I feel a lot like Westley right now from the golden oldie, “Princess Bride”. Yep, that’s me. Hanging out in the Pit of Despair.

I’m not really feeling despair though.  It’s just a metaphor.  The whole concept of my current recovery and the fact that I have to get better and heal before I get chemo and get knocked down all over again.
I’m trying to view chemo as a life giving and not life sucking machine though. Keeping it positive.

But that doesn’t always work.

I was out and about yesterday and had some fun. The weather is gorgeous. Had a nice day.
Today I had plans…it is Mother’s Day, you know. But I was a little sore so I ended up hanging out at home.

I was treated to a lovely gift basket with a wonderful assortment of gifts from my bunnies.
They did good.

Today, I am getting our summer schedule together. The original plan was NOT to sign the boys up for a lot of camps this summer. The plan was to go to the pool, hang out with friends and neighbors and chill for the summer. Now that plan is out the window.

I filled in some more camp slots and now will hopefully be able to time my treatment so that it synchs up with their camps.

I am being told that I will feel bad for a few days and then have a few good days and then get another treatment and feel bad and then feel a little better and then lather, rinse, repeat. But the truth is, we don’t know how bad I will feel or for how long OR how good I will feel (a lot, I hope). Whatever, I just know that if I was a kid whose mom had cancer, I would rather keep busy than mope around the house with said sick mom.
Regardless, I already know that a lot of t.v. will be watched this summer and a lot of video games will be played. I wonder if one can buy stock in Minecraft.

I am trying to rest, sorting through clothing and making room for my mom who is arriving this week for an indefinite stay. Yep. She bought a one-way ticket. I am so grateful that she is putting her life on hold to help care for us. It is asking a lot but the cool thing is that I didn’t have to ask. We need all the help we can get.

I’ve tried to keep busy today. I think about the significance of Mother’s Day and if I stop and think too much, I get weepy…but that only happened when I was alone. I am not really living in the Pit of Despair, just figuratively.

I think this is the most boring post I’ve ever written.

I am trying not to be scared. Just doing a lot of research. So the plan for now is that I will do four rounds of Adriamycin and Cytoxan, each round will be administered 2 weeks apart from the next. Then I will do four rounds of Taxol also administered every 2 weeks. This makes 16 weeks of chemo.
My understanding is to expect “flu like symptoms” also possible mouth sores. possible nausea, definite hair loss, bone pain, muscle aches and more!
I have spent a great deal of time researching the best ways to combat the nasty side effects. Somehow the research brings me comfort. I can not control what is happening but I can control my knowledge of it and I can advocate for myself. At this point, it is really all I have.
I read that if I view the chemo as what it is, medicine that can kill whatever remaining cancer is lurking around, than I may have a better time of it that if I look at chemo as a poison that is going to hurt me. That makes sense. Because really, chemo and radiation is all I’ve got at this point to assure there is no recurrence. It’s all about your attitude , right?
I found this to be true of the surgery. I mean really, in the grand scheme of things, losing my breasts was a no brainer. I wanted the cancer out. Period.
While I have had pain, it has been manageable.
I think it would have been a much harder surgery if I was concerned about my chest. This is not a judgement of those who ARE concerned about losing their breasts. I think I’m just lucky in that I have personally never been crazy about my own. I spent most of my life flat chested, barely on the A-team. I graduated to a B after having children but they never impressed me. I like the idea of rebuilding.
If I was actually attached to my breasts, I would have been devastated to lose them. Hey, I love my hair and my eyelashes and I am freaking out totally about losing them! For me, getting the cancer out trumped any feelings of loss I had for the girls. I just never liked them anyway. Good riddance.
For those who do not know, I opted to have skin sparring surgery with tissue expanders placed. My plastic surgeon originally placed them filled with 100cc’s of saline in them. He will be filling them weekly with more saline until they are a size we like.
100 cc’s of saline is not much to begin with. I emerged from surgery completely flat chested. I asked my husband if maybe the plastic surgeon forgot to put in the expanders! I felt like I was ten years old but that’s ok because I really liked being ten years old. It was fine.
I had my first fill last week. It was strange. The doctor inserted a needle on both sides with a syringe of 50 cc’s of saline on each side. Then he and his nurse counted to three and simultaneously filled both sides together.
Now I look like I’m 11.
I had another fill today of another 50 cc’s and now I am definitely looking 12.
My husband wondered why they had to be placed under the muscle and the reality is that without breast tissue, skin alone cannot support an implant.
I will have the tissue expanders for quite some time and go in for weekly fill that will stretch the muscle and then eventually I will have another surgery to trade out for implants.
How do the tissue expanders feel? Weird. Tight. Like I am wearing a bra all the time when I have not worn one since before surgery. Sometimes painful but, for me, not majorly painful. It’s kind of like getting your braces tightened when you’re a kid.
A lot of people have issues with the expanders. I can see why, they are not the most comfortable things. But they are kind of cool and I am grateful for them.
I am ok being flat chested. I spent most of my life flat chested until I had children. But it’s kind of cool, this process for getting the breasts that I always wanted but was always too modest to really complain about.
Beauty is pain sometimes.
Funny, my youngest has made some comments about my flat chestedness (which are quickly redirected or shut down) but he had a close, personal relationship with my breasts for the first two years of his life so I kind of understand his confusion.
This whole thing is surreal.
Thank you for following me on this very strange journey. Stay tuned for more fun posts about my upcoming, EKG, “Chemo Teach” and port placement. Sounds fun, no?
Yeah, I don’t think so either.

A friend let me know that I have not posted my final diagnosis.  Here it is:

Stage III C with a Grade 1 tumor

Don’t know what that means?  Well you can Google it.

I’m kidding, you don’t have to Google it.  I will tell you.

It’s bad.

The worst you can get before the REALLY bad one, Stage IV which is when it gets in your organs and/or bones.

As always, I am right there on the cusp.

From what I’ve read, the average person has about 40 lymph nodes in their armpit and breast area.  Well, they took 43 of mine from my right side and of those 43, 35 of them were positive for cancer.  35 positive lymph nodes.

The ultrasound I had on April 1st said my tumor was approximately 2 cm.  The MRI I had a couple of days later said because of my dense breast tissue it was difficult to determine the size but it could be anywhere from 2-5 cm.  Well April fools on me because the tumor was 5cm.

And that’s why I am at Stage III C.  Big tumor and lots of lymph nodes.

And another April Fool’s joke is that the tumor is still classified as a Grade 1.  Slow growing, well-differentiated.  A lazy dopey, slow growing tumor that somehow invaded 35 of my lymph nodes.

It doesn’t seem right does it?

Another friend asked me, how did it get this far?

I have no idea.  It was hiding.  No one found it.  I thought I noticed something when I was nursing my youngest but my doctor and I couldn’t find it later and back then I was 35.  Too young for a mammogram.   Was it there then?  I have no idea.  I kind of hope not but we. don’t. know. And I ran marathons (very slowly, but still!).  And I have a lot of energy and I feel really good.

I still feel really good despite the fact that I have Stage IIIC cancer.  I feel good.

It sucks.

This all is really bad BUT it is not as bad as Stage IV when they would have basically given up on me.  But it’s bad.

My oncologist is going to attack it with dense dose chemo.  Chemo every two weeks instead of every three.  Sound like fun?

No, it doesn’t sound like fun to me either.

And then when the chemo is over, I get radiation.  Five days a week for five weeks.

And then I get to take a drug.  Tamoxifen.  Doesn’t it sound evil just from the name?  Tamoxifen.  Ooooooh.

It’s an estrogen blocker that will starve whatever cancer is left after the chemo and the radiation.

And then there is always the chance that it will come back.  Yes, there is that chance.  Some people do all this and it still comes back and kills them.  It could kill me and that is a big thing to face.

Years ago, my husband shared this quote with me:
‘Death whispers into my ear, “live now, for I am coming”‘ ~ Virgil

This really struck me, even back when I first read it.  This is important. This is big. And I refuse to live in fear of death.  What’s the point?  It’s coming anyway.  It’s coming for all of us.  All of us.  Death is coming.

And I can’t help but feel like this is an opportunity.

So I am going to live.  I am going to go places and do things and I am going to laugh.  I am going to play.  I am going to run and do yoga and ride my bike. I am going to love on my family and my friends.  Heck, I might even crash your party.  I am going to walk my boys to school.  I am going to live.

Stage III C.  Yeah.  It’s daunting.  It’s bad.  I feel great right now but I am going to get my butt kicked for the next six months at least. Seriously, I am in for a serious butt kickin’ and it scares me a great deal.

And Death can keep whispering in my ear because Death gives good advice.

Live now.  Live now.

I have been forcing myself to rest for the past two days.  Like stay in bed in my pajamas kind of rest.  I even turned visitors away which I feel sad about but seemed necessary.  I love visitors but it seems I was doing too much and I have been paying for it.  So I am resting and taking my pain meds and I feel pretty good.  I’ve noticed I feel worse in the evenings.

I am amazed by the outpouring of love from everyone.  I have received so many cards and gifts, it is unbelievable!  Today I received a shawl from one of my Mom’s friends and a quilt from another of my Mom’s friends.  I will take pictures and post them later because they are both beautiful.  As anyone knows from reading here,I like cozy things.  Another plus is that I have also gotten to know a cousin of mine who I always wanted to know.  It’s so nice feeling the love of everyone.

In other news, my dog is still sick!  I took her to the vet the day before my surgery and got her shots and she seems to have had a bad reaction.  This has been going on for a week or two now.  She was all swollen but now she is an itch monster.  We are giving her antihistamines which seems to help but makes her groggy.  She also has not been very friendly to me since my surgery.  She is mostly ignoring me which she has never done before.  It’s kind of hurting my feelings.  Just because I said I want to outlive her doesn’t mean I want anything to happen to her now. And how does she even know I wrote that.  She can’t read…can she?  Anyway, she is sticking to my husband like glue and is showing preference to him.  Is it because of my surgery?  I have heard that dogs can smell cancer.  But the cancer is now supposedly gone.  Maybe I smell different to her now.  Dogs are weird.

I need to go back to resting, which today means laying in my bed and watching shows on Netflix.  I feel like such a sloth.  Hopefully, resting now will heal me quicker so I have a couple of weeks of happy activity before the next phase begins.

I have been in a decent amount of pain since the surgery.  It is mostly in my right armpit and shoots down my arm.  I had 43 lymph nodes removed.  That’s a lot.  I am at risk for a condition called lymphedema. Basically, there is a lot of fluid in the body that usually is channeled and drained by those lymph nodes and now they have nowhere to go so they fill up the surrounding tissue.  Oh and I can’t ever get any kind of blood drawn from that arm again.  I can’t have my blood pressure taken from my right arm either. Never ever again. It’s a good thing for me that I am left handed.  I had my drains removed on Thursday and the fluid build up seemed greater for the last couple of days.  I am concerned.  Fortunately, there are things that can be done for this condition by way of compression sleeves and massage and physical therapy.  I will figure this out.  Who wants a fat, sore arm?  Not me.

The biggest problem is that I don’t want to take opiate pain killers.  I am afraid of becoming addicted.  I mean, look at Rush Limbaugh, I am sure he had no intention of becoming an addict but he did.  If it can happen to old Rush the Conservative Meanie…well…it could happen to me.

My doctor says it won’t.

I am also having nerve pain in my right back shoulder and the back of my arm.  It feels like my skin is on fire.  My surgeon says this may last three weeks and she gave me a nerve drug to help.  It knocks me out and/or makes me loopy and abnormally chatty.  I went to coffee with a new friend and basically told her my whole life story. Sorry, Lisa.  At least it makes me happy though. Happy, chatty Beth is much nicer than miserable, crying Beth. I got to look at the silver linings.

Yesterday I tried going all day with no pain meds.  Why?  I don’t know.  To see if I could I guess.  Turns out I couldn’t.  I was squirming in my chair in deep pain until I finally broke down and took the good stuff and twenty minutes later, I felt so much better.

Hello, Stupid, take the meds.

Today I did.  I took the nerve meds and tried Tylenol throughout the day.  That lasted until 6 pm when I switched to the heavy stuff again.  I just couldn’t take it anymore.  It did the trick.

I have a fairly high pain tolerance which seems to be a problem in this case because I can live miserably with the pain. I can live so miserably that I forget that I can actually fix it. But I am so much happier and more comfortable with the meds.  Why am I trying to be a hero?  It’s stupid.  Maybe because it is something I can control.  It’s about the only thing I can control.

Another factor is my energy level which is quite high. I feel good.  I want to do stuff.  I wish I could go for a run but I can’t because of my pain and my incisions.  I feel great except for my pain which is weird to say.  I have finally become my own oxymoron.

I went to my support group today and all I can say is what an excellent group of women.  I feel fortunate to be in their company.  All of us are at different stages of treatment but we all give each other great insight.  It helps.

I, for one am scared of getting chemo but it is a comfort to know I am not the only one who is scared but is going to do it anyway.  I am much more frightened of chemo than I was of surgery.  But there it is, waiting for me.

I’m actually going to get a second opinion for my oncology  and how stupid is this, I feel guilty for doing it.  Like I am somehow being disloyal to my current oncologist (whom I really, really like).  My friends tell me not to be silly.  That I am entitled to a second opinion but I still feel like I am cheating.

Radiation is not going to be a picnic either but chemo is my biggest dragon.

Thinking of this, my experience is like some screwed up version of Eat, Pray, Love only without the travel.  Cut, Puke, Burn?  Too crass?  Probably.

I am thankful for my extremely comfy bed and my sliding glass doors to let in lots of fresh air.  I am going to need it.  I am thankful for the master bathroom connected to my bedroom.  I am thankful for pillows and blankets and stuffed animals and clean pajamas.  I am thankful for my meds.  I am thankful for the love of friends old and new.  I am thankful for my family and my silly dog.

Every day, there seem to be new things to fear and yet, I must hold my head up and walk through it.  It really isn’t a choice.  It’s just what I have to do, scared or not.

I feel pretty good right now.  The pain went from a 7 to a 2 fairly quickly.  I will be okay.

More good news!  I had a clear CT scan. No cancer is currently residing in my body.  Hurray!

I also got the last tubes and drains out today.

I am exhausted and am going to go lie down and wait for my friend J9 to bring us a lovely French Toast Dinner.

Much love to you all.  Love is what it really is all about.

My bones are clear.  They are cancer free!  I am happy dancing right now.

I am not out of the woods yet as I still have my body  CT scan on Thursday.  So really, it’s one down and one to go.

But just for today, I will revel in the happy news that my bones are healthy.

I got up and went for the first part, an injection.  It was simple.  I did not cry or shake.  My friend Laura drove me there and I just chattered away to her.

My family members made comments in my last post about my dad and it was really helpful.  My dad battled renal cancer for twenty years. And he did it with smiles and jokes and a tough bravery that was remarkable.  At one point, my brother had called me and told me this was it, Dad wasn’t going to make it through the weekend, the only thing keeping him here were the blood transfusions he was receiving.  My dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye but I know for my part, I always, always loved him. The disagreements are all surface stuff.  I loved my dad regardless.  I hope he loved me.  But I digress… So I called my dad the minute I hung up with my brother and told him I was coming to see him.  The whole plane trip I was sick to my stomach.  I couldn’t believe this was it.

My brother picked me up and drove me straight to the hospital from the airport.  I was nervous walking into his room but I didn’t need to be.  He was standing up! And when he saw me, he smiled and did this little dance I can only describe as a jig.  I was astounded.  But that’s my dad.  He knew how to rally.

He lived for several more months and he fought that creepy cancer to the very end.  He did not “go gentle into that good night”.  And I don’t want to either.

I have to keep raging.

I have to remind myself to have courage.  I have to be strong.

The die has been cast.  I mean, nothing is changing at this point  If the cancer has spread, there is nothing to do but fight it.  If the cancer is there, the scan will find it.  It’s already done. If it’s there, it’s there. There is no turning back and burying my head in the sand isn’t going to get me anywhere.

The only way to go is forward.

My scan is in an hour and a half.

This is crazy.