some thank you's to put out there :) dawn brought us dinner last week- thanks so much!! and michelle and tracy made us dinner this week- tracy made us stuffed peppers, and michelle made us homemade mac-n-cheese. all i can say is *yum*. and thank you so much for helping us out. when i got to work today there was a hello kitty bag in my mailbox. inside the bag was a card from some of my friends; joanne, a.j., and lisa. they had a rummage sale this summer to benefit breast cancer (a.j. is a survivor!) and they decided that they wanted to give some of the proceeds to me- for my benefit :) soooo nice. i can't get over it- it rendered me speechless. which says a lot, you know!

my dad and jill lost their 18 year old kitty today- she had a tumor in her urethra. please send them some good thoughts and big hugs. they could use them!

i'll let you know how it goes tomorrow... here's hoping for chemo!

saturday

2009-10-10T14:28:00.001-07:00

not much is new here, just continuing to heal and take antibiotics. i go to dr. h on monday to get my stitches out and decide if i need to continue on 3 more weeks of antibiotics or not. then i go on wednesday for lab work to see if i can have chemo or not. i'll meet with dr. c that day, too. i'm really hoping to start chemo again. i'm ready to be done with all this crap.

my hair has been thinning out, but i still have enough that i don't need to wear a hat or shave my head, so that's good. i'm going on monday to get a trim- around my ears and my neck. i'm trying not to get too attached to it, but losing it again will really suck. i'm guessing when i start chemo up again, it will fall out. or at least thin to the point that i need to shave it. blurg.

i'm really getting nervous about staying healthy and avoiding swine flu, and all the upper respiratory crap that seems to be going around already. if i get sick, then they can't give me my treatments. so i'm trying to avoid all that. and i'm planning to get the vaccines. though i'm not sure if i'll be able to if i'm still on antibiotics. we'll have to see, i guess...

saturday

2009-10-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

i have continued to heal well. i'm getting less tired, and feeling pretty good :) i went to see dr. h on thursday, and he said everything looks great- and he took out my drain!! hooray- drain free once again. he also wrote my prescription for my fake boob. he said that i need to stay on my antibiotics for at least 2 more weeks. i can start chemo again the week of the 12th (yay!). at that point dr. h and dr. c (my oncologist) will decide if i need 3 more weeks of antibiotics or not. dr. h said that i *may* not have to wait soooo long after chemo to start my surgery, but he wants to cross that bridge when we come to it. i asked how we'd know when i'm infection free, and he said that when i am off the antibiotics for 10 days and nothing flares up i'll be in the clear.

i went to Kneuppel's today for my new boob. i find it hysterical that that's their name. now, i realize that they sell lots of other equipment, but really, if you're selling boobs, should that be your name??? i love it. anyway, i'm even again for the time being :) that's cool.

i'm going shopping today with lindz. i have to get an outfit for a baby shower tomorrow. i've gained so much weight that nothing fits me. blurg. i really need to stop eating...

so, onto thank you's! my friends are sooo awesome at work. they have organized a weekly dinner sign up for us, so my co-workers are making us dinner on thursday's. so nice! tracy made us pasta and erika made us a chili dinner, and erika's mom added a big bag from breadsmith filled with yummy rolls and pumpkin bread :)

thanks so much for all of your good thoughts and vibes. i'm feeling much better!

:)

2009-09-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

i've made it through a couple days of teaching, and while i think that i may be slightly crazy for teaching while there is a drain dangling out of me, i'm feeling good :) i go to dr. h tomorrow, and i'm really hoping that he'll pull the drain at that point.

missed my second round of chemo today. i'm very frustrated. i'm really hoping to not have to miss too many more. in my perfect world, i'll start chemo again in mid-october, be finished by the end of november, and start my surgeries again in february.

keep your fingers crossed for losing my drain tomorrow! and i also get to get a prescription written for a prosthetic boob. so hopefully i'll look even again soon. it's pretty freakish to have one flat side in all of my clothes. ugh.

done

2009-09-27T19:51:00.001-07:00

okay, i'm done being pathetic, i think :) thank you all so much for your support- it truly does help to know you're all out there! i'm starting to feel better, i promise. i'm going to use these couple of weeks off of chemo to try and get my eating under control, and maybe lose a few pounds. i'm going to spend tomorrow focussing on the good stuff- and catching up on some of the chores that i'm behind on so i don't feel so overwhelmed. i did the walk today, and aside from being tired, i feel really good. so, i know i can keep on keeping on. i updated my flickr page, so there are pics there to be seen if you're interested :)

oh! and my beautiful friend julie brought me sunflowers, cupcakes, and cards- including one from malachy. such a nice surprise- made me smile :) and gil brought me chocolates, and a gift card to old navy so i can buy a new sweater for fall :) sweet! and i've gotten lots of cards in the mail... so thank you again for thinking of me, everyone!!

just in case you were wondering- the colts are up 31-10 in the 4th... GO COLTS!!!

ugh

2009-09-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

i'm having a really hard time shaking this whole thing off. i took my first shower since surgery last night, and got to really see what i look like in the mirror. it's horrible. i have one super cute boob, and one terrible, wrinkly, purple, concave nasty looking mangle of skin. i mean the incision itself is well-done- dr. h did his job perfectly, it's just that what he had to leave behind is terrible. and i have to live with it like this for a long time.

now i know you're all thinking that i should be really glad that it's only temporary, and that there are lots of women out there that are stuck with this forever. and i also know that i should be counting my lucky stars that what we're dealing with here is an infection of my boob. not more cancer and not in a vital organ. it's something i don't need to survive. and i have a husband already, so it really doesn't matter what i look like. and the rational part of my mind knows all that stuff.

the emotional part of my mind howeever, and my heart, says that the rational part should just f*%$ off. because this sucks. bad. and for some reason the fact that this is all happening because i had *cancer* is just starting to hit me. this could be the rest of my life- i could be dealing with infections and recurrences and chemo and blah, blah, blah forever. which is not what you guys want to hear, and it's not particularly what i want to feel, but it's the truth. and the truth sucks. and i'm really sad about it and not sure what to do.

yes, i should go talk to dr. anderson, and get therapized... and yes, i'm taking my meds... yes, i should focus on the good, because there's plenty of that. and i'm really trying. i promise. but this whole boob thing is really hard to shake off. and i'm not sure why. plus, i've managed to convince myself that every little ache and pain is the infection spreading, so i'm driving myself crazy with that. i'm hoping that going back to work on tuesday will help me focus on something else. you'd think that being home from the hospital, and back with my family would have done that for me, but apparently i need work, too.

there has been good stuff this week, though... our friends nick and nicole sent me beautiful flowers :) and so did my uncle larry and aunt laurie- soooo pretty! my grandpa made me snickerdoodle cookies from scratch using one of my grandma seeger's recipes. they're totally yummy :) and dad and jill brought me chai to the hospital on friday! kj and the girls and i went to the zoo this morning for a little while, which was fun :) we took lots of pictures in the "wings to the world" exhibit, so i'll post some soon. i've raised $350 for the komen walk tomorrow- and i *will* still be walking. my mom has my girls tonight so that i can do the walk tomorrow as a cancer survivor, and not as a mom that has to worry about bathrooms, and lunches, and naps, etc... i'm hoping for lots of inspiration tomorrow to get me out of my doldrums. i've heard it's an amazing race, so i'm looking forward to it.

thanks to all of you for all of your love and support- and i'm sorry i'm so down right now. i'm hoping to post happier thoughts soon... i'm home, and feeling pretty good, so that's good news :)

and the results are in...

2009-09-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

i have mrsa. blurg. anyone who wants to chime in with some knowledge on that, feel free. what the nurses have told me is that it is a antibiotic resistant strain of staph. so it's harder to get rid of than a normal staph infection, but i'll be fine. apparently, while it is drug resistant, it's not drug inpenetrable, so they think the stuff i've been on will take care of it. it's a good sign that i haven't been getting worse since surgery, and in fact have continued to get better. my boob is going back to a normal color, that is. or at least the skin covering the bowl that used to be my boob is going back to a normal color. anyone that comes to see me has to wear a gown and gloves now, but it's not airborne, and in order to catch it from me you would have had to have had contact with my wound.

the nurse that was just in here says that everyone has mrsa in their body. because of my immunosupressed state (due to chemo) the mrsa "overgrew" and caused the infection in my boob. which is why it got so bad, i guess. so, perhaps it wasn't all my fault after all. a silver lining, i guess :)

not sure what all this does to my getting out of here. this morning dr. h was in and said i would be going home 24 hours after i start oral antibiotics. i'm not sure if mrsa changes that or not... we'll just have to wait and see.

wednesday

2009-09-23T18:23:00.001-07:00

i'm still in the hospital, but i should be going home tomorrow. i'm feeling fine. i haven't had to have any pain meds today and it doesn't even really feel like i had surgery yesterday. my infection seems to be getting better. at least it looks less pink to me :) the doctors are waiting on my cultures... apparently there are different antibiotics for different infections. right now i'm getting a coctail of a bunch of antibiotics in my iv. once they have a better idea of what my infection exactly is, they'll be able to give me an oral version. there's a chance i'll go home on iv antibiotics, and the visiting nurse will have to come out twice a day to administer them, but i'm hoping not to have to deal with all that.

my oncologist came to visit me today. he's such a nice guy. he reiterated that this is a bump in the road, and that it will all be okay. he's okay with me taking a couple of weeks off of chemo to heal, and thinks that i should be able to start back up the week after next or so. we'll see.

i got the okay to go to the komen walk on sunday, and should be back to work on monday, so all should be well.

out of surgery

2009-09-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

so, i'm out, and i'm flat (on the left). there was apparently quite a mess in there. the goo was the consistency of snot. pretty, right? and there was a lot of it. so dr. h cleaned it all out really well with some sort of pressure washer thingy and sewed me back up.

they're going to keep me here for another day or so to watch the infection and make sure that it continues to respond to the iv antibiotics. i have one drain in, and will have it for a few days- a couple of weeks... depends on how much it drains out each day. just like before, when it gets to less than 20ml/day consistently i can get it out.

the good news is that i'm not in any pain right now. i'm on oral pain meds as needed, but at least i'm comfortable :) and i've stopped crying and feeling sorry for myself for the most part. now i'm trying to figure out how i can still do the walk on sunday. anyone have a wheelchair i can borrow?

my phone is charged, and i've got a good computer connection, so feel free to call/email to keep me company :) not sure how long i'll be here for visits, but at least till tomorrow some time... then i'll be laying low at home for a few days. remember how i had my surgery in summer, so i wouldn't have to miss any work? yeah. me too. blurg. oh! sorry- not feeling sorry for myself anymore... how's this... i get a week off of work to sit in my house and catch up on tv and movies :) hooray!! blurgggggggggg... i'm working on it.

this just in...

2009-09-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

my name is meredith, and i'm a complete imbecile. also, not so smart in my brains. and here, hot of the presses... i am not a medical doctor. apparently, i am not battling a histamine reaction, i am battling another freaking infection. and, since i waited so long to go to the doctor (yep- just thought i'd wait till my regularly scheduled appt this afternoon) they can't just give me antibiotics. i have to have surgery tomorrow. to remove my expander and clean out the infection. dr. h may be able to put in a permanent gel implant since i'm at the size i want to be, but it will depend on what he sees when he gets in there.

best case scenario: i have surgery tomorrow, get my implant, and restart chemo in about a month. no further infection surfaces and life goes on with a really annoying but in the scheme of things fairly small blip (1-2 weeks off of work, chemo ending in early december instead of the end of october).

other scenario: they open me up tomorrow and can't put in the implant because there's too much of a mess from my infection. they have to close me up flat, and can't start the reconstruction again until 3-6 months after my chemo is finished. and i have to start all over with the expander.

either way, the right side is fine, this is all just effecting the left. and i'm *very* annoyed with myself for not going to the doctor last week. i *really* thought it was the same histamine reaction i've had in the past. i'm not sure when i'm having surgery tomorrow. my girls are with my dad, who happens to be on vacation this week. not sure how long i'll be here. ugh. this whole thing blows. but, it could be worse, so i'm going to really try hard to stop dropping f- bombs and work on getting out of here.

bad...

2009-09-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

i'm having a terrible time with my histamine reaction. on top of that i have a lot of chemo pain. my boob is still purple and swollen, so i'm taking benedryl every 6 hours (though nothing seems to be changing). my hips, knees, shoulders, and leg bones are *killing* me, so i can't get comfortable anywhere. i'm taking tylenol every 4 hours, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. this sucks. i go back to the plastic surgeon on monday, so hopefully i'll be able to get some help with the histamine at that point. i'm really hoping to wake up tomorrow feeling better... we'll see how it goes. keep your fingers crossed, please!

1/2 way!!

2009-09-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

i got my chemo yesterday, so i'm half way done :) hooray! i'm having yet another histamine reaction to the alloderm (the fake skin they put in to make a pocket to hold my implant). so currently i am in pain and my boob is purple. it was so bad yesterday, that i left work early. the only thing i can do for it is take benedryl, but then i can't drive or teach. so i'm taking it at night, but since i can't take it every 6 hours like i'm supposed to, it's not really helping. this has happened every time i've gotten filled. but this time is worse than most. ugh. it started when i had my infection and my body produced a whole bunch of histamine to fight it. now any time the alloderm stretches, histamine rushes to the sight and hangs out there for a few days or more. fun.

other than that, all is well so far :) we have a pretty quiet weekend planned. and i'm very excited to say that my parents are taking the girls tomorrow night (mom's taking izzy, and dad and jill are taking symma) so kj and i have friday night and saturday to ourselves with *no* plans. we get to sit on our couch and do nothing. and watch the biggest loser :) and then, on saturday morning, joy of joys, we get to sleep in together!!!!! i'm soooo excited.

oooh! and here's the best thing that's happened this week. when i came home early yesterday, i was in so much pain, and i was really crabby, and then i couldn't take any meds because i had to drive myself to chemo, and i was pretty much ready to just lay on the couch and feel sorry for myself. but then i walked into my house. and the cleaning people had been there (i knew they were coming, but it had completely slipped my mind with the giant histamine attack), and my house was bee-u-tee-full! i almost cried. and then i went up to my bedroom, and they had even attacked my dresser. which was completely covered with all of my hats and scarves and you couldn't see the top at all, and they folded and stacked everything so nice, and made all of our beds... i was so happy. and then i could sit on my couch guilt-free for the few hours until i had to go to chemo. so i downloaded a whole bunch of pictures. and watched a bunch of shows that had been building up in the dvr. and as long as i didn't move, my boob didn't hurt. and life was good. i so love beth and her family for setting this up for us. and forcing me to accept it.

had support group tonight. i love those ladies :) it's so nice to talk to other people that have gone through all of this... we're discussing going to the young survivors conference in february in atlanta. it's 3 days of information... fabulous :)

i think that's all the news i have for today. hopefully the boob will get better, and i will get through another chemo weekend- i'll have plenty of sleeping in on saturday, so that should help :) hooray!! no one better call us until after 11am!

sorry.

2009-09-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

i'm behind again. it's tuesday, and i'm not sure i updated that i got my chemo last week... but i did, so that's good :)

had another great weekend- went to tosafest on friday night (the kids had a blast!), the farmers market saturday morning and kite fest after the market (such a gorgeous day on the lake shore!), bowling saturday night (holy cow, do i suck!), and the mt. mary art show on sunday (bought some *good* stuff!). busy, busy, busy! i felt really good again this weekend. i think i figured out the right way to take my meds and naps in order to live life fairly normally. of course poor kj probably wouldn't tell you i'm doing very well, since he has to pick up all of my slack, but i'm able to work, and still do normal things around sleeping, so i'm trying to be positive.

still holding on to the hair :) i was told today that it's getting "so long"! ha! not really long, but at least it covers my head. and people seem to think that it's a short haircut now, rather than growing back from chemo (if they don't know i was sick).

so, tomorrow i go for chemo again. that'll be number 6- half way! i'll try to do a better job of updating this week- plus i really want to show you some pics... it's been awhile, and i've got a lot of downloading to do :)

one last thing... i'm doing the Komen Race for the Cure next weekend. since so many people donated when i walked in the Making Strides walk in spring, i'm not doing a push for donations this time, but i will add a link to my fundraising page if you're interested in donating or walking with us! we'd love to see you :)

http://milwaukee.info-komen.org/site/TRC/RacefortheCure/MKE_MilwaukeeAffiliate?pg=peditor&fr_id=1210&px=5930939&JServSessionIdr002=7k9tzok3r3.app306b

i'll try to add it on the side of this page later, too... so you can come back to it if you're so inclined.

i'm so far behind!!

2009-09-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

holy crap am i behind. this school starting thing has really done me in! let's start with last weekend...

i had an amazing weekend. i was really nervous because we had a whole lot planned, and i had no idea if i'd be too sick to take part. but i didn't have any pain at all! well, a *little* bit on friday night, and i was pretty darn tired, but other than that, i was fabulous! saturday we went to the farmer's market in the morning, then took izzy to the doctor because she chose to debut a cold friday night and i was afraid it was an ear infection (it wasn't- thank goodness). then we went to my dad's house in beaver dam for the afternoon/evening. izzy went on her first boat ride- she seemed to like it :) sunday i went to coffee with my cousin melissa who was in town for our family reunion, and then went to the reunion in oconomowoc inthe afternoon. we had a really nice time- lots of pics were taken of all of our girls. melissa, my cousin jake and i have 5 girls combined, and they share a great-great grandma. there will be a post of photos later tonight i hope :) on monday we had a neeskara playdate at a park in racine and then came home and had a little bbq with gil and heather. all in all, a great weekend. of course izzy was sick, and therefore a beast for most of it, and our fridge/freezer died and we lost a bunch of food (pa fixed it- love him!), but enough fun stuff happened to outweigh that :)

this week has been crazy again. tuesday i had my (last!) pt appt. thank goodness. i *loved* my therapist, but i am glad to be rid of one appt each week. i have full range of motion back, and i know what to do if i start to tighten up, so i've been freed. yesterday i had chemo, and it was an oncologist week, so i was there from 2:30 till 7:30. ugh. but, the good news is that my counts were up a bit this week and i was able to get my treatment. so 5 down, 7 to go! hooray!! i'm still holding onto all my hairs, but my oncologist thinks they'll be gone again by the next time i see him (oct. 7th). i told him he's wrong. i'm hoping to win that one! today, unfortunately, was a day from hell. i cannot even begin to tell you all of it. some of the highlights- i've been up since 2am thanks to my steroids and a 5 year old visitor in my bed. finally gave up and got out of bed at 4am. art was cancelled at school today, so i had an empty hour in my schedule that i had been planning to use to organize my afternoon that i now had to fill with learning activity and figure out my afternoon on the fly. ugh. at 3:15 i realized that kj and symma had haircuts at 4:30. picked symma up at camp to take her to said haircut at which point she threw a giant tantrum that required me to carry her kicking and screaming across the parking lot, and ended with her kicking and punching me repeatedly while screaming that she hates me and i'm the worst mommy in the whole world ever while i was attempting to pin her in the carseat and buckle her in. after dropping kj and symma at their haircut, i had to go pick izzy up at daycare, and it took me 25 minutes for a 10 minute trip. we didn't get home from the haircuts till 6. we did dinner and then baths which i'm not going to even begin to explain. the children are sleeping now. and i need a drink. or something. oh, and when i was up this morning i realized that spike was only walking on 3 of his feet. so i called the vet, but since i hadn't been home since 7am, he wanted me to go home and check on him first before we made an appt for tomorrow. he made his poor tech call me back after hours. she called just as i was walking in the door, and got to listen to me search the house for spike, only to discover that he's walking just fine. so, good news in the end, but stress i could've done without today. blurg.

there's a lot scheduled again for this weekend. we've got our first bowling night of the season on saturday night, sunday school starts up again on sunday, so we have to get back into that schedule, and the last art fair of the season in on sunday. anyone interested in going with me?

tomorrow's gotta be better than today, right? and i'm taking my ativan tonight, so i *better* sleep. maybe i'll take 2.

4 down...

2009-09-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

8 to go. that means i'm 1/3 of the way :) hooray! next week we have to cross our fingers for high white blood counts though. apparently i barely made it this week. i have to have 1500/whatever they're measuring, and i had 1510. if i go below 1500 they can't give me chemo and i have to push everything back a week. and as far as i know there's not much to be done about it. except get the nuelasta shots again. let's hope i don't have to go that route, since the side effect of those shots is muscle/bone pain, and i've already got a corner on that market.

anyway, i made it through the first few days of school. tomorrow is friday- and payday- hooray! and the weekend has lots of fun in store :) so i'm refusing to be sick. but i will force myself to rest and try to grow white blood cells...

the big news today is that i got a haircut. not really a haircut- but a trim around my ears! so far, my hair has continued to grow, and hasn't started to fall out or thin that i can tell. i'm hoping this continues, but not expecting it to. i've heard stories of it falling out 8 weeks or more into treatment. and one of my friends lost all of her eyelashes/eyebrows 6 weeks after she had completely finished treatment! so i'm not going to consider myself out of the woods until thanksgiving...

i'm going to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzjzpoldkhkf;..... whoops fell asleep on the keyboard. time for bed!! good night :)

AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

2009-08-31T19:30:00.001-07:00

For those of you who aren't aware... SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW!!!! could someone please tell me where summer went??? i'm having some issues with this. i cannot believe there will be children sitting in my classroom tomorrow morning. good gravy.

that being said, i'm doing okay :) i was tired/achey on friday evening and saturday, but it didn't seem as bad this time. i gave in and took a 2 or 3 hour nap on saturday afternoon, and that seemed to make a big difference.

this week is crazy. i had school (no kids) today, and lindz came and helped me in my classroom in the afternoon. tomorrow is the kids' first day, and then i have pt. wednesday is chemo again (#4!). thursday i go in to the plastic surgeon to get topped off after school. friday i have no appts! crazy! then saturday we're going to my dad's in beaver dam to celebrate labor day weekend. and sunday we have open house/family reunion, and almost all the cousins from my generation are scheduled to appear :) hooray! busy, but good!

i must go now. i have a tooooooonnnnn of reading to do before i can go to bed. and have i mentioned that there will be children in my classroom in 10 hours?????? AAAAAAHHHHH!!!

what a week!

2009-08-25T20:46:00.001-07:00

i have been very busy! i keep meaning to do an entry, and then end up going to bed and not getting to it. so here goes :)

i did well last friday- i was able to do all the stuff i had on my agenda. lindz and i set up my room, for the most part, and kj and i went out to dinner with tracy and jay. it was a wonderful day :) unfortunately, saturday sucked. i was in pain, and tired, and soooooooo crabby. i turned into an awful dragon lady. and poor amy got to witness it along with my girls, and kj. ugh. i'm embarrassed. once again, it only lasted a day, and on sunday i was much better. not sure what i'm going to try this week to combat it all. maybe go into hiding? with a lot of advil. cuz tylenol sure wasn't cutting it.

i'm glad sunday was a feel good day, though, because that was the big bday party day. which, let me just start off by saying, was made 1000 times easier by the fact that we had our house cleaned on wednesday (thank you again to the amazing cousins!!!). i will never ever throw another party without getting my house cleaned. it was soooo much easier. i love it. and the party went well. we did a tinkerbell theme this year, and symma loved it. i'll have pics up on my flickr page some time this week, i hope! i can't believe she's 5 already. the time has gone so fast!

monday i took izzy back to daycare for the first time since june. she did really well. a bit too well if you ask me- she didn't even care when i left! she could at least have shed a tear or 2 for her old mom, couldn't she? she went again today, and did fabulously again. i'm really glad that she has fun there- symma was always a really hard drop off and it broke my heart. though it was good to feel needed :) oh well, i know izzy loves me- when i pick her up at the end of the day i get big hugs and kisses. and that can't be beat!

tonight we had symma's back-to-school social. which is also *my* back-to-school social. ugh. i can' believe it's here already. but it was good to see my students. they were very happy to see some hair on my head :) and the social always gets me going for the coming year. so, now i'll start making name tags, and planning lessons for the first week. which is going to be a very interesting first week. i typically stay at school till 6 or so every night for the first week or 2 getting my schedule figured out, and planning, and organizing, etc... between chemo, and pt, and boob appts that is not going to be an option. i have to be out by 4 every day! i'm not sure what i'm going to do... i'll be a giant ball of stress, that's for sure!

speaking of boobs, i'm getting near the end of the fillings, i think. my doctor says it's completely up to me, but in his opinion, one or 2 more should do the trick. i have to start trying on some of my work clothes to see if i like the way they look or not. unfortunately, i've gained so much weight this summer, that i'm not going to like the way anything looks, so this could prove to be interesting. blurg.

i'm also nearing the end of my pt. i have almost complete range of motion on my right side, and am just a tad behind on my left due to the infection i had. i have moved into resistance training with a band, rather than just stretching, and will be going into weights next week. as much as i like my physical therapist, i guess it will be good not to have to fit in those appts anymore...

tomorrow is taxol treatment number 3. i'm looking for reading suggestions. anyone got a light, casual, non-educational book idea for me? something to keep my mind off of chemo... that i can still follow when i'm high on benedryl... if you get your suggestions in fast enough, i may be able to get to the library tomorrow so i can start it :) otherwise, i'll just be bringing a stack of magazines that i've been neglecting. or maybe i'll bring the camera/laptop and catch up on some photo editing and downloading. in any event, tomorrow's chemo day, so i get to start the cycle all over again. let's hope this one goes w/o a day of pain!

2 down...

2009-08-20T04:26:00.000-07:00

...10 to go :) got my chemo yesterday... along with a dose of steroids that kept me up on facebook and reading my book till at least midnight, and then woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 4 freaking 25 am. ugh. i'm so going to hit a wall tonight. and i even took my ativan last night so this wouldn't happen. may have to take 2 next week. blurg.

anywho, all went well in treatment. they gave me an oral dose of benedryl (instead of iv- which knocked me on my butt last week if you remember!), and while it made me a bit floopy at first, by the end of treatment i was all good. i got home *late* though. went in at 3:30pm for lab work, and didn't get home till after 7:30pm. i'm trying to get a good schedule set up for when school starts... but symma wasn't too happy that i missed getting her ready for bed. i came home as the last story was being read. the nurses have told me that the first 2 take the longest, so hopefully this will get better as the treatments go on.

i have a busy couple of days coming up, so i'm going to try to premedicate for the muscle/bone pain. (elliot- what do you think- tylenol, or be brave and take advil? ) last week i did great on thursday, but had a baaaad friday. and i am booked solid tomorrow, so no time for that! lindz is going to come to school to help me set up my classroom during the day, and then we're going out to dinner with friends in the evening.

but before i can get to tomorrow, i have to get through today. i have pt at 8am (poor lindz has to get up to come babysit. i owe her a vacation when i'm done with all this!). then i'm taking the girls shopping for symma's party supplies- she'll be *5* on monday!!! so we're having the big party on sunday and i have yet to order her cake. as a matter of fact, i don't even know what kind of cake/decorations she wants this year! after that, i'm trying to con my sis into coming back to babysit because we have a *new baby in our posse*!!!!!! kj and i want to try to go visit before dinner, because then i have support group after dinner. busy, busy, busy. no time for being sick!

on to the thank you's for the week:

my auntie mary brought us dinner this week: homeade mac n cheese and salad from her garden! yummy!

dad and jill have been watching the girls. a lot. thank you for my day of nothing yesterday!! and for all the other days, too :)

my mom's friend glen and his daughter amy sent me the sweetest "angel of healing". she's so pretty :) and she's even holding a little baby animal, so she's very "me". love it. thank you so much for all of your notes and support through all of this!

i have continued to get notes in the mail from people all the time- i have a huge box of them! i can flip through whenever i'm feeling down. it's great!

and we had our house cleaned yesterday. just in time for symma's party. it looks fabulous!! i have vowed to turn over a new leaf and work really hard to keep it clean between the cleanings. i don't have much faith in myself in that area, but i'm going to try *really* hard!! anyone know of any biodegradable, possibly flushable, non-toxic, but worthy of cleaning a bathroom wipes that i can use? i'm told if you keep cleaning wipes in the bathroom you're more apt to clean it... and we have 3 freaking bathrooms, so i can use all the help i can get :) thank you sooooooo much beth, laura, and katie!!!!! i cannot tell you how good it was to get home from chemo last night and be able to flop on the couch with no guilt. love you!!

and, of course, i need to send continued thanks to julie, lindz, and my mom who have continued to cover kid care for me. often on a last minute basis. i can't imagine trying to do an hour of pt with my girls running around the office.

so, on to today- my chai is in hand, and i'm raring to go :) and izzy thinks she should be up now, too. she'll wait till the chai has been properly enjoyed, though, i think ;)

taxol

2009-08-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

so far, i gotta say, while it's not horrible, it's not that fun, either. i felt great on wednesday and thursday, but friday was pretty bad. i was really tired, and blah all morning, and then as the day progressed i got more and more sore. by 4pm all of my skin hurt and my muscles and bones were *really* ache-y. saturday was a good day, though, and really the worst of it only lasted 5 hours or so, so i guess i'm better than i could be :) today has been really blah. i don't really feel well, but i can't put a finger on why exactly. i'm not nauseous, but i don't want to eat much. my chest is killing me (possible histamine reaction?), and my back hurts. but, all things considered, i shouldn't complain- it could be much worse!

i've got a pretty busy week coming up, so i'm hoping to feel pretty good. lots of dr's appts, and physical therapy, as well as my last couple of playdates for the summer. i can't believe how fast time flies! my dad and jill are taking the girls for 3 days this week, lindsay and i are setting up my classroom on friday, and we're having symma's bday party next weekend, and then izzy starts back at daycare on the 24th... i'm really looking forward to tuesday- i am going to have the house all to myself for the whole day- and i'm going to watch all of the movies i kept putting aside all summer :) and i'm going to sleep late, and not get dressed. and i'm not going to feel guilty about it! especially since i have to go get chemo the next day and start the crud all over again.

so, i'm doing okay. i'm not feeling all that upbeat or positive at the moment- i'm just really sick of being sick. but i also know that i should be happy to be where i am in this journey. things could be a lot worse. but, feel free to send me some attagirls- you guys always make me feel better- plus, if you comment, i know you're reading :)

thanks for all of my cards and notes- i get so many i can't keep up with who they're all from. but i know my aunt peggy and uncle mike have me on their minds a lot, and i so appreciate it :) kj's auntie alice has been thinking about us a lot, too, and we've gotten such sweet notes (and today a phone call!) from her. and kate made us dinner again last week, which was fabulous :)

and then there's kj's cousins- they've gotten us some cleaning help, and i cannot even tell you how grateful we are. they are coming for the first time on wednesday, so i'll fill you all in on how amazing it is at that point. but i know without a doubt that beth, laura, and katie are amazing people for wanting to help us out this way. and we appreciate it more than you can imagine!! thank you sooooo much!

i'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself now, and get my girls ready for bed. here's hoping to a week that's "a walk in the park" like i've been promised :)

the countdown begins

2009-08-12T16:18:00.001-07:00

good news today- i got my CT results, and all is well :) no surprises/changes since my last one. yay! i also was able to start chemo, so while i really, really am not looking forward to starting this again, at least i'm on my last leg now. officially. 1 down, 11 to go.

when you get chemo, they administer a bunch of pre-meds to help your body process the toxins better/more easily. my pre-meds include an anti-nausea (zofran), a steroid (to make the zofran work better), benedryl (to combat a possible allergic reaction to the drug), and pepcid (also to combat an allergic reaction). the pre-meds take about 15 minutes to administer, and are hung on the iv pole and go through my port. just like my chemo. the chemo (taxol) takes about 90 minutes to administer. so overall, i'll be in the chair for about 2 hours each week. i will also have labs drawn each week to monitor my blood counts, so i'll get to the hospital at 3:30pm, hopefully start chemo around 4:30pm (though they're typically backed up and running late- over an hour today!), and get done around 6:30pm. that should get me home in time to help with bedtime.

somehow i managed to block out that i had benedryl administered through my iv when i was in the hospital with my infection and had a bad reaction to it- got all loopy/high and slept for 4 hours straight in the middle of the day. they gave me the benedryl in my pre-meds today and the same thing happened. only i didn't go to sleep, cuz i had to drive home and stuff. i was so high i had to stay an extra hour getting saline pumped in me to try and sober me up. ugh. not sure what we're going to do to fix this problem. perhaps lower the dosage... perhaps take it orally because that doesn't have the same effect on me. gotta talk to my doc about that.

so, i'm home now, and have had dinner. i went to the hospital at 10am, and didn't get home till 4:30pm. i was scheduled for 10am with my oncologist, and 11am for my chemo. i didn't even get to chemo till quarter to 12, and then didn't get a chair till 1pm. and i only got it then because heather (my friend/neighbor/chemo nurse) worked some magic and got me in. timeliness is not their best quality. but everyone there is so nice, and i always bring a book with me, so at least i have some nice reading time :) in any event, i'm resting at home while kj has the girls out at a park since i'm still useless from my benedryl experience. the good news is that i didn't have an allergic reaction to the taxol, so i can continue my treatments as planned.

okay, 1 down, 11 to go. and they promised me that this will not be as hard as the last round. i'm holding them to that!

this just in...

2009-08-10T18:01:00.001-07:00

...from the surgeon's office:

1) as of wednesday i can pick up my izzy again :) hoooooraaaaay!!!

2) i can drive again :) yipppeeee!

3) all of my stickers, tapes, and bandages are now removed. whew!

also, i got my first "fill-up" today. the doctor says he's guessing i'll need 3 or 4 more depending on how it all settles in my chest/ribs/muscles... then i let them "rest" for 3-6 months, and then do the swap. so, i've got a way to go on the boobs. but, as i said yesterday, i can sleep on my side again, so that helps. i gotta say, the fill up is weird. parts of it hurt, parts of it just felt weird. the whole area is still bruised and battered inside, so the pushing and prodding isn't great. of course, when i told him it hurt, his response was "great! that means the nerves are starting to work again!" somehow i don't see it *quite* the same way ;)

i don't get my CT results till wednesday. will fill you all in on that later... right now, i'm doing the happy dance because i get to take care of my girls again. anyone want to schedule a playdate??

healing well

2009-08-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

hello all :)

i have continued to heal well... my drains are all out, and i'm feeling pretty good :) i'm still sore, and working on regaining my range of motion. right now my right arm is doing really well. the left arm is a bit behind, due to the infection, but my physical therapist thinks that i'll get back to 100% with some work.

the good news is that i am able to sleep on my side again! hurray! now that the drains are out i can move a bit more freely. i'm able to wear normal clothes again, too :) so, at least i'm regaining some sense of normalcy :)

i still have a 10lb weight limit, so my mom is still helping out with the girls during the week. they've been having a good time with each other, but i think poor gma is getting tired. i'm really looking forward to taking care of my girls on my own again, but i'm told it will be about another 3 weeks. ugh.

tomorrow i have a follow-up CT scan and lab work. i'm hoping for no surprises. if all goes well, then i can start chemo again on wednesday. so, cross your fingers for everything to be as expected... if i start chemo on wednesday, and don't have to push any of the treatments back due to low bloodcounts, then i'll be done with all of this by halloween :) i am *really* hoping for that!

1 more down, 1 to go :)

2009-08-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

i got another drain out today :) yay! my doctor says that everything looks really good- i'm healing well. the little spot that he thought he may have to "trim and re-sew" looks healed, and my lymph node incisions are doing well. the last drain that's left is the one that had the infection. it's still draining quite a bit each day, though it seems to be on a downward trend. i'll call back on thursday with my drain numbers, and may get it out at that point. if not, hopefully monday.

on monday afternoon i have blood work and a follow-up CT scan. hopefully i'll start chemo again on wednesday. it will all depend on my lab work. i can't start chemo until my blood work has returned to normal from surgery.

i'm feeling good :) the benedryl makes me *sleeeeeepy* but other than that i'm okay. i'm back off of my pain meds, and just taking tylenol a few times each day. the benedryl is crazy, though! i take it and within a few minutes i'm ready for bed. i don't know how kids can take it!

i think that we may try to go school supply shopping tomorrow through my benedryl haze. symma needs to be ready for K5! and there are some things that i need to get for my classroom, as well. should be entertaining... me and mom, symma and izzy loose in target. look out world, here we come! i don't have much else on my schedule for the rest of the week.

it's very frustrating to be home, but completely unable to care for my own kids! i'm so glad to have them home, so i can see them and talk to them, but i am mostly just an observer. it's rather obnoxious. but since i really don't want to have to do this again, i'm listening to my doctors and following directions. and my mom and my sister are pretty hardcore nurses- it's easier for me to be away from the kids than it is to sit there and not be able to do anything! not that i'm complaining about them being here- we all need to get back on a regular schedule and a regular life, it's just hard not to be able to do anything. i can't wait until i feel normal again!!

the weekend

2009-08-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

it's been pretty low-key at the polewski household this weekend. i've been really tired, and pretty sore, so we haven't done much. kj and i went to the farmers market yesterday morning, and last night we did go over to julie and joel's for a little bit, so that was nice :) and we went to church this morning, so i haven't been a *complete* hermit.

there's not much new to report... i have a doctor's appt tomorrow with my plastic surgeon. i'm hoping to get rid of the drain on my right side. i don't think they'll be able to take the drain out of the infected side, yet because there's still a lot of action going on over there. i think when the drains are gone i'll feel a lot better. at least that's my hope. it's really annoying having to shower with them around my neck, and empty them twice each day, and strip them constantly so they don't get clogged. plus they're just gross to look at/think about.

the girls were with my dad and jill this weekend, after spending the week with my mom. they're on their way home right now. i'm excited to see them. but i feel bad, because i really can't do anything but look at them. i can't really play with them, and i can't get izzy in or out of anything. plus the drugs are making me soooooooooooo tired. i don't have the energy to do anything with them. ugh. but i'll be glad to see their smiling faces and get hugs :) and maybe we'll be able to take a walk after dinner.

this week my mom will be doing the nannying thing again. here's hoping it goes better this week (this was also the plan for last week, but i ended up in the hospital instead)! she'll come over in the morning and leave when kj gets home from work. symma has a birthday party to go to on friday, but other than that and a couple of doctor's appts there's not too much on the schedule. i think my mom has a playdate planned for symma on one of the days... and i feel like mom and lindz are taking the girls on a field trip on wednesday somewhere, but i don't remember where...

thanks so much to my visitors- in the hospital and at home :) it's good to see everyone from the outside world! and once again, thanks to amy and lindz for taking care of me in the hospital- and gil, too :) i don't know what i would do without such an amazing circle of people helping us out all of the time. though i must say, i can't wait until i don't need the help anymore!

i've gotten so many nice cards and letters. i really do appreciate them. i have also gotten some very nice gift cards from peggy and mike, and darin and melissa, and julie and joel... thanks so much!!

let's hope i get at least one drain out tomorrow afternoon. keep your fingers crossed :)

thursday

2009-07-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

well, i'm still in the hospital. but i think i'm on the mend. my infection moved to a different section of my breast, and therefore there was a lot more swelling in that area. my doctor decided to continue treating me with the iv antibiotics, but also add benedryl to my laundry list of meds. his thought is that this may not be an infection. it may be my body is reacting to the drain and/or expander and producing histamine to fight it off. the benedryl's job is to put the histamine to sleep. those of you that know me well know that symma went through this whole "histamine cyle" a couple of summers ago when she was fighting hives. she developed a temporary allergy to cold- yes i mean low temperatures- and every time we'd walk into air conditioning, or go swimming, or walk through the freezer section at the grocery store she'd break into hives. so apparently our bodies produce histamine to fight off invaders. in my case i guess the invader is the drain. or perhaps the initial infection from the drain. in symma's case the initial invader was a super high fever. it took us 6 months of benedryl and zyrtec to get her histamine to go to sleep. let's hope mine goes faster, or my boob may explode!!

once again, i have to say that the nursing staff here is amazing. every nurse i've had has been so sweet, and chatty. they all have been very concerned about me and do everything they can to keep me comfy and happy :) it'll be a little sad to go home and not have someone to answer my every bidding ;)

the food here sucks. so mom and lindz brought me dinner from noodles & co. that was awesome. first good meal i've had since monday! and i just found out that i'm not NPO for tonight, which means two things: 1) i can eat and drink whenever i wake up, and 2) they aren't planning on doing surgery for anything tomorrow. these are both good things :0)

i've continued to have lots of visitors, which is wonderful. i didn't have a full-time babysitter today, which is good because within 10 minutes of my benedryl (given through the iv the first time, and then orally in pill form from then on) i fell asleep. for like 4 hours. it was *crazy*

i'm doing well, though, and i think i may go home tomorrow, but we'll see!

xoxoxo

mer

infection

2009-07-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

so, i'm back at the hospital. i started to have increasing pain around my drain site on monday. as the day progressed, the pain got worse. by about 6pm i was at my friend heather's house (the nurse) getting her opinion. she said she thought i should page my on-call doctor. so i did. it took about an hour, but the doctor did call back, and he said that he thought i'd be okay till morning. another friend suggested that kj circle the part that was red around my drain (about a 2 inch circle) so that we could decide if the infection was spreading. by 9:30pm i was in so much pain, and starting to shake/shiver, so amy took me to the ER.

since i had already talked to the on-call doc, i didn't have to suffer in the ER as long as everyone else. they saw me within an hour, and decided that i should start an oral antibiotic and go see my doctor in the office at 8am. so, amy took me to the pharmacy to fill my prescription and then took me back home. i was home about midnight. by this time i was in so much pain that i was crying, and took my oxycodone for the first time since a few days after surgery.

i had a crappy night of sleep, and amy took me to the doctor in the morning (mom took the girls). when we got to the doctor, he was in surgery, but his fabulous nurse that i love took a look at me. she called dr. hijjawi in surgery and they decided to admit me for iv antibiotics. amy brought me to the hospital and they had me in a room about 9:30am. in lots of pain.

i wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything in case they need to do surgery to clean out the infection. so i was quite dehydrated, and my pain meds had run out at 8am. since i had the bilateral mastectomy, they don't like to use my arms for iv's. so they spent the next couple of hours trying to get an iv in my foot. which they couldn't do because i was dehydrated. which they couldn't fix because they couldn't give me any fluids by mouth, and they couldn't get an iv in. it was a vicious circle. after 3 hours of ridiculous amounts of pain (waaaaay worse than surgery, since surgery involved an epidural and a pain pump), they finally got the okay to use my arm for an iv. that went very well. at the same time, dr. hijjawi decided that i would not be having surgery yet, and i could eat and drink. so as they were doing the iv, they were able to give me pain meds, and order lunch for me.

by yesterday afternoon, i was feeling fairly decent. the pain meds were working, and i was comfortable in the bed. i wasn't able to walk around at all, because every time i moved it burned like i was being struck by lightening, but sitting still was fine. i had a bit more pain in the evening, but they gave me lots of meds that helped me sleep comfortably, so that was good.

today i have a lot of pain, but they do think the infection is getting better. and it can take 24-48 hours to start feeling better. the doctors are pretty sure i'll be going home tomorrow. i have had a ton of visitors already which is so nice. i'm pretty much never alone :) my nurses are awesome, too, so i'm doing well :)

thanks so much for all the good vibes and well wishes... i'll keep you up to date :)

Friday

2009-07-24T06:00:00.001-07:00

hello all :)

things are continuing to go well... yesterday i got 2 of my drains out (2 to go!) and started physical therapy. my doctors are happy with how things are healing, and i've been off of my oxycodone and just taking tylenol for the past few days. i'm feeling good :)

i also was able to go to my support group meeting last night (i'm not allowed to drive, yet, so kj drove me there and my dad picked me up), so that was good. lindz and i are going to see harry potter today... hooray!

the girls have been with my mom all week, and i think the poor woman is exhausted. i've been talking to the girls each day, and kj went to put them to bed last night. they've been having lots of fun with gma- they even had a playdate yesterday with their cousins :) today she's bringing the girls here and my dad is picking them up for the weekend. and then on sunday they're coming back here to stay :) and mom will be here as "the nanny" during the day, since i still can't lift izzy.

while my mom has been watching my girls, my sister has been watching me. it's been really nice spending time with her- even though i feel totally guilty about her wasting her whole day here. but she's been a huge help- making me chai, and lunch, helping me get dressed, coming to my appts with me... all kinds of stuff. i've been waited on hand and foot- and i'm really trying not to get used to it!!

my mom took symma to the jelly belly factory on wednesday, so lindz went and watched izzy at her house. then gil came to watch me. i'm surrounded by babysitters :) he brought me chai and a brownie. it was wonderful :)

yesterday my friend lauren came to visit me- and she brought me flowers and homeade soup :) it was so nice to be able to sit and talk like grown-ups without the kids jumping in. i'm loving being able to have whole conversations with people!! though, again- i'm trying not to get used to it because my babies are coming home soon :) and i miss them and their snuggles!!

on to thank you's:

gpa and jeff- thanks so much for my gift- i can't wait to go shopping- and gpa, thank you so much for coming to visit me!

the mt. tabor group- you are so generous, and kind to think of me- thank you so much for the gift card and your good thoughts :)

dan, mary, adam, and michelle- thanks for my beautiful flowers :) i love them- and it was so nice to get flowers delivered to me!

lindz- thank you for babysitting me- i hate feeling like a burden, but i'm glad you're here :)

gil- same goes for you- thanks for being hubby number 2 :)

mom, dad, and jill- thank you so much for taking care of the girls. i feel so comfortable knowing that they're with you. they love you, and so do we :) i know how exhausting they can be, so i know we owe you big!!

dad and jill- thanks for my "happiness" angel- she's adorable :)

beth, katie, and laura- thank you is not enough. i cannot get over your generosity, and cannot express how much we appreciate your gift.

and a semi-belated thank you goes out to my family- you waited a looooong time the waiting room for me last week. thanks for being there- for me and for each other. i'm so lucky to have so many people that love me. and care enough to show it!

9 years and counting

2009-07-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

today is our anniversary. our real one- though i still count our first kiss, and engagement as anniversaries, so kj's always confused :) but 9 years ago today, i made the smartest decision in my life and married the best man in the world. he has taken care of me through many little breakdowns, that i thought were huge at the time, and has stepped up in a way that i never would have thought i deserved in the face of the biggest challenge of my life. i won't say it's the biggest challenge in *his* life, because unfortunately, kj has had far too many terrible experiences, but i will say that cancer has been a crazy ride for us both. and he has been amazing. both as a father and a husband. he has taken care of everything. so well that at times i question my necessity in the house. and then i thank my lucky stars that i have him, and the girls have him.

so, while i'm sitting here in a camisole with drain pockets filled with drains filled with bodily fluids, hoping for a shower where my husband will have to hold my drains, and look at 4 incisions and 4 punctures in my extremely creepy looking chest, i feel lucky.

i am married to my best friend. the man whose eyes have gotten me through two child births, and a wedding. the man who can hold my hand and look into my eyes and make me forget that bad things are happening. the man that makes me feel safe, and happy every time he walks through our door. the man that *always* gives me at least 4 kisses- and sometimes 6- but never 3 or 5. the man i fit perfectly with. i am lucky. and i hope he always knows that i know it...

happy anniversary my prince-

day.... ummmm 6?

2009-07-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

i'm cancer free!!!!!! i got my final pathology reports today and they were all negative! hooray!! all 6 nodes they removed were clear, and there were no new masses. the tumor that we had been watching and had shrunk to 5ml hadn't grown or changed at all, even though i hadn't had chemo in 2 months :) yay!!

i will still have 12 rounds of taxol- to make sure that any stray cells floating around in my body are taken care of. what i learned with the whole bone scare last month is that cancer *can* travel w/o leaving evidence in the lymph nodes... it travels in the blood. so the lymph nodes are a marker, not a promise. but it's good that there's no *evidence* of it traveling in my nodes.

i finally got my oncologist to enter me into "the equation" that he has for my recurrence percentage. basically, if i had had no chemo, and just surgery, there was a 20-30% chance of it coming back. the chemo knocks that to about 10-15%, and my body's reaction to the chemo lowers it even more :) yay!!! love it, love it. i mean there's probably a 10% chance of a lot of things happening to me- including winning the lottery, but that's not something i'm willing to bank on- i'm still working ;)

thank you all for all of your cards- i love them :) and i got to spend the afternoon chatting with my friend deyana, and she brought us dinner which i'm about to go eat with symma and kj. izzy's still with my mom. she just doesn't get the whole "being gentle" thing. she's soooooo happy when she sees me, and she doesn't get it that i can't hold her.

love to you all :)

day 3

2009-07-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

another good day :) i went for a walk outside, saw my dad and jill, and my gpa, and my mom... plus heather came over to check on my drains because i thought one was clogged. turns out all is well.

tomorrow i'm going to the plastic surgeon. i'm hoping to get rid of the pain pump (it's out of med and just hanging there annoying me) and 2 of my drains (they've slowed down a lot). i will be excited if i can drop some of my extra extremities :)

i'm feeling a bit lost right now. i'm not sure what to do with myself... i don't feel sick- just sore and tired, so i feel guilty sitting around like a slug. my girls aren't here and tomorrow my sister is coming to hang out with me. i guess we'll just watch tv and stuff. my garden needs weeding, and i need to pack up izzy's clothes that she's grown out of, but i think i'll let that wait for a day or 2. i'm really trying to acknowledge the fact that my chest hurts and take things slow.

so, let's hope for losing some drains tomorrow :)

day 2

2009-07-18T20:07:00.001-07:00

i had a good day today. i was pretty sore when i woke up since i didn't take any meds during the night. but my pain meds work fairly quickly, so it didn't last too long.

kj's a real trooper- he's helped me empty my drains, and keep track of all of my meds and stuff. tomorrow morning he gets to help me shower. which, i promise you, will not be at all entertaining. poor guy!

the girls were with dad and jill yesterday and last night. i did get to see symma at the hospital for a couple of minutes. then kj picked them up today and took them to the waukesha county fair. my mom came to my house and babysat me. i keep telling everyone that i'm okay to watch myself, but no one will listen.

i had lots of visitors today :) nikki and her mom, kathy, my gpa and uncle jeff, julie, and my mom. and i opened my package from kenny's wonderful and sweet cousins- chocolate and a travel book!! thanks!! julie and darin and missy got me gift cards for new undies- i'm going to have so much fun shopping for my new chest :)

when kj was done at the fair he brought the girls back here and i got to see them. hurray!! izzy wasn't nearly as rough as we feared. and i just missed them and put my foot down and said they weren't going to my mom's without seeing me first. i blocked my chest off with pillows- which the girls promptly moved out of the way so that they could see my owies. and they weren't grossed out by them, just curious. i was sooooo happy to see them. it was nice to get hugs and smooches from my girls. and izzy still knew who i was, so that made me happy.

now the girls are at my mom's and kj and i have spent the evening on the couch catching up on some tivo'd stuff. we are *way* behind! thanks for all of the phone calls, notes, and continued good thoughts!! love you all :)

home sweet home

2009-07-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

hello everybody :)

i'm home... not really sure how i feel about that. i really wanted to stay till tomorrow morning. but the more i thought about it and listened to the doctors, the better i felt about coming home. their point was that they really weren't doing anything for me anymore. so, here's how it went...

wednesday morning kj took me to the hospital at 5:30am. the thoracic block team came in to talk to me about their procedure. basically they were giving me an epidural higher in my back - so rather than having my abdomen and legs numb (like when i had my babies) i had a numb band around my chest. they told me that they would be leaving the epidural in over night to help avoid taking narcotics. there is apparently some preliminary research that has shown that avoiding narcotics when your immune system is down (right after surgery) lowers the chance of recurrence. that made me happy, and kj and i decided that the benefit of a lower recurrence rate outweighed the risk of the epidural. and the epidural went really well :)

they took me away from kj (about 7:30am) to give me the epidural which was *really* hard- he's been with me for my past epidurals, and i was really scared. but the block team was really sweet and both of the doctors held my hands and wiped my face and helped me relax, so it was all good. i'd still rather have had my hubby though!

after that i don't really remember much. i know they brought kj back for a little while and then sent him away and wheeled me somewhere, but i think i fell asleep on the way. and then i woke up in the recovery room at 3:10pm. and the nice doctor from the block team was still there holding my hand. he stayed with me for about an hour till they were able to take me to my real room. i think i got there about 4:30pm.

and then they brought my kj in!! and he was so happy... they told him (and the rest of the fam: mom, dad, jill, lindz, and erik) that they had removed the breasts and couldn't even find my tumor! they had also taken out 6 lymph nodes (4 on the cancer side and 2 on the healthy side) and initial pathology on them was clear :)

so, all the news so far is good. i will meet with the plastic surgeon on monday, and the cancer surgeon on tuesday. by tuesday we're hoping to have the final pathology results. right now there is no reason to believe that the cancer has spread at all, so i am a happy camper :)

i have 3 incisions on each side. one large incision (about 3 inches per side) where they scooped out all the bad and put in the expander. then i have 2 smaller incisions on each side- maybe 1-2 inches each. the top incisions are where they took out the lymph nodes and the bottom incision is where my drains and pain pump are attached. i have 2 drains on each side and one pain tube on each side. the pain tube is connected to a little ball filled with medicine that is time released directly into my wound. we think the medicine is kind of like novocaine and will last for about 5 days or so. i'm also taking an antibiotic and oral pain meds. i'm taking 1 oxycodone every 4-5 hours with tylenol in between. the pain is more of an ache than a pain. much like chemo, i was expecting it to be much worse.

thank you soooo much for all of your notes, and happy thoughts, and prayers. i've had some wonderful friends come and visit me already, and it was fabulous to laugh with them. not to mention my parents and lindz and erik and kj all waiting for me during my surgery.

there are so many thank you's this week, i don't know where to start:

julie- thanks for watching the girls during my mapping

lindz- thanks for coming to my mapping with me :)

amy- thank you so much for watching my girls on tuesday and wednesday... i couldn't have done this without you!

shawon, amy/linda/vicki, and lindsey- thank you for my beautiful flowers. i love, love, love them!!

amy- my taffy jar is adorable and yummy, and i devoured my cookie :)

e- thanks for my chocolate cookie :)

tracy, amy, lindsey, shawon, heather, lindsay, mom, dad, jill, erik, gpa, jeff, mona, and kathy- thanks so much for visiting me- you helped the time go by much faster!!

megan- thanks for setting me up with the best nurses and techs! i had amazing nurses taking care of me. they were all so helpful and caring.

mom, dad, and jill- thank you for watching my girls so that kenny and lindz can focus on me. and thank you for taking care of me, when your not taking care of my girls.

i love you all, and can't tell you how happy i am to be able to write this post. i was really scared of surgery, but i've made it through, and am not in nearly as much pain as i expected. it's all easy going from here :)

the big day

2009-07-14T19:01:00.001-07:00

so tomorrow's the big surgery. i'm not looking forward to it, but i'm looking forward to it being finished- if you know what i mean.

i had my sentinel node mapping today, and while it certainly wasn't pleasant, i lived through it. basically, it felt like 3 big 'ol bee stings in each nipple. yippee. lindz came with me but they wouldn't let her stay during the injections. the nurse held my hand instead... i'm glad lindz came along. they let her sit with me after the injections while they watched the tracers move through to my lymph nodes. now i have little magic marker x's on my boobs. tomorrow i get to write "yes" on the boobs i want them to remove... that would be both of them. not sure why that's confusing, but if they need me to spell it out i will!! :)

amy came over and watched the kids today so i could do all my last minute stuff. there was a lot of last minute stuff because i am a giant procrastinator. but it's done. or at least as done as it's getting. then i took the kids over to julie's so lindz and i could go to my mapping appt. thank goodness i have such amazing friends in my life, or i wouldn't have made it this far.

so, tomorrow's schedule looks like this: i have to be at the hospital at 5:30am. they will be doing a thoracic epidural before the surgery begins. that will help avoid using narcotics after the surgery, which tend to be strong and make me sick. my surgery is scheduled for 8:30am. it takes about 4 hours to take them off, and then 2 1/2 more to put them back on. makes for a long day for my family in the waiting room... i wish there was a way they could all be put out, too!

lindsay will be updating my facebook status throughout the day, and kj will have his cell phone if there's coverage in the hospital. if i can type, i'll try to post something here tomorrow evening.

thank you so much for all of the good thoughts, healthy vibes, and prayers you've been sending my way. here's to hoping that i have clean margins and clear lymph nodes... if so, the next post i'm writing will be cancer-free!! lots of love to you all :)

4th of july

2009-07-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

hello :)

i am feeling good, and enjoying summer, so i decided that i would post some pics from the weekend...

on friday we went to the zoo with a bunch of my friends from neeskara, then saturday we went to the farmers market with jenna and michelle, and lindz and erik, and in the evening we went to the fireworks with my mom. izzy didn't like them very much :( poor thing. anyway, hope you like the pictures :)

new surgery date

2009-07-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

hello :)

i talked to my surgeon's scheduler, and we're a go for july 15th (a wednesday). i have to be there at 6:30am, and the surgery is scheduled for 8:30am.

on tuesday the 14th at 3pm i will go in for the sentinel node procedure. then i'll come home and go back in the am.

other than that, all is well... hope you're all doing well, too!

summer fun :)

2009-06-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

i'm feeling great, and taking advantage of it :)

saturday we went to strawberry fest with lindz and erik. i am so glad i didn't have to miss it this year! it's my favorite festival of the summer- and we ate our way through it. we had strawberry smoothies, and kettle corn, and corn on the cob, and chocolate covered strawberries- fabulous!! plus i bought a new chai mug and a new hat. all in all a great day :)

sunday we went to church- it was the first time i've made it there in a loooooong time. kj was taking the girls pretty regularly while i was sick, but i was using it as a quiet morning to sleep in and rest in an empty house. it was nice to get there and see everyone. then we all went to my gpa's for father's day. another good day :)

today the girls and i went to the park with julie and her boys. we had a picnic and played in the sun. and avoided the rain- yay! i'm loving this extra time i've got to enjoy summer. i'm really looking forward to the fireworks this weekend! i was so sad that i was going to have to miss them- and now i don't. yay!

i want to throw a thank you (very late, unfortunately) out to brandi for the fabulous hat she made for me- i love it!! i'm so sorry that i am a complete loser and forgot to thank you... i'd like to blame it on the chemo, but really i'm just a jerk. it's totally adorable, though, and i so appreciate you thinking of me :)

i hope you all are feeling as well as i am right now... and enjoying your summer :) i'll post pics some time this week of all of our fun. if i can fit that in with all the playdates i'm scheduling :)

newest news :)

2009-06-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

hello all :)

my doctor just called me, and they have decided to back off of this whole bone marrow thing. the PET scan didn't really reveal anything "new" about my marrow. it still looks different, but not exactly consistent with cancer. the PET scan did show some "activity" in the lymph nodes in my chest, but my doctor doesn't think that it's cancer there, either... the only way they can figure it all out for sure is to do biopsies, but those are apparently pretty invasive, and dr. charleson doesn't think it's necessary. he says his worry is nearly 0 at this point. it's all abnormal, but they've decided to stop worrying about it. and they said that i should, too. my surgery is tentatively rescheduled for July 15th. my surgeon is going on vacation tomorrow, so i have to wait for her to get back.

so, i am apparently going to be froedtert free for the next couple of weeks... weird. not sure what to think about that. i was told that i should use the next couple of weeks to enjoy summer and play with my girls. so i guess that's what i'll do. i asked if my cancer would start to grow back since i'm not having any treatment right now, and he says it won't. so i have to believe he knows what he's talking about.

all in all, i think this is good news. basically, my surgery was put off for no reason, and i get a couple weeks of extra playtime that i wasn't expecting. so, we'll look at it as a positive :)

non update

2009-06-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

i have no new news... i had the PET scan yesterday, but they didn't give me any results, so i'm waiting to hear something today. we'll see how it goes... thanks for all your good thoughts!

frustrated

2009-06-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

my ct didn't clear anything up. they have now postponed my surgery. apparently there is something weird going on with my bone marrow. they have now found the "abnormality" in both of my shoulders as well as my hips. it appears that there is something in my marrow that is not typical. the doctors are leaning away from it being cancer mets for a couple of reasons. first off, my tumor shrunk so much during chemo that it would stand to reason that any other cancer would have also shrunk- not gotten worse. second, the abnormalities are very symmetrical (in all of my joints) which isn't typically how cancer shows itself. third, my pain doesn't seem to be consistent with bone cancer. my shoulder only hurts when i move it in certain ways. and the other shoulder doesn't hurt at all. and my hips *were* bothering me, but haven't been lately. they have absolutely no idea what it is if it *isn't* cancer. but everyone seems to be "leaning away" from cancer. and they're "hopeful" that it isn't...

i'm angry, frustrated, scared, and upset by the whole thing. this has completely thrown a wrench into what had been a well planned surgery. my kids were covered, people were taking off of work... it has affected more people's schedules than i care to think about. i'm soooo frustrated and angry. last night i pretty much just shut down. i didn't call or email any of the people that were waiting to hear from me, and i went across the street to heather's with amy and julie. we sat around and drank wine and coffee until 11pm and then i was tired enough to fall into bed without thinking about it anymore.

the next steps aren't scheduled yet, but they most likely involve a PET scan and a biopsy of my bone and/or bone marrow- i'm not clear on that, yet. i'll be sitting by my phone today waiting for my next directions. ugh.

mri results

2009-06-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

i got the results of my mri last night. for those of you that don't remember, i had an mri on my shoulder on thursday. they told me it was for unrelated pain. my results have come back "abnormal". they're not sure what that means. so i'm going for a ct scan today of my shoulder and then a 2nd one for my abdomen and chest. hopefully this will give them a better idea of what the problem is. if necessary they will do a biopsy of the area. looks like i can't have surgery till this is all figured out, so they're trying to get it done quickly. i'll let you know what happens. ugh.

sorry...

2009-06-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

...i realize it's been a while since i posted last. i have no real excuse. this week has been super busy with the last days of school and all...

here's the latest:

i met with my plastic surgeon yesterday for about 2 hours. i don't really have much "new" information from that, except that i was given a lesson on how to care for and empty my drains, which i will have 4 of. gross. but necessary, and hopefully they will be there for less than 2 weeks. and i got not 1 but *2* fancy tank top thingys w/ special pockets made just for holding the drains. and they have a velcro front since i won't be able to pull anything over my head for a while. fancy. and stylish.

they were *very* nice at the office and answered all of my questions and didn't make fun of my fears, so i feel pretty good about the whole thing. though i'm terrified of having surgery, at least i'm pretty confident that i'm in good hands :) and the nurse was soooo sweet to me- she gave me her pager, her desk, and her cell numbers in case i have fears between now and then or after the surgery. and she gave me lots of hugs, which you all know is what i survive on, so that was good.

from there i went to get the mri on my shoulder. still don't have the results on that, but i should get them on monday.

then i went to have some blood work done. those results came back really good- apparently my cbc is higher now then when i started treatment, so, yay!

i've talked at length with a lot of different nurses and doctors involved in my surgery and they are all aware of my low blood pressure. they're not as concerned about it as i am. turns out it may be more of an issue of the size of the cuff they use to take my bp. when they take it with a smaller cuff, i have more normal readings. plus they're all pretty sure that my blood was diluted from all the fluids, so my bp probably wasn't as scary as it first seemed.

last night i went to my support group again. they are really a great group of women, and i'm really thankful that i was introduced to them. it's really helpful to talk to people that have been there. and being the most recent diagnosis in the group allows me to use all of their experiences to make my own decisions. very helpful.

as for today, i had a fabulous time at a playdate with friends this morning. only to bring izzy home and have her puke in her crib and wake up with a temp of 101.5. ugh. the pediatrician says it's too early to tell anything so we should keep an eye on her over the weekend and proceed from there. so, hopefully i won't catch anything that will push my surgery off.

tonight i'm going to dinner with a bunch of my friends from work. we typically have playdates each week in the summer, but we're going out without the kiddos tonight. should be fun :) i'm looking forward to an evening with grownups. though i did get one last night. and i had grown ups to talk to at my playdate today... i'm trying to squeeze it all in before surgery, though!

poor kj- he needs a night out in the worst way. he's also got a major cold going on that he's been fighting for over a week. poor guy.

onto the thank you's for the week :)

kate- thanks so much for dinner on tuesday! i could eat my weight in the bread you brought us, and the pasta was fabulous, too :) izzy loved it!

heidi- 2 meals! thanks so much :) we haven't eaten them yet, but i think the enchiladas are on the menu for tomorrow. and thanks so much for freezing the stuffed shells- then we can use them when we need them :)

lou- without you i wouldn't have been able to close my room. you are a machine. and i'm sad because i'm pretty sure you don't read this- but i'll be sending a note!

peggy and laurie- thanks so much for the cards. they were so nice to read :)

daddy- thanks for leaving work to watch symma yesterday for me. she had a blast!

we gave julie the week off again, because so many other meals came in- but she really wanted to cook for us, so thank you for that!

i hope you all have a wonderful weekend and father's day :) i'm going to try and be a normal person and give kj a break from his kids at some point. on sunday we're going to my dad's so he won't have to entertain them all by himself that afternoon, at least!

i promise, that at some point before surgery i will download new photos and put some on here for you. i have some great ones of symma encouraging izzy to discover wearing her black olives as rings instead of eating them :)

5 millimeters :)

2009-06-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

just a quick update from the mri: my tumor has shrunk "officially" from almost 3 cm to just 5 mm!!! now, everyone pull out your rulers and check it out :)

the flu

2009-06-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

by now, many of you know that i was in the hospital for part of the weekend. gotta love the stomach flu. basically i puked my guts out nonstop from 2:30am-7am friday "morning". i called my doctor as soon as they opened at 8am, and they sent me to the day hospital (where i get my chemo treatments). when i got there, my fabulous neighbor and her friend took charge. i was very dehydrated. like *very* dehydrated. they gave me more bags of fluid than i could keep track of. they also took a bunch of blood to get different counts and cultures. they kept taking my blood pressure, and it wasn't behaving. i typically have a pretty low bp (usually 97ish/55ish) but i was getting some really low readings. at one point when they had me stand up my bp was 60something over 30something. they couldn't figure out why it was so low, so they continued to hydrate me, and see what happened with my blood counts/cultures. basically they knew i was fighting an infection, they just didn't know where it was coming from. and because my bp didn't behave i ended up admitted overnight. i had a chest xray late friday night (came back negative) and was swabbed for swine flu on saturday morning (preliminary reports are negative- as are all of the blood cultures).

by saturday morning i was able to eat breakfast, and keep it in my stomach, but my bp was still a bit low. the doc decided that all of the fluids ma have diluted my blood causing the low bp. so in the end, i got 2 units of blood (although my bp had stabilized by this point) and sent me home about 6:30pm saturday evening.

my parents stepped in and took care of my girls (thank goodness!!) so they still got to have a fun weekend. izzy stayed with gma seeger, and symma went to the wedding in appleton. poor kj was so bummed- he wanted to take symma to her first wedding *so* bad, but he didn't want to leave me in the hospital by myself. i hope someone else gets married soon so i can make it up to him- he was really looking forward to it. and of course she had a blast and danced all night and made friends with all the kids, etc...

so that was my weekend. the week ahead is very busy... i have my last couple days of school and all of my pre-op appts, and there's a support group meeting on thursday, so that will be fun. i also am getting a massage from my friend lauren on tuesday! yay!

thanks to everyone for your good wishes :) i'm feeling much better now, and will hopefully stay this way. unfortunately, my poor mom has the flu now. which means that either izzy gave it to her, or my mom caught it somewhere else and now izzy's been exposed to it. keep your fingers crossed for me that i don't catch anything else!! i'm laying low today and trying to stay out of the way of germs till surgery. of course i will still be going to school, etc... so that won't work very well :) it's okay, though, my counts are on the way back up this week, and they gave me a bag of antibiotics every 12 hours when i was in the hospital, so i've gotta be pretty fortified, right? maybe you should cross your legs and arms, too ;)

wednesday

2009-06-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

my friend kate was told that she's in remission today!!!! yay!!! i'm so happy for her, and it's so good to know that this can/will all get so much better in the not SO distant future :) go kate!!!

another good thing- my report cards are done! yay!! it's a load off my mind. i still have a few more days to fill with teaching, but at least most of my deadline-y stuff is done. it's not all turned in, but it's done. so life is good :) and tomorrow afternoon is our school carnival, so that should be fun. half of the school goes out for an hour and a half, and then the rest come out. i get to take my group out at the same time as symma's class, so i'm hoping i'll get a chance to hang out with her a bit. there's going to be face painting, too, so that's always fun. or at least interesting...

izzy is apparently cutting more teeth. and has the diaper rash, drool, and tantrums to prove it. but she did discover that sucking on a big ol' triangle of watermelon feels as good as it tastes, so that made her happy for a short time at dinner. poor little pudding. and poor the rest of us. she's really miserable. it will be a motrin night for sure. good luck this weekend, mom :)

speaking of this weekend, kj, symma, and i are going to my cousin's wedding in appleton. this well be one of symma's first weddings (and possibly the first she'll really remember) so it should be fun. izzy's staying home with gma. the possibility of no nap, teething, 2 long car rides, etc... was too much for me to handle. i was going to try to leave both of them home, truth be told, but kj really wants symma there. and dad and jill and lindz and erik will be there to help entertain her, so now i'm looking forward to it :)

tomorrow is my mri. keep your fingers crossed for results before the weekend!! why do i always end up having these things on thursday's?? in any event- this is when they'll be getting their last measurements before surgery on my tumor, so we'll be able to find out exactly how much it has shrunk. maybe it will be completely gone. that would be awesome. but i'm still having surgery. i'm way to anxiety ridden to keep my boobs at this point. don't need 'em, don't want 'em, and can get better ones :)

surgery is 2 weeks from tomorrow. ugh. let's focus on better things- kate's in remission, and i only have 4 more days of students :) yay!!

monday

2009-06-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

good evening one and all :)

this will be short, because i am freaking tired... but i felt i should write :)

i had a good day yesterday- felt good all day! i went to pick n save in the morning- something i hadn't done in ages. i took gil with me to push the cart and do all the heavy lifting. it's good to have 2 husbands :) which translates to: thanks gil!! then i went to open house in the afternoon. for those readers that aren't seegers or daubs or their extensions- that's what we call our family reunions. they used to be every month... these days we have about 5/year. it was really good to see everyone.

we did a cookie bake-off to replace my late gma's famous chocolate chip cookies that she brought to every single open house for all of our lives. it was really nice- there were nine people brave enough to try (i ended up not being one of them even though i bought all the ingredients. it was, in fact, the sole reason for the aforementioned pns trip. then i lost my energy and was told to go rest.). they were all delicious, but in a hidden ballot (the cookies were all put into identical containers and given numbers) my gpa and uncle won!! so, apparently gma had her hand in picking the winners ;) someone said it was the oven... i'm positive it was the aura. standing there with the whole family, in my gma's house, with everyone laughing and eating cookies, i suddenly caught a glimpse of an awesome picture of my gma on the top of the tv. she was smiling her beautiful smile, and like a fool i started crying. but i miss her, so i guess that's my excuse. i often wonder what she would say to me, or be doing to try and make all of this go away. because i know that she would be doing everything she could. as is everyone else :)

here are a few new thank you's:

auntie kathryn bought me a beautiful plant that i'm going to try really hard not to kill :) thanks so much! it's really pretty :)

lindz and erik bought me an adorable little peace sign necklace as a "you're done with chemo" gift. so sweet, and i heart it muchly.

mrs. douglas sent me a really nice card and book via michelle- thank you! i look forward to reading it :)

shawon made me coffee at school today when i was running too late to make my chai- yum- she even sent down creamer so i could add my own :)

i have my mri on thursday, not sure if there will be any news before the weekend or not, but we'll keep our fingers crossed!

a bit of this and that

2009-06-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

hello everyone :)

my mom told me that i haven't blogged in awhile- sorry... this week there hasn't been much to talk about. i stayed home on monday, but felt pretty good (at least not as sick as i had expected). i went to the "look good, feel better" class in the afternoon. it was nice- i met a few more nice women that are too young to have cancer. 4 of the 5 of us there were under 40. one of the women was under 30! ugh. it's a really nice program- i got a whole lotta free make-up. all name brand- chanel, aveda, prescriptives, etc... and the woman giving the class was very kind. can't say i really learned anything new about putting on make-up (been to too many mary kay classes for that!) but it was really nice to sit with a bunch of other bald ladies and chat :)

i worked on tuesday and wednesday- not much exciting about that. i was pretty sick on wednesday, though, so i stayed home on thursday. then went back on friday.

on wednesday night i found a lump on izzy's wrist. when i woke up thursday morning all i could think about was the lump, and since i was home sick i decided to take her to the doctor. they were very nice- got me in before the "sick kid" time slots and put me right into a room so i wouldn't get exposed to very much (i've been avoiding the pediatrician because of all the crazy germs that are there. poor kj has been doing that duty and there is nothing he hates more than taking the girls to the doctor. luckily, they've been pretty healthy lately.) in any event, the good news is that the lump is actually a very common cyst. our ped could tell by looking/feeling it that it wasn't anything to worry about. she said that it should resolve itself. and it doesn't bother izzy at all, so that's good :)

my newest development is a sore on my esophagus. this is a fairly common side effect (at least no one at the doctor's office is surprised by it) of the chemo. they've been asking me all along about mouth sores, which i've been lucky enough to avoid, but this is pretty much an extension of that, i guess. your esophagus and intestines are lined with fast growing cells (the type the chemo kills) so they are often bothered by the chemo (hence the nausea). i've got a couple of different prescriptions to deal with this sore, so hopefully in the next day or so it won't feel like i'm swallowing over a shard of glass stuck in my throat anymore.

someone i love found a lump in her breast last week and i'm happy to say that she took it very seriously. she went right to the doctor, who sent her to get a mammo. after a couple of tense days of waiting, it has turned out exactly like it should for someone our age, and she's a-ok :) it is an irritated milk duct. so, ladies, get them checked- they don't always turn out bad, and the better you know your boobs the better chance you have of finding something that shouldn't be there! my sister also has finished all of her base line testing and has been given a clean bill of health. yay!!

now for thank-you's:

-this week kate brought us dinner on tuesday- yummy cous cous salad and bread :)

-i got a card from glen with an article about ginger and chemo/nausea- very sweet :) lots of you have mentioned that to me now, and i have tried it a couple of times this week- not sure if it's helping or not, but i'm trying it...

-julie brought us dinner on wednesday- amazingly delicious minestrone stew. sooo good!

-julie also brought us dinner from her friend kate- i've never met kate, but she's heard about me from julie and wanted to help. how amazing is that? we haven't eaten it yet, but i'm sure it will be yummy- i think perhaps tomorrow :)

-lisa brought us dinner on friday- cheese ravioli and brownies and salad. yum! loving it :)

dinners are so thoughtful and much appreciated. as i've said before, i really think that poor kj is getting the rawest deal in all of this. having a prepared dinner handed to him so that all he has to do is heat it up is wonderful. and everyone has been so nice researching vegetarian recipes for us. i don't think that anyone that has cooked for us (except erika) is a vegetarian, but everyone has been so thoughtful. so, thank you to all of you :)

so, all in all, i'm doing well. i have report cards due this week, and the start of my june appts. i sure hope i can keep them all straight :) i will do a better job this week of blogging... maybe some pics of my kids for entertainment's sake! thanks for all your good thoughts and warm fuzzies- i appreciate them!

thank goodness it's the last one

2009-06-01T06:47:00.000-07:00

...because if it wasn't i'm not sure how they'd get me back there. i was sooooo sick this weekend. and weak. i couldn't even talk on the phone. saturday was by far my worst day so far in this journey. as a matter of fact saturday topped my sickest day ever (finally beat out chicken pox when i was 15).

and to top it all off i had an adverse reaction to the compazine they gave me in my iv on saturday to try and help my nausea. not only did it not help my nausea at all, but it made me completely unable to be still. i couldn't sleep, read, watch tv, or futz on the computer. i was totally agitated and anxiety ridden, and could do nothing to stop it. it was fabulous.

yesterday i started to feel a bit better, but i was soooo weak. i couldn't hold a decent conversation- or even the phone up to my ear for very long. i couldn't hold my book to read. i couldn't hold my arms up high enough to type. so, obviously, today is a bit better :) i'm still home, but may go back tomorrow. i'll probably go back tomorrow. maybe.

this afternoon i have a class at the hospital called "look good feel better". they're going to teach me stuff about my hair hat, and putting on eyebrows and eyelashes and makeup and stuff. so i maybe won't look so sick. my eyelashes are almost all gone now, and my eyebrows seem to be going, too. ugh.

in any event, i don't have to go back for any chemo until some time in july. and that chemo is supposed to be "a walk in the park" compared to what i've done... so now i just have to recover until surgery :) i'm looking at it as 1/3 done. surgery will be 2/3. and the taxol will be the end.

i have loooots of thank you's to put out :

glen- thank you for the sweet letter and gift- it's much appreciated :)

moriah, kate, lou, and julie- thank you so much for the meals- they have been wonderful!

mom, dad, and jill- thank you for all of the babysitting!

peggy, sherry, melissa, and lori- thank you for the notes you have sent. i love getting mail :)

and all of you that have commented so i'm not writing to myself- thank you!! makes me feel good :)

here's to a better week- never thought i'd look forward to monday!

where'd it go?

2009-05-27T19:27:00.001-07:00

i got to have chemo today :) i was convinced that i was too sick and they were going to send me away and have to push everything back, but my counts were good! yay! so i had my *last* chemo in this round. i mean, i do have to go back on saturday for the rest of it, and then go for the neulasta shot on sunday, but after that, no more chemo till late july! yay!

the better news is that neither the resident, or the oncologist could find my tumor today!!!!! they literally could not find anything to measure :) it means the chemo combo they picked has certainly done it's job. i still have to have surgery and the scheduled chemo after to kick anything else out, but this is really good news :) and it means the chance of recurrence goes down, too. though no one can really give numbers on that. in any event, it's good :)

so here's my crazy june schedule: breast mri on the 11th, pre-op appt with cancer surgeon on the 15th, pre-op appt with plastic surgeon on the 18th, shoulder mri on the 18th (for what they assure me is unrelated pain), sentinel node procedure on the 24th, and surgery on the 25th. oh yeah, and i have to do final tests and report cards for my kids and close down my classroom by the 17th. that shouldn't be too hard ;)

yay for no more tumor! or at least nothing but a tiny tumor! i'm feeling much sunnier now. thank you all for sending your good vibes my way. hopefully they'll keep the pity party from returning :) and would you people comment for goodness sake???? i feel like i'm only writing to my mom, and peggy and mikaely- is anyone else out there???? not that i don't love you ladies, but i could update you just as easily in a little email :) and uncle lloyd- i love you :)

pity party

2009-05-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

so, it's almost midnight and i can't sleep. all i do lately is sleep, but tonight, i can't. and because i can't sleep, i'm throwing myself my own personal pity party. and izzy is joining in on occasion, which just keeps the cycle going. i just found out that i won't be able to lift my arms after surgery. for months. and not just because it will hurt, but because the muscles won't be able to do it. i'm going to need physical therapy.

how am i going to pick up my baby?? and hug my husband who is a foot taller than me? and i'm not going to be able to sleep on my side- for months. which means that kj won't be able to hold me so that i can fall asleep. for months. i'm going to have to reorganize my kitchen and my refrigerator. and my closet.

i'm not sure what sitting and crying about it is going to help. but that's what i've been doing. because that's something else i'm really good at lately. crying. like a dork. what good is it? all it does is pull out more eyelashes.

this whole situation gets more assinine as the days go by. not only is it cancer, but it's the most aggressive kind. oh and you need chemo- lots of it. more than normal people- let's do it twice a week. and lets have surgery a week after school gets out. surgery that will take 3 months to recover from. just in time to go back to school. and at some point in there, we'll restart chemo too. but that chemo isn't the bad one- it'll just make me tired. tired. cuz i'm not there, yet? i'm so tired that i can't play with my kids. i sit and do nothing- watch tv or futz on the computer. and then i take a 3 hour nap. and on the days i actually do stuff, i pay for it the next day.

i'm putting it out there. cancer sucks. and i know i have to think positively. and i know that it's all about attitude. but it sucks. and i'm tired. and i'm not going to be able to lift my babies, or hug my husband, or get cuddled at night for months. and for those reasons, i'm allowing myself a midnight pity party. i'll try harder tomorrow...

noodle

2009-05-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

omg. i just got back from an afternoon at the spa. i may never ask for another gift again. just spa gift certificates. for the rest of my life. i had a massage and a pedicure and i am now a giant noodle. it is marvelous. crazy ridiculous expensive, but wonderful nonetheless :)

also, i got my first dozen roses- and it wasn't from kj! one of my former students (now a fifth grader) showed up in my room friday morning with a bouquet of red roses for me. because she loves me and so does her mom. how sweet is that??? symma says we should buy them flowers now, cuz "you love her too, right mommy?"

my dad and jill have had symma since last night after dinner, and will have her till tomorrow afternoon and my mom has izzy overnight tonight. this means kj and i have a child free house until lunchtime tomorrow.

ahhhhhhh..... life is good.

let's just pretend i'm not having chemo on wednesday :)

nothing exciting

2009-05-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

i have to start with my thank you's from last week! i can't believe i forgot them... julie brought us pizza on wednesday night- yum! and erika made us dinner on friday- it was fabulous, and izzy couldn't get enough :) lindsay's bf vicki also made us dinner- it was frozen, so we were able to hang onto it a little longer. i think we're going to eat it on thursday, but i'm sure it will be wonderful! and my cousin amanda made us lasagna last week, or maybe 2 weeks ago now, and we all enjoyed it muchly. my mom and amy babysat in shifts for us so that we could go to the wedding on friday afternoon/night- yay! i think i got everyone... if not, i'll remember later and feel like a jerk, so if i forgot you, please consider yourself thanked :)

not too much is going on at the moment in the cancer dept. the nausea seems to have passed for the most part. but i'm still super tired. and i have weird pain in my joints that may or may not be from the neulasta shots. i'll check on it with the docs when i go next week for my chemo.

i have a cold starting, so i may take a day or so off from work this week so that i can rest and try not to get so sick that they'll have to push my chemo back. next wednesday is the last of this round, and i will be super mad if i have to delay it. that will mess with my surgery date and everything, too, so i really need to kick this cold before it gets out of hand.

the newest decision i have to make is whether or not to have a sentinel node biopsy on both sides. they will do one on the cancer side to see if it has spread, but the non-cancerous side is optional. i'm not really sure what the downside is... i know that if i don't have it done, and they find cancer on my healthy side they can no longer do a sentinel node biopsy, so they'd have to remove all of the nodes on that side. which isn't a good choice if you can avoid it. so i think i'll have it done, but i have to make sure there isn't some weird downside that i'm not aware of. i'll be putting that question out to the support group :)

and here's the craziest thing: some of you know that i was introduced to my support group through a friend of mine from high school. she was a year behind me in school, and when she heard about my diagnosis she got in touch with me and it turns out that she's a year ahead of me in the bc fight. i thought that was pretty crazy- having 2 of us diagnosed from the same high school/circle of friends in our early 30's. then i went back to support group last week and met kate. we ended up "friending" each other on facebook, and when she looked at my profile she saw where i graduated from. she graduated from hamilton a year ahead of me! so now there are 3 of us- all in our early 30's, all with different types of bc, in the same support group 10+ years later. maybe hamilton has bad water. kate, by the way, had no idea that shannon went to school with us. small world.

i was able to go for a little walk today with izzy which was really nice. i realized that this was the first walk i have taken with her. when symma was this age (or around this age at least) we would go for walks to the corner and back every day, but things are obviously a bit different now. plus she just started walking in december... in any event she is a hoot to try to walk with. she squats down and wants to look at every ant she sees crawling, and every flower, and every blade of grass. it took us quite a while to get to our destination- the giant lilac bushes that are about 3 blocks away. lilacs are my favorites and i've been wanting to get to the bushes so badly before the blooms are gone- they're in full afternoon sun, so these come early and leave early. i typically walk there every day in spring- obviously not this year. but izzy and i got there today :) she was very funny with the flowers- almost afraid of them. she definitely didn't like them touching her face, and didn't seem to get how to smell them. but she enjoyed the walk, and i enjoyed my flowers, and it was so nice to have some one-on-one time with her. and i managed to give both girls a bath before bed, so that's good too :) all in all a good day!

updates

2009-05-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

hello all :)

sorry i've been absent- i know you've all been eagerly awaiting the decision on my new boobs :) i've decided to go with a double mastectomy. when i went to support group last week *all* of the women there cemented my gut instinct. i knew i wanted them both gone from the moment that i was diagnosed, but the surgeons all were so positive about the health of my "healthy" side that i started to waver. in any event, all the women that have gone through it told me to get it done and not think twice about it. many of them started out with a single or lumpectomy and have since gone back to get the double done for various reasons. none of the reasons were recurrence, but it still makes sense to me to get rid of them both and start over from scratch. as for the DIEP vs. the implants, i'm still not completely sure. i'm leaning toward the implants since i have to start with them anyway. everyone in my family circle would prefer me to do less surgery than more, and i'm certainly not a glutton for punishment, so unless something goes really weird with the implants i think i'll stick with them.

as for our trip next summer, i'm leaning in the california direction. my aunt peggy and mikaely sure have good things to say, so it sounds good to me :)

i went to a wedding this weekend:) it was a lot of fun, and i managed to hang till 11 or so... not too bad, though i typically close weddings down! kj and i got to dance, and i got to dance with my gf's so all was good in meredith land.

i'm still fighting with nausea. this round seems to be hanging on longer than the others. it usually hits in the afternoon pretty hard. right around the time i'm done teaching. but, it could be a lot worse, so i'm trying not to feel sorry for myself.

here's some helpful information for everyone: when you're fighting cancer, you really don't want to hear every story of someone that had cancer. people seem to think that's helpful. except that all the stories seem to end with "and then she/he died". or they're still fighting it years later. i don't want to still be fighting it years later. i want this to be it. i want to go through this one terrible year, and then put it behind me. i don't want my kids to only know me as a sick mom. i don't want to sleep through their lives. i don't want to fight cancer for the next 15 years and then die anyway. and i'm tired of people telling me about who they know that has had cancer. cuz they're all dead. and i have enough of that evidence in my own family. since i was diagnosed i've lost my gma and my uncle. enough already. i understand that it kills people. i'm afraid it's going to kill me. i'm taking it seriously. i don't need to hear any more stories of people dying. even if they end with "but that won't happen to you- you're so much younger" or "you have such a good outlook, you'll be okay". if you want to tell me about someone that fought, and is still alive, and healthy, and not still fighting recurrences, great, i'd love to hear it. but for goodness sake, stop telling me about dead people. and this isn't going to anyone personally- i promise- just the world in general. like the lady in the supermarket that sees that i'm bald and feels the need to tell me all about her 10 year struggle with 3 different kinds of cancer. i don't need to hear it.

okay- enough yelling. yesterday my izzaboo had her first haircut. and i managed not to cry like crazy person, though i really wanted to. she was such a good girl!! she had watched kj and symma get theirs cut first, so i guess she knew what she was supposed to do :) she sat perfectly still and looked in the mirror the whole time. she now has a little bob like symma (who gave up on long hair and has her little bob back, too!). of course, since izzy won't keep a barrette in, she'll still be wearing her sprout. but the back is all one length now instead of mullet-y. both my girls look very cute. and kj was a good boy in the chair, too, and has a nice spring haircut to show off :)

my mom's bday is tomorrow- happy bday marme :) and my friend melissa (from support group) is having surgery tomorrow- i'll be thinking about you, honey- good luck!! it seems like spring might finally be here this week- i saw 70 degrees in the forecast more than once in the next week. we'll see! i know the lilacs are blooming, so that makes me happy :)

also, i'm annoyed that my pictures are loaded in backwards order. you understand that the cutting occurred before the cute "after" pics, though, right?? :)

surgery

2009-05-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

first off, don't forget to give us vacation suggestions in the post below :) i need something to look forward to! especially since i am going to be dealing with boob surgeries for the next year or so. ugh. it's crazy. you have no idea how many different ways there are to get boobs. and i have to decide by friday which way i'm going.

according to all of my doctors there is no clinical/statistical reason to have a double mastectomy. it will not lower my chances of recurrence or raise my chance of survival. that being said, they have all said that if i am going to have major anxiety about the "healthy" one for the rest of my life then i can have them both removed and move on.

let me try to condense the choices. this should be interesting. and if you're not interested in knowing the particulars of my new chest, this will probably not be the post for you ;)

choice a: single mastectomy with a tissue expander/implant. remove the cancerous side and begin reconstruction at the same time. they will take off the cancer and all breast tissue and replace it with a tissue expander. a tissue expander is basically an implant with a valve in it. every couple of weeks (after surgery) i'll go in and they'll add syringes of saline to the expander until i'm happy with the size. this "filling up" process takes awhile- up to 3 months, i think. then, after there has been some more time to "settle", i'll go back in for an outpatient procedure and have the expander swapped out for an implant of the proper size. the initial procedure is about 1-2 hours long. i'd stay in the hospital for about 2 days and then go home to recover for about 4 weeks. after 2-3 weeks my lifting limitations would lesson slightly...

choice b: single mastectomy with DIEP tissue replacement. in this procedure they wouldn't be using a saline implant, they would be using my own tissue. they would remove the cancerous breast first. then they would make a gigantic incision from hip bone to hip bone, and remove "tissue" (fat and muscle i believe) from my mommy pouch and make it into a boob. then they'd put that in. it's a 6-10 hour surgery. it's pretty much a tummy tuck/boob job in one. i'd be in the hospital for about 4-5 days and then go home to recover for about 6 weeks. again, the lifting restriction would lesson about 1/2 way through. *however*, my doctor will not give me a DIEP procedure until he know for sure that i won't be having radiation. which they won't know until i have surgery. so, if i want the DIEP done, then i have to go the tissue expander route first, then instead of the outpatient swap, i'd have the 6-10 hour surgery at that time and all the recovery that goes along with that. i can, if i choose to, wait till next summer to do that so that i can avoid using sick time.

if i choose to have a double mastectomy, choice a doesn't change much. they just remove both and add the expanders to both, and away we go. choice b, however becomes even more complicated, because (hold onto your hats folks) i apparently don't have enough fat in my big ol gut to make two boobs- so they'll have to get some from my thighs- adding a bit of a butt lift to the process. a double does add a couple of weeks to each of the recovery times, as well.

my plastic surgeon said to me when we first started talking "so i see you're a size 34 A. is that what you want to remain?" at which point i started laughing hysterically and asked him who in their right mind would say yes to that question??? especially since nursing has made "A" a farce as well. kind of like the weight on my driver's license- it's what i aspire to be on a good day... so, either way i go, i will also be having reconstruction on my healthy side. if i don't have a mastectomy on that side, though, and just reconstruct then there are different options, for that boob, but i don't really know what they are.

so you ask, why would i bother doing the DIEP? i'm not sure exactly... i know that using my own tissue is healthier and more natural looking, and in the long run should age better with my body. i also know that a tummy tuck sounds very nice to me. but i don't like the sound of the surgery and recovery. i feel like if i was single, and didn't have to worry about sick time, and taking care of my responsibilities at work and at home i would definitely do the DIEP. my plastic surgeon (though he did not say it out loud) seemed to prefer it to the implants. my cancer surgeon couldn't decide what she would do if she were in my place. i am totally overwhelmed. and they want to get me on the schedule for some time between june 23-26th so i have to decide by friday about the double vs. single part. as for the DIEP vs implants, i can kind of see how the implants look/feel and go from there (since the radiation thing will be in question until the final pathology reports come back a couple of weeks after my surgery- convenient, hey?).

downfall of the implant: they are apparently cold. like in winter. there's no blood vessels coursing through them, so when you get cold, your boobs get/stay cold for a while. as if i'm not cold enough already!! also, there's a 20-25% chance that i will have to have some sort of corrective procedure on the implants between now and when i die. they're less natural looking, but i think in clothes they're pretty similar.

and don't even get me started on nipple reconstruction and tattooing!! i'll save that for another post down the line. i'm not kidding- i'm in for a year of boob surgery. ugh. i have a support group meeting on thursday, and almost everyone there has had their surgery, so i'm hoping to get lots of good input from them. and feel free to let me know what you think :) or ask questions that i might be able to answer, or might not have thought to ask and need to ask now!

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

i'm home sick today. ugh. this round has hit me a bit harder than the other 2. yesterday was pretty bad. i'm not sure about today. i've been trying not to move too much. kj and the girls are at my sister's doing the mother's day thing with my family so that i can have the couch without guilt. i'm sitting and watching whatever tv i want and i don't have to feel bad about it. not the worst mother's day, i suppose. except i feel like crap.

after my sister's kj's taking the girls over to my dad and jill's to spend the night so that i can sleep tomorrow- they'll take them to school for me. thank goodness for that! one more day to recover before going back to work on tuesday.

i got some gorgeous flowers from my hubby and girls :) and kj got me a massage! symma made me butterfly wind chime at school- so cute! and kj made me breakfast in bed before he told the kids i was awake, so i got to eat it w/o them climbing all over me. he's a good man, i tell you :)

this morning i gave izzy a bath, and she was playing with her little ernie squirter. she was feeding him and hugging him, and i asked if it was her baby, and she answered me... it took me a few times before i realized it, but she was totally saying "baby" back at me. soooo cute! up till now she's only said "mama" and "dada", with the occasional "cracker" or "cookie" tossed in. but today she's said "baby" a whole buncha times :) pretty soon she's going to explode into sentences, and i'm not going to notice the new words anymore... so i'm enjoying this one today :)

last night kj promised me that when i'm better we'll go somewhere. so, now's the time to start planning :) where should we go? where have you all been that you would suggest? i'm definitely leaning toward somewhere sunny- i'll have to show off my new assets :) it will need to be fairly reasonable, and hopefully romantic. i'm guessing we won't go till next summer, so i'll have time to set up a savings plan. plus, i think we really want to take the girls to disney over spring break next year. symma's been wanting to go for a while now, and i think she'll deserve it after this year :) so, let's hear the suggestions people!! we've only been on one real vacation together- to hawaii on our honeymoon- which will be 10 years ago next summer. crazy! so, it'll be our 10 year anniversary/no more cancer trip... it has to be good :)

happy mother's day to all of you that have mother'ed me :) especially lately- my friends as well as my mom, and jill :) love you all!!

chemo day

2009-05-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

i had chemo #3 today, and all is well. my counts were much higher than last time, so the neulasta shot did it's job. i'll get my next dose of chemo on saturday, and then the next neulasta on monday. followed by my 1st meeting with the plastic surgeon. then on tuesday i meet with the cancer surgeon again. hopefully after all of that i'll have a surgery plan and possibly a surgery date in the calendar.

julie brought us dinner again tonight- yummy quesadillas :) she's so wonderful!!

i had an amazing day on sunday- missing bowling saturday sucked, but my sunday made up for it. i was able to change the sheets on the kids beds with symma, work in the garden for a bit, play outside with malachy and joel and julie, and then i took the girls to the playground all by myself while kj napped.

i must say i have a new found respect for kenny. he's been taking the girls to the park a lot on his own since i've been sick. and i did it all the time last summer. what i didn't realize was that when i did it, izzy was immobile. not so anymore. the child is fast. and fearless. she climbs everything she can, and slides down everything she can (even when she lands on her head). she goes across the bouncy bridge which symma didn't do until last year... it's crazy! i can't believe that he does this on almost a daily basis. you can't keep up with her. thank goodness i had symma there to spot her when i couldn't get to her :) i was able to do it, though, so it was an awesome day!!

i'm going to watch scrubs with my hubby now. more another day :)

team bon jovi rocked!!

2009-05-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

we had an awesome walk this morning- i had so many friends around me that i couldn't keep up with everyone. it was insane! i was very humbled by everyone coming out to walk for me... and overwhelmed. team bon jovi raised over $4,600 and i collected almost half of it. i cannot get over how generous everyone has been. some of the largest donations came from people that don't even know me. i really hope to be able to pay it forward some day- both in money and in spirit. it is my goal to remember how wonderful it is to feel so loved, and make someone else feel this way every day :)

it was a beautiful day today- windy, but sunny and springlike. yay! i managed to do the 2.5 mile version of the walk- i felt like i could do more, but thought after last weekend i had better behave. plus i was really hoping that if i did the shorter walk i'd be able to go bowling tonight. that didn't happen- i'm too tired, and i think i have a cold coming on. i decided it would be smarter to stay home and out of all the smoke and extra germs. i'm really bummed about my body not following what my mind/heart wants to do. it's very frustrating...

izzy is still fighting a cold and her fever is back, but the doctor said it's nothing that we need to worry too much about. keep an eye on her and give her tylenol... i feel so bad for her- every time she tries to sleep the coughing takes over. she's very cuddly in the middle of the night, but since she's a little germ factory right now i cuddle back with a bit of fear. i really don't want to end up having to push my chemo back again this week. but how can i turn my baby down when she wants a nuzzle? she wraps her little bitty arm around my neck and buries her face in my neck, and i almost forget about her snot and drool... and of course symma will be next and the cycle will start over. and then there's swine flu. they're talking about closing our whole district! crazy. but a few days off would be nice :)

again, thank you so much for all of your support and generosity with the big walk. i can't wait to do the whole 5 miles next year- with curly hair and a new chest :)

more on the walk

2009-05-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

hello :) all is well here, though i'm so tired i can hardly handle it. i actually cried leaving school the other afternoon because i was so tired and i still had to face my kids, and dinner, and bedtime, etc... i keep telling myself that tired is not sick, and trying to push through it, but i'm not succeeding all that well. oh well.

i got a call from daycare today that izzy had to be picked up. she has a fever and a cough, and with the swine flu thing going on she has to go to the doctor. when i called her pediatrician they decided it would be safer to bring her in and get her checked than worry all weekend. not that i think she's been exposed to swine flu, but there is strep in her center, and with my immune system being low we don't want to take unnecessary chances. so kj gets to take the girls to the doctor this afternoon. fun for him.

tonight kj is going to an indoor football game with some of the guys. i'm so glad he's getting out of the house for awhile! and while he's gone amy and i will be making up some fancy shirts for the walk tomorrow... i'm very excited to see kj in pink ;)

julie brought us dinner again this week. Yum! she made us chili and it was delicious. could my friends be any nicer?

my friend andrea made some very pretty pink bracelets that will be for sale at the walk tomorrow. they are $10 each and all proceeds will go towards the Cancer Society, so bring your money tomorrow :) they are really pretty (as you can see for yourself in the picture)!! she's so sweet. she gave me one, too, so i'll be wearing one and you know you all want to be in the cool group with me!

the donations have continued to roll in- thank you all so much!! i can't believe how generous everyone is. and hopefully the research we help fund will end the need for walks like this in the future :)

i'll have my camera at the walk tomorrow and will post pics for you all soon :)

top 10!!!

2009-04-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow!!! i thought it was really freaking awesome that our team was in 4th place in the city... however, it just got even cooler! i just happened to see *my* name in the top 10 list individual donation getters :) how wonderful are all of you??? i had some *very* generous donations that helped get me there, so thanks go out especially to gil, dad and jill, uncle tom, and todd- you guys make up nearly half of my donations. i *really* appreciate it!!

i really cannot get over how tired i am. and i feel very guilty because the energy i do have tends to last until about 4pm- which means all of my energy is expended on my kids at school, rather than my family at home. blurg. i feel so fortunate to be able to be working throughout my treatment. it's the only way we can keep our insurance, and we certainly need to keep both of our incomes, so i don't want to stay home. not to mention the fact that i really do love my job, and my students. and my whole goal with all of this is for my students to understand that cancer isn't a death sentence, and it doesn't have to be scary. i just feel like kj and the girls are really getting the worst of this whole cancer thing. especially since i'm not really *sick*. if i were puking my guts out i would feel much less guilty. instead i'm just tired and queasy and not really sick enough to warrant being a cruddy mom. now, i am not looking for a bunch of comments about what a great mom i am or any other such hooey. i'm just putting it out there that cancer is *way* harder on the family than the patient. at least this kind of cancer. i'm sure brain cancer, or a cancer that hurts, is a different story.

on the positive side, i cannot even find my own tumor anymore. i can't wait till i go to the oncologist again to get it measured- that's not until the 6th, though, so i have to be patient. i'm hoping at that point to also get some more info about surgery options- from the oncologist's point of view rather than the surgeon's. and i meet with the plastic surgeon on the 11th so i'll know more about my surgery at that time, i guess...

i really, really, really want a string of warm weather. like a whole week of 70 degrees. so i could wear sandals and capris instead of sweaters and jeans. which is odd because my favorite outfits in the world are my jeans and sweaters. but i'd really like to be warm. gotta love milwaukee :)

thanks again for all of your generous donations. i can't wait to see how it all ends up- there's still 4 days left :) i hope i stay in the top 10! and the forecast is for sun and 50 plus degrees, which is really good! yay!

tired, tired, tired

2009-04-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

i learned this weekend that i can't quite behave like i used to. i spent all day saturday doing "something". nothing was especially taxing; a memorial service in the morning, old navy for the kids summer clothes in the afternoon, dinner with my dad and jill, and then bowling at night. i knew i shouldn't go bowling. but, alas, i went anyway, and boy did i pay for it yesterday. i was sooooo tired and queasy all day that i pretty much couldn't move from my spot on the couch. much facebooking was done, much television was watched, some work was done, but there was no movement. ugh. today, i am still so tired i could cry.

do to the exhaustion, i can come up with nothing witty to say. so instead, i'll be throwing out some thank you's: thanks to all of you that have continued to donate to my walk :) the walk is on saturday, so if you haven't donated, or joined yet, you still have time (the link is on the right side of the page). i have made it half way to my personal goal. the team, as a whole, is in 4th place!! the last time i checked we had raised over $2000.00. there have been some *very* generous donations made from people that my mom works with that don't even know me- it's quite amazing... my friends at work have been great, too- there's at least 5 of us walking from neeskara, and extra donations beyond that. not to mention all of the other friends and family that have donated either to the team or to myself. you guys are all fabulous- and i still have 5 days left to reach my goal :) yay!

we have had more dinners brought to us. it's so sweet- everyone is looking up vegetarian recipes, and being so nice. it's been really helpful for kj especially, since it means a night of not having to do dishes :) thanks so much to all of you that have brought meals: mrs. frank, aunt mary, julie, jill- love you!!

i continue to get cards in the mail from people that are just thinking of me- and i love it. it's so nice to get nice mail :) and to know that so many people are pulling for me. without all of your support, i know i wouldn't be doing as well as i am... so thank you to all of you that are reading this- because if you didn't care, you wouldn't be checking in :)

hopefully i'll be feeling more witty tomorrow- right now i need to go home and go to bed. except i have a bunch of work to do. ugh.

advanced directive

2009-04-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

here's a fun way to spend an hour... i had my "advanced directive" done today. yepper- all set for something terrible to happen to me. i'm all about prepare for the worst, and then it won't happen :) for those of you that are curious, here's how it came about...

at some point in the early part of my diagnosis/dr's appts, someone asked me if i had an advanced directive that i wanted on file. i gave them a blank stare. huh? they said, "oh, then you probably don't have one. you may want to look into it." i promptly filed that information somewhere behind the "holy crap i have cancer" file in my brain. a week or so later my investment guy was in my school lounge (convenient, right? that's why he's my investment guy. i'm very picky.). he is also my life insurance guy, so the files in my head shifted around a bit, and since i have no money to talk about investing at the moment, "advanced directive" came popping to the forefront. i asked him what it was. he said he had never heard of it, but figured it had something to do with a will. he said he'd look into it for me.

a few days later he called and said that he hadn't found anything yet, but that he was still pretty sure it had to do with a will. i filed it back in that file in my brain. you know, the one behind "holy crap i have cancer".

i got a call from bob over break though. he's such a good guy. he was walking through his lobby at work and saw a sign at vitas advertising an "advanced directive clinic". he went in and talked to them and found out all about it and told them about me, blah, blah, blah. then he called me with all the info. such a nice guy. unfortunately, the thing was the very next day, and i had just had chemo and no sitter, etc... but i called the lady he talked to.

she said i didn't have to come in during the clinic to get it for free, and i made an appt, and went in tonight. they were totally nice, and very helpful, and so glad that i had come in. and it was free- not the couple hundred that bob figured a lawyer would charge me. sweet! now i don't have to worry about being on the news with a bad haircut, and a tube in my mouth, drooling, while my family argues about whether or not to take out my feeding tube. yay! it was fast and easy, and free, and you should all do it.

let's review: you should all a) check your boobies, b) get cancer insurance, and c) set up your advanced directive so your husband doesn't turn you off cuz you're a bitch, and your mom can't keep you alive when your a drooling doorknob because you're her baby. go on now- get started :) i mean it! and for those boys that are reading this, you don't have boobies, so you should go get your prostate checked. i'm equal opportunity here.

also- it's going to be warm tomorrow! yay! let's all take a walk- maybe hold hands, and sing a song, too. i love spring :) i'm wearing capris, and sandles tomorrow. even if it's 34 degrees when i leave for work! have a good friday- tgif :)

hat

2009-04-21T16:53:00.001-07:00

this is one of my favorite hats. i enjoy it muchly :) jenna's mom is so wonderful that she took the two hats i bought and re-did the back of them so that they fit my freakishly small head perfectly. she's awesome!!

bald=cold

2009-04-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

omgness, i am so tired. i told kj that i'm pretty sure my bones are asleep. but i don't want to take a nap because i've been having a really hard time falling asleep the last few nights. even with the meds they give me to help me sleep, it's taking an hour of laying in bed watching the clock before i can finally fall asleep. so my plan tonight is to stay awake until i get the kids in bed, and then crash. we'll see if that works or not.

izzy's new favorite game is to steal my hat/scarf and rub my head. then she typically puts it on her own head and lafs and lafs... one of these times we'll have the camera handy and you'll get to see a really happy baby :)

symma has started to dig on the bald head, too. she keeps trying to get me to hang out w/o anything on my head. the big egg kind of freaks poor kj out, though, so i try to keep it under wraps.

here's a question: How do bald men survive without constantly wearing a hat to stay warm??? if i were a bald man- and since i'm a bald woman i can say this with certainty, i would wear a sleeping cap. i am currently sleeping in a winter hat with a gigantic peace sign on it from gil. it keeps my bald head from freezing off in the night. and i obviously always have a scarf or hat on it during the day. i think bald men should be able to stay warm if they want to- hats for everyone- all the time. it's time we get over the whole "disrespectful in the house/building" idea and let them be warm :) and then there's the guys that shave their heads on purpose- don't they know how cold they'll be??? i talked to one of my bald boys at school today, and he just made fun of me. seriously. my head is cold. i mean it.

my mom is whooping my butt in the pledge department for our walk. it's a bit embarrassing! i put out my page at work today, though, so i'm hoping to catch up- look out lady, i'm on my way!! missy sent out an email today that said Team Bon Jovi is in 12th place already, and only a few dollars away from being in the top 10!! how awesome is that?? lotsa moola for research to fight this asinine disease. yay! i'm so glad that missy decided to start a team- and that my chemo schedule got pushed back a bit so i'll be healthy enough to walk in it :) my friend jenna added a link to her blog, too, so we're in great shape! thanks to all of you who have continued to donate and join our team :) i can't wait to see you all there!

i'm going to try to take some pics today with the camera on the laptop... we'll see if it works. if it does, you'll get a look at my favorite hat. if it doesn't work, too bad for you, i guess ;)

cancer insurance

2009-04-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

i've got no news to share today... i'm still feeling pretty good. i ran a bunch of errands yesterday with kj and the girls, and worked a couple of hours today on stuff for school tomorrow. i can't believe spring break is over already!

i wore my hair hat/wig to church this morning, and no one looked at me like a crazy person. i actually got complimented on my "new haircut". symma laughed, and stage whispered "she said she likes your haircut, but really it's a wig, momma." thanks symma- you're the best. i must admit it wasn't nearly as annoying now that i shaved all my stubble off. my head's smooth as amy pohler's baby's now... if you haven't seen his picture, you should- he's cute. he's got a giant bald head :)

here's my psa for the day: there's something out there called cancer insurance. apparently you can get it through aflac. a woman in the support group said she had it at the time that she was diagnosed, and they paid her on the days that she was in the hospital, and for tests and stuff. she made fun of her hubby when he added it to their policy, but said it was the best thing he could have done. i'm planning to look into it. i obviously wouldn't qualify, but kj and the girls would, and as i've learned, you just never know. so, consider looking into it. if you don't have good insurance, cancer will break you. the tests to diagnose you and decide on a treatment path alone are 10's of thousands of dollars. and then chemo. and surgery. and radiation. and therapy. and everything else. so check into at work and if you can't get it through work, call aflac. i'm sure they'd love to have you :) thankfully i have really good insurance, and as long as i can keep working, it will keep covering me!

i'd like to sign off with a big thank you to dan and tanya, and charlie and diane :) they all donated generously to my walk- you guys are awesome- thanks so much!! and deyana and her family joined our team, which is also fabulous!! i've added a link to our team page to the side bar, so if you want to join/donate, you can find it there :) let's hope for good weather...

bald showers

2009-04-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

i discovered the most amazing thing last night... i can now stand in an extremely hot shower with water beating on my head for as long as i want to, and my hair will never get all nasty and snarly!! i *love* hot showers. really hot showers. and as far as i'm concerned, snarly hair is the only downfall to a looooong hot shower. for some reason, it has taken me two weeks of baldness to realize that my hair will not get nasty if i stand under the water for like, 3 days. and if it dries out my head, i can just slather lotion on. how fabulous is that???? love it. may stay bald for life.

last night i went to a support group for bc survivors. i was the only one there that was still in chemo, but there were a couple of other woman that have finished chemo and are getting radiation, and then a few that are "on the other side". it was nice to talk to other people with the same issues. i look forward to talking to them again next month when i'll be closer to making surgery decisions. the best thing is that i finally met someone else who is triple negative :) it's good to not be the only one! and she's big into research, and has found some vaccine trials going on. i don't know much about it, but will be very interested to read about what's coming up for us!

today i woke up feeling like a real person :) it was wonderful. i called missy and we took the kiddos to the park- yes- i took the girls to the park! symma wanted me to take them on the bike, but i told her that was still way out of my league. so we drove, but we played, and climbed, and rode the slides, and had a blast. yay!! then misty met us at the park, and we went to noodles for lunch and ate *outside*!! i'm so glad that the stars aligned, and i felt healthy on a *nice* day! i've been on spring break all week, and this is the first "fun" day i've had. oh well, there's always next year! and i did get to go to julie's for a playdate yesterday which was awesome, so it certainly hasn't been all bad.

here's the question of the day- last night, all the ladies at the support group have dumped *all* of their plastic containers/plates/cups/etc... thoughts? comments? suggestions? i'm thinking about buying stock in pyrex containers and dumping all of the plastic... but what shall i do about sippy cups? i can't see izzy using a glass, yet...

here's to another good day in the neighborhood tomorrow :)

2009-04-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

here are the wig pics... i know you've all been waiting for them :) these pics don't make it look nearly as bad as it feels. it's really itchy. we'll see how much wear it gets in the next months. i must say, the weirdest part about it is that everyone that knows me, knows it's a wig... so i kind of feel like there's no point. the only time i can really see wearing it is if i'm going to be around a bunch of people that don't know i have cancer. then maybe it won't feel so odd. but i just feel like i'm wearing a really dumb hat. the scarves/hats are much more comfy. but, it's here if i need it, so that's good :)

i've been pretty out of it for the past couple of days- lots of sleeping and nausea. but i'm feeling a bit better today. yesterday amy came over and took my kids for a few hours so i could rest and then i went to get the neulasta shot that helps my white blood cells grow so my counts don't drop so low this time. so far i haven't had any side effects from that, so that's nice :)

today i took the kids for a walk around the block. you wanna see a mad toddler? put her in a hat with a strap *and* a harness. she was soooo mad that i ended up carrying her around the block. not the best choice. i was so tired when i got home i thought i might pass out for a minute. but i called my sister, ate a handful of soynuts, and drank a glass of water. by the time lindz was on her way i was feeling a bit more human. i was able to make the girls their lunches and feed them (for the most part) by the time she got here, and then i crashed for a couple of hours. when i woke up, i continued to rest by reading some more of new dawn. i'm almost done with it already... man those are some good books :)

as i mentioned in a previous post, missy started a team for a breast cancer walk in may which i think is so awesome. she's really pumped and has gotten lots of donations at work and on her site. yay! i'll be walking- i should be feeling pretty good that day- and so will kj and the girls. we'd love to have you with us. if you walk with us, it's really easy to start your own page to get donations. or you can just walk to support us :) here is the link to our team, if you'd like to join... and here is the link to my fundraising page.

2009-04-13T15:43:00.001-07:00

hope you all had a nice easter :) i managed to get to both of our scheduled appearances, and only slept through one of them... a success! my girls stayed over at my mom's last night and all day today which was very helpful. unfortunately my mom has the flu now. ugh. i feel like crap today.

i went to get my second dose in round 2 today. i felt so awful that i they gave me some fluids to help perk me up. i ended up there from 12:30-3:30pm. not quite the way i thought i'd spend my whole afternoon, but i did feel a bit better when i left. i'm not feeling so great right now, though. hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

i have pictures of me in the wig, now, but i'm having trouble getting them on here... my mac skills are not up to my pc skills, yet. but i'll get it sooner or later- i promise!

2009-04-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

i had my 2nd round of chemo today :) yay! 2 down, 2 to go... my stomach is bothering me, so i'm afraid i may have a touch of izzy's flu, which will only make my next few days even more entertaining, i'm sure.

my dad is taking the girls tomorrow, and my sister is coming over to teach me how to use her laptop, so i will get new pics up tomorrow...

i have to say, i have amazing friends and family. my mom took off of work on wednesday to hang out with my puking/pooping daughter. amy watched the poop monster yesterday. my sister and erik watched both girls today while i was at the hospital. what was supposed to go from 9:30am till around 1pm, ended up going till after 3pm. and none of them complained. they all got pooped on, and gave baths, and played and fed the kids, and no one complained about my messy house. they're unbelievable, and i love them all for it.

my wonderful friend julie made us dinner again on wednesday night- taco salad :) yum! and she and her little one made me bday cookies which the entire family has been enjoying. julie has said she's going to make us dinner every wednesday night while i go through this, and while i certainly won't hold her to it, it sure has been nice. it's one night kj doesn't have to come up with a plan and wash a bajillion dishes. and julie's a good cook, so it's yummy :)

my uncle tom sent me an amazing bouquet of flowers. pictures of that will come tomorrow, too. i've never had flowers delivered to me before (and i was sleeping when the last bouquet came) so i was quite tickled :) and they're gorgeous!

my aunt laurie and uncle larry sent me an amazingly generous check. i'm still working on processing that one... i can't even fathom how much everyone wants to help us. and i don't even know what else i can say about it. except thank you so very, very much- it will be a huge help. and the rest of you should keep your wallets closed!! this is a thank you to them- not a telethon announcement:)

one of my best friends, missy, has started a team in my honor to walk in the breast cancer walk on may 2nd on our lakefront. she has named her team Team Bon Jovi. HA!! this is why i love her :) i will post a link to her site as soon as i figure out how...

so to all of you out there, i love you and i appreciate you, and you are wonderful :) thank you!!

2009-04-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

ugh. i didn't get to have chemo yesterday, because my blood count was too low. so, i'm going back in for labs again tomorrow, and if the numbers are up i'll be able to have it then. we'll see!

good news, though- my brca test came back negative :) that means that i don't have the genetic mutation that would raise my girls' and lindsay's and my mom's risk to somewhere between 50-80%!! it also means that all of our risk of ovarian cancer remains at that of a "typical" person. for me, it means i don't have to have a double mastectomy and hysterectomy. i *can* do the double mastectomy if i choose to, but i don't have to.

the other good news that i got yesterday is that my tumor has started to shrink!! yay!! my oncologist originally measured it (by hand- which is different then when they use mri, etc) at 4cmx4cm. yesterday he measured it as 2.5cmx3cm!! kj and i thought that if felt smaller, but were afraid it was wishful thinking... now we know the chemo's working- and after only one treatment! dr. charlson said that that doesn't always happen so i should be very happy.

i also picked up my wig yesterday. good gravy. i look like a freaking tootsie pop with it on. amy came with me- i should have her post about the experience- she would be a bit more positive, perhaps. she says it looks good, but i think she's crazy. i bought it because my insurance covers it, and i can wear it if i "need" to, but i don't think most of you will be seeing it live and in color. i'll post pics this weekend, though, i promise. it's reedonkulous. for now, just picture a giant guinea pig (about the color of my samuel for those of you that knew him) perched on top of my head. possibly squirming to be set free...

izzy still has the stomach flu. only it has moved down her digestive track. she's exploded on poor amy twice today already. it's good to have friends that love me enough to use a vacation day to let my baby poop on them. my mom got some of it yesterday, too. lucky ducks. i'm trying to stay away from the cannon in hopes of not catching it myself and making my counts go even lower.

so, hopefully i'll have chemo tomorrow. hopefully my sister will do a photo shoot of me with my wig and some of my hats and scarves. i love kj, but the man can't take a picture of me to save himself. i'm not sure why, but i always end up with 3 chins when he takes them. perhaps it has to do with his height. or my vanity... not sure which. in any event, keep watching, you never know when the guinea pig pictures will appear :)

2009-04-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

when i walked in the house from work tonight my cell phone was ringing. i missed it. but it was kj, so i called him back. and found out that izzy had puked *all* over herself and the carseat, and he was stuck in traffic. both izzy and symma were crying, and symma was curled up in a ball in her seat as far away from izzy as she could get. he told me he needed "some things. i don't know what things, but i need some things." poor guy. so i met him at the door with wet paper towels and plastic bags, got symma watching a show, and gave izzy a bath while kj cleaned up the car/clothes, etc... then she puked again during dinner, so i guess she's sick. great. poor kj- i have chemo tomorrow, and izzy has a stomach bug. please cross your fingers that symma doesn't get it. and that kj and i don't get it. ugh.

other than that, all is well today :) my favorite things about today:

1. jenna and michelle got me a massage for my bday- along with a pink tank top and a gigantic hello kitty card. love them :) it's good to have good friends!!
2. magan told me i have "spunk in my trunk". it made me laugh. really hard. so, thanks magan!

for all of you that were having trouble posting comments, jenna changed the format (or something like that) so you shouldn't have any troubles, now :)

tomorrow's a chemo day. if it goes like last time, i'll feel pretty good till saturday when i'll start the great sleep-in till monday, then feel like crap and then start feeling better around tuesday or so... i'll try to keep posting- lindz is bringing a laptop over for me to use on friday, so i can play on the net while in bed. she rocks :) i may go try on the wig on thursday- keep watching for those pics!

2009-04-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

i wore a hat to work today. my kids didn't dig on it too much. they all want me to get a wig. we'll see how that goes. here was the best part of my day. sitting at the guided reading table working with 3 of my kids, one of my girls tells me i have a hair in my ear. so i try to wipe it away. here's how it went:

me: did i get it?
her: no.
me: now?
her: no.
me: how bout now?
her: not yet.
me: is it *still* there?
her: let me get it for you.

and that's when i just had to laugh and hug her. cuz my kids- yes my students- are picking hair out of my ears. that's what i have come to... and then one of the boys climbed across the table to clear out my other ear. so i must be doing something right, right?

here's a question i have... people keep telling me how brave i am. what exactly is the other option? i've never heard of or seen anyone do anything but what i'm doing. you keep on keeping on... but please don't think that i'm not a little bit terrified at all times... that i'm not looking at my girls and wondering if they'll remember me... but that's only a little bit. just please don't put me on too high of a pedestal with all this bravery stuff, because i promise you- i cry, and i worry, and don't feel too brave a lot of the time.

but, i had a good day- and i gave both my girls a bath. and izzy tinkled in the water and then tried to drink it, and then she learned how to scoop water and pour it on her head, so life goes on, and i get to forget i'm sick for awhile, and it's wonderful :) and tomorrow's another day...

2009-04-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

i am sooooooo tired. i had a fabulous bday weekend, and now i'm going to crash on the couch with my hubby for a bit before going to bed. thanks for all the happy bday wishes :)

lindz and erik made us a yummy dinner- fajitas and all the extras that go along with that... and then lindz made pumpkin/choc. chip muffins for dessert. yum! and i got lotsa good presents and cash to spend. yay!

i'm not looking forward to another work week, but at least it's only 4 days till break. unfortunately i get chemo again on wednesday, so i'll be sick for a chunk of my off time, but that's okay- at least i won't have to use sick time :)

2009-04-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

so i made it awake long enough to go bowling last night :) yay!! kj and i also went out to dinner for my bday which was fabulous. we went to that's amore... love it! i actually stepped out of my box and didn't have angel hair and plain sauce- believe it or not! it was so good to be out amongst people- i'm glad i was able to nap during the day so that i could do it. and today, i get to go to my sister's house and have bday dinner and cupcakes. yum!! and of course there will be presents. because i am a whore for presents. presents make me very happy. gil got me a bunch of presents already- he got me 2 new cd's, and season 1 of 30 rock, and a peace t-shirt, and a super obnoxious and awesome peace hat. of course my freakishly small head is too small, so michelle and jenna are going to get hit up for some sewing help come monday ;) aren't you guys glad you're stuck with me?

this morning kj and the girls brought me breakfast in bed- bagels and a gigantic chai. which symma was very careful to report had "no foam". which is just how i always order it :) i also introduced her to the birthday "rule" that if she's mean or sassy to someone on their birthday it means less presents for her on *her* bday. we'll see if that holds an weight or not as the day goes on... i'm not holding my breath!

kj took the girls to church, and i'm supposed to be doing my taxes right now. i don't wanna. but in the middle of the night it hit me that if it's my bday, then that means taxes are due in 10 days. sucks to be me. the good news is that izzy was born in january, so we get an extra deduction this year :) ugh. wish me luck...

2009-04-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

i got my head shaved yesterday :) it doesn't actually look too bad! my friend jen shaved it, and amy came along with me. then amy and i went to small stones (the cancer store) and looked at scarves and hats. i bought a couple of super cute hats, and have about 5 scarves now, so i think i'm set for the time being. my wig won't be in till tuesday, but i'm not sure i want one now that i see my head. feel free to chime in on whether you think i should wear one, or not :)

after my afternoon of baldness, i went to my grandparents to celebrate my birthday with my dad's side of the family. they made me yummy mac n cheese and bday cake. and they got me a jewelery chest, which i have wanted for years!! so sweet :) and it's beautiful and matches our bedroom furniture. i'm very excited to move my stuff into it...

2009-04-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

hoping to shave my head tonight. it actually hurts to have your hair fall out. it's odd- like you can feel them breaking free from the follicle or something. so i have a headache and i want them all gone now. plus, i'm shedding worse than a black lab in summer. you should see the shower. ugh. gross. so, i'm stalking down my stylist in hopes of getting shaved. if not today, then my boss said i can leave work early tomorrow to take care of it :)

2009-03-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

there's my new haircut... i figured out how to put in a picture- watch out, now you're all in trouble!! you'll be inundated with pictures of my kids, and my bald head, and whatever else i see fit to publish :)

2009-03-31T17:42:00.001-07:00

hello all :)

there is really nothing to report, but i figured i'd check in anyway so you don't think i'm sick or something! i'm *really* tired when i get home from school each day, so i'm not making any phone calls. sorry- this is supposed to be my "good" week, but with report cards due, there's a lot of added stress at work, and i'm just wrung out by the time i get home and have dinner.

i'm starting to lose my hair. not in chunks or anything, but if i tug at it, some comes out. so of course i'm tugging at it all the time to see if more is coming out now, than 10 minutes ago or not. in any event, so far, i've got hair, and i'm officially on day 14 now. which is the day it is "falls out like clockwork" so i guess in the next few days it will probably get worse. i better get a pic of my cute haircut on here before it's gone :)

my birthday is sunday, and i have quite the busy weekend planned... my dad and jill are having us over for dinner on friday night, i have bowling on saturday night (and plan to make my hubby take me out for mexican), and my sister is having us all over on sunday. yay birthday!! i'll be sleepy, but happy, i'm sure :) and by this time next year, i'll be in remission and my hair will be 3 inches long. sort of like it is now, i guess.

i think that's all the news that's fit to print. though earlier today i thought of something funny that i meant to blog, and now i can't remember it. darn it. oh well- if it comes to me, i'll tell you tomorrow :)

2009-03-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

so there will not be any photos of wig shopping. it was not the laugh fest that i had envisioned. as soon as the first one was attempted to be put on my head i lost it. it wasn't pretty. walking into a room full of styrofoam heads filled with what could be my next hair was awful. to be honest, they all looked like some former animal perched on a head. and then i had to pick some that i though might look good. i wanted to die. my poor mom and sister probably had none of these feelings looking at the heads. and i'm sure none of you would have either. but i swear that a couple of them were made out of my late guinea pigs. that's totally what it looked like to me. a bunch of guinea pigs resting on styrofoam heads. some were the short hair variety and some the long, but they could all pass for guineas.

then they put a freaking knee high on my head. a black one at that. and then tried to make a wig small enough to fit my freakishly small head. the employees were very nice, and walked away when i cried, and came back later to help me, but it was awful. what i do know: i should never, ever be blonde. most of the wigs i tried on "for style only- ignore the color" were blonde, and looked awful. also, the grey wig fit my coloring better than the blonde. not sure what to do with that information. cry, or be thankful that maybe i won't *have* to dye my hair for the rest of my life. i did eventually get over myself enough to try on a multitude of wigs and have actual conversations about the pros and cons, etc... my mom and lindz were wonderful, and i didn't have to feel like too big of a jerk.

i ended up ordering a wig that they didn't have there for me to try on. i'm a bit nervous about that, but i'm sure it will be fine. and if it's not i don't have to buy it. and because my family is so amazing, if my insurance doesn't cover it my mom, grandpa and uncle are paying for it. i just really hope it doesn't look like a guinea pig on my head...

2009-03-28T04:56:00.000-07:00

i went to sleep last night at 7pm... can you say *tired*?? i was in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, and didn't even bother to change out of them until sometime after 11. which is when symma was crying so i went downstairs and found her on the floor outside izzy's room crying "i don't wanna" over and over. i carried her back to bed, and she cuddled right in as if nothing happened. i really hope the sleepwalking ends before she moves out of the house :)

i'm going wig shopping today with mom and lindz. this should prove to be entertaining. i think i'm going to bring the camera along to share all of the fabulous looks with all of you :) blue haired old lady? goldilocks curls? pink hannah montana wig? we'll just have to wait and see!! the good news is that so far my hair hasn't started falling out, so i feel like this is a proactive move instead of a reactive move.

i'm also supposed to go bowling tonight. though if last night is any indication i won't be able to stay up late enough. perhaps a midafternoon nap will help a bit...

my bloodwork all came back normal- for someone with cancer, receiving chemo. the expected drops in numbers were there, but nothing alarming, and i don't need to get the shot to boost them, so that makes me happy.

2009-03-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

another good day :) the newest acquisition is a terrible taste in my mouth at alllllll times. it's nasty. so i keep eating things to make it go away, but it only lasts while the food is in my mouth, so i'm just going to get fat. on a better note, i can eat chocolate again. hurray! maybe i'll try chai again tomorrow... we'll see if i'm brave enough or not- after monday's multi-orifice explosion, i'm not sure i'm brave enough. seriously. couldn't drink chai in either of my first trimesters, and now i can't with chemo. this is *really* unfair.

2009-03-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

today was a good day :) i had my port checked and my blood drawn and am already home... yay! they're sending one tube off to get tested for the BRCA gene- that's the gene that causes hereditary breast cancer. that way my sister/mom/girls will know if they're at a higher risk or not. it will take 2-3 weeks to hear back from that. the other tube was to check my white blood cell level- to make sure there's enough of the buggers to fight off infections. chemo kills them, so they'll keep a close eye on them throughout the process.

my amazing friend julie is bringing us dinner tonight, for which i am very thankful. last week she brought us veggie quiche! she's fabulous. and it will allow kj to go with ruben and gil to the hockey game tonight guilt free. that's a huge plus.

that's all i have for today- and i have no appointments until my next chemo on april 8th! yipeee!

2009-03-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

well, here i am- a blogger. we'll see how this goes :) mostly, i plan to use this to keep everyone current on the ever changing updates in my life- because i really don't seem to be competent enough to make a list that includes everyone in my email family. blurg. plus this way you can all write to me every day and make me smile- onaccounta me being a whore for pep talks and attagirls and such :) so, you'll find all the info on my diagnosis on the button on the right. if i've stuck it in there yet. and then i'll tell you how i'm feeling, and what's new.

today was a pretty good day. i worked all day, managed to hang in for a 2 hour meeting after school and plan for an hour or so, then had dinner and kept it in my stomach. yay! i even threw in a load of laundry, and am now doing this- so i guess i'm doing well :) let's hope for another one tomorrow- i have a blood test tomorrow to check my white blood count and then a port check to make sure it's healing okay.

before i sign off for the day, i would just like to thank jenna for setting this up for me- it's beautiful, and i love it :) and if any of you need a blog designed she does it- but i'll be damned if i know the address. maybe i'll get her to post a link :)