Cancer in the time of Corona

I started radiation treatment on August 13, 2020 and finished on September 17, 2020. At some point, I'll write a post about my experience with radiation.  Today, I want to talk about the toll that cancer takes on mental health.  Breast cancer, or any cancer, is so much more than a pretty, neat ribbon.  It is messy. It causes people and lives to unravel in various ways. Cancer robs you and those around you. That is a fact. My 2 year old son knows the words "cancer, chemo, radiation and surgeries."  He's seen my drains following my mastectomy and thought they were juice packs. My daughter asks when I'll be "done with cancer." I tell her after my next 3 surgeries. The truth is, never.  I know that there are positives, but  I'm allowing myself to share with you the negatives, and be okay with that. It is not always good, sometimes it just is . I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable saying that I'm "cancer free." Unfortunately, we ...

Tomorrow, August 18th will mark exactly 3 months since I finished chemotherapy. A lot has happened since then, like my surgeries, being put into chemical menopause and starting aromatase inhibitors and starting radiation treatment. For today I’m going to focus on hair. My hair is growing in hot. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not “hot.”  I’m now somewhere between G.I. Jane and a 12 year old boy in a pixie cut. I’ve bought some styling paste (circa late 90s, early 2000s) but my hair is still too short and fluffy for the paste to really have any effect. The top of my head is growing in different directions, which actually seem to correspond with the way I parted my hair before. The sides of my head are growing straight down, so there is a defined “fade” edge to the crown versus the sides.  Given my new appearance, I’ve told B that I can give him a “sick fade” and to let me at him with the clippers and some scissors.  He still hasn’t taken me up on the offer, but since he won’...

I did a lot of research before my mastectomy into what I might need.  I found blog posts from other women to be the most helpful sources of information, so I’m trying to pay it forward. I ordered a lot of things because having them made me feel more secure. Some of the things I needed, and some I didn’t. Here are the things I found most useful: Drain holders:  This  Drain holder belt  was the BEST purchase I made for my mastectomy related surgeries. Even my nurses and doctors asked me where I got it.  My surgical bra had hooks to hold my drains, but I loved this because the drains weren’t just sitting against my skin.  The hospital gave me something I could use to hold my drains in the shower, but I’d recommend getting two of these so you always have one to wear and one to shower with. They comfortably hold 2 drains in each pouch.  Button down pajamas : Ekouaer Short Sleeve Button Down PJ set The material is super soft and the sh...

It’s 5:47 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7th. Why am I up at this hour? I’ve already had my blood drawn and gotten pain meds from my nurse.  I came into the hospital last Wednesday, July 1st and have been in here since.  The culprit? An infection in my right tissue expander.  I ended up having surgery on Monday 7/6 to remove the tissue expander when strong doses of IV antibiotics wouldn't clear it.  It also helped that I still had a drain in my right side from which the doctors were able to take some fluid and run a culture.  It came back positive for a bacteria called pseudomonas.  Pseudomonas is a nasty bacteria that is generally water borne and once it gets into the tissue expander/breast area, it colonizes the tissue expander and you can't fully get rid of it without actually removing the expander.  This means that I'll have two additional surgeries on my right breast that weren't planned.  I'm frustrated and tired.  This wasn't a setback or compl...

I had my bilateral mastectomy surgery on June 18th. I’ve had this post in draft form since before the surgery, but the emotional weight of it prevented me from finishing it and posting. To be honest, I had a lot more anxiety than I anticipated leading up to the surgery.  I feared I would be a fluke outlier, and have something go wrong and die on the table.  Surprise- I didn’t! Here I am, with my chest and left armpit sore as f*ck, wearing a drain belt for my surgical drains and looking more like a cancer patient than ever. In the spirit of Punk’d, my eyebrows decided to fall out a month after finishing chemo.  I had thought my eyebrows would escape unscathed, but instead, they have jumped ship as the hair on my head works hard on growing in.  As my sister says, you can pencil your eyebrows in, but you can’t do that for your head hair, so I’ll take it.  I had initially wanted to have a Tootaloo Titties send-off party before my surgery, but COVID made that impossi...

Last Monday, May 18th marked my last chemo treatment! The first part of this marathon is over. I packed my “chemo bag” the night before, placed my port numbing cream on the bathroom vanity, laid out my chemo outfit and set my alarms.  On Taxol, I have to take a high dose of steroids 10 hours  and 6 hours before treatment. This time, it meant taking a dose at 12:45 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. The morning of the 18th, the weather was gorgeous and I blasted my music in the car as I drove to treatment. I saw a white egret on my way, and it felt like a happy sign from the universe. I left treatment at 2 p.m. and it felt surreal.  I expected to feel elated, but I felt a myriad of emotions. For sure, I felt happy to be done with chemo and lucky and proud for how I’d handled it.  I’m lucky that my body handled chemo relatively well. I’m lucky for all the love and support I’ve received from family and friends. I’m proud that I ran more miles in the last week than I’ve done in year...