Eclectic-Collected

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Chemo Mani Pedi

Kinda cool looking:

I'm hoping the nail of my right middle finger hangs on!

Just a battle scar from KICKING CANCER'S BUTT!!!

Yup, done with chemo, and the big tumor has shrunk down to nothing... still got some interductal calcifications, and those are all coming out with the surgery next month -- and any little other tricky little cells should be utterly demolished by the radiation therapy to begin in a couple of months...!

Oh, and here's why the port catheter is my new best friend -- when they try to use my tissue paper veins, they do like this:

So I am really and truly grateful for that awesome port catheter.

Went through all the bone scans, cat scans, mammograms, and MRIs, and the fantastical incredible amazing wonderful spendid spectacular news is: all seems well! No cancer anywhere but very localized in the breast, and so be happy be happy be happy!!!!

It's weird how hard it is to be happy.... I feel as if the last chemo really took the last bit of oomph out of me, I'm brave and grim and strong, but I don't know how to be just plain old happy. I have a superstitious feeling that if I let go, and feel happy, I'll let down my guard and cancer will sneak in again. I've been fighting and hanging on, and yes there is more scary stuff, icky stuff to come -- I hate the idea of surgery, ug, and of course radiation -- well, it can sort of burn your skin... and just when I found out I get to keep basically all of my breast and sensation, and etc., just today I read that I may have reduced sensation on the skin and nipple area caused by radiation. Just today! I mean, see what I mean? You can't just be happy, and like "phew!" cuz it's always something else.

OK, now I am being incredibly unappreciative, right? I should only care about living. Right? Not sensations or appearance, or even function. Well, I think I must be very shallow or greedy or something, because I want more, I want what I had before all of this.

Where's that magic bus?

I need to hitch a ride on a moonbeam................

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Red Hair! Kinda diggin' it!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

End of the year 2010, and chemo is halfway done!

As we sit poised on the brink of the new year, one of the more significant things that occurred this year, and that will follow me into 2011 is the breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. I'd say chemotherapy is the nastiest thing I've ever had to go through -- and at this point, I am halfway through the six every-three-week treatments. Yes, it is quite as horrible as you may have heard, with nausea being the foremost complaint. I do believe I've experienced most of the side effects one may, but I'll spare my blog a list.

I find that today, I feel more about blogging through images than through words, and so:

A few highlights from the journey so far........

Here I am, just before starting chemo.

Nice hair.

(^_^)

This shows my port catheter. It is in my chest, and a tube goes up my neck.

It is a good thing.

This is my meds bag.

Isn't it cute?

and pink?

It is important to be cute and pink when undergoing breast cancer treatment.

Then I lost my hair. Lots and lots of hair. Such a cliche. Wish I could have been more original. And hairy. Or do I mean haired?

And so I wear hats. Lots and lots of hats! I am a mad hatter! Mad I have no hair and have to wear lots and lots of hats!

Puppy Love!

We had a Merry Christmas!

I count myself highly blessed, with a loving family, wonderful friends, and more resources than most.

When I wrote to my professors to tell them I would have to postpone my dissertation proposal defense, I said that I was sorry, but I had been "unrealistically optimistic."

One of my professors wrote back to tell me that this is a good thing, that she once heard Carol Anderson and Froma Walsh (two very eminent persons in our field) say that "a characteristic of people who win health battles is that they are 'unrealistically optimistic.'"