Fight like a girl.

 I know this is not the most flattering picture but I'm documenting my journey in all it's ugliness. :-) I look like an ugly man. I told Ryan the other night, "I want to throw up when I look at myself in the mirror. I just see my ugly hair." He said, "I see someone that's going to be with us for a long time." Aww, he's so sweet to me.  So the hair on my head is growing back which means it's growing back everywhere else as well. The positive is that I’m getting my eyelashes back. Yay!! They are these little tiny things but at least they’re coming back in. My eyebrows have recovered beautifully as well. The bad part is I have to shave my legs again and it's a little annoying actually. 😉 I had laser hair removal before all this started and my hair had thinned out everywhere it was done or, like in my underarms, it was almost completely gone. Now my body has reset itself and my hair is growing back. Oh well. C’est la vie.  I went to the radiatio...

  It has been a busy couple of weeks. One week full of doctor's appointments and the next week full of church girls camp.  Had my echo on Tuesday, which came back normal, met with the plastic surgeon on Thursday to get an expansion and met with my oncologist on Friday and got an infusion.    I hadn’t seen my oncologist since surgery and had all the pathology results back (remember I saw his PA that knew nothing about me and couldn't get his computer to work to look anything up?). He gave me a hug and said he was so happy with the results. He was so happy that I got a “complete immune response” from the chemo which essentially means the cancer is gone. Maintenance plan now is to continue with the Herceptin infusions until January and nothing really from there on out. He said that there's no benefit to getting routine scans. There was a study done (there's ALWAYS a study being done) to see the benefit of getting routine scans. These aren't the specific numbers but th...

I'm six weeks out from surgery. YAY! I can start being more active, and by that I mean I can start lifting weights again. I went to the rec center today and lifted 2.5 and 5 pound weights. I went to high yesterday (which was really me marching and dancing in place) and my hips and legs are really sore. Good sign? I think so, I'm getting my body back into shape.  We had a really good fourth of July weekend. On Saturday the 2nd, I got up to go to the patriotic high fit class. It was a lot of fun. One of my friends had told me the previous Thursday, "You should get there early on Saturday so you can request Cake." Well, I didn't get there early and I was in the very back row of the gym. In the middle of class, I saw two of my friends disappear from where they were working out. I saw them talking to one of the instructors and I thought, "Oh no, they're going to request Cake for me." And I was right. For the party song, all of a sudden one of the instruct...

 Alright another appointment down. I kind of wanted to cry sitting there. It just feels overwhelming again.  Yes my cancer is all gone. But that doesn't mean I'm done. I got the call saying the tissue is all clean, there's nothing in the breast or lymph nodes but I still have to go through this treatment for the next six months. It's really going to be like a year before I'm going to be completely done.  I'll start with the morning appointment. I saw the plastic surgeon NP and she saw the bruising on my left breast. She said she wouldn't do any expanding on that side to let it heal. She said that would be fine because we have to over expand the right side at some point anyway to account for the shrinking that will occur with radiation, so now is as good a time as any. So I'm totally lopsided right now. That's fun. SHe also took my other drain out. YAY! No more drains for me.  Then we headed to the radiation oncologist. He was sitting there talking ab...

 I look like a chia pet. My hair is growing in on my head like crazy. Not very evenly though.  I’m hoping I showered with a drain for the last time tonight. The output has met the requirement for the past three days. It should come out tomorrow when we go to the plastic surgeon. Woot! Woot!  We also meet with the radiation oncologist tomorrow. We get to find out how many days of radiation I’m doing. When we met with the oncologist NP on Friday he said, “According to NCCN (some cancer thing) if you have a double mastectomy and your lymph nodes are clean, you don’t have to do any radiation.” Ryan and I were kind of like, hmmm really? Cuz everyone we’ve talked to has said I need radiation. He kind of back pedaled. I mean I don’t blame the guy, he doesn’t know me or my story. As he said, he’s just a placeholder for the doctor. 🙄 I’m trying to get back to normal but I’m not there yet. I think I did too much on Friday. I woke up Saturday morning with a huge bruise all over my ...

I'm sitting at the oncology office right now. I'm getting another Herceptin infusion. It's that time again and now I'm back on a three week schedule. I got time off with my surgery. Woohoo. But sitting back in this room gives me some PTSD. I was sitting here listening to a nurse go over all the side effects of the chemo drugs, what medications to take to fix those side effects and what happens to your various blood counts. It was actually the same nurse that went over everything with me that first day. Oh that was so horrible. I feel so bad for this lady and I am so grateful to be where I am today. I remember when she handed me the paper and went through each bullet point and I just silently cried. I know she stopped and was like, "Are you okay?" No I'm not okay!!! I'm starting chemo! Would you be okay?!?!?!  Ya I didn't say any of that. I wiped my tears, put some big girl pants on and told her to keep going. That was really so horrible. And to kno...

It’s been three weeks today since I had surgery. I’m feeling pretty good. I get achey throughout the day and I’m not doing much. I take some ibuprofen and Tylenol occasionally. If I’m up too long I have to sit down and give my back a rest. I’m sure I’m hunched over all day trying to protect my chest. That doesn’t help with my back pain.  I’ve been checking every day for any signs of infection. Nothing yet, still keeping my fingers crossed. I see the doctor today, Thursday (since it’s technically after midnight). I’m really hoping I get my drains out today. I should. The output has been very minimal the past few days. They don't hurt, which I'm super grateful for, they're just a little annoying. And I’m getting nervous that it’s going to hurt quite a bit when they pull them out. I mean, my incisions are healing so beautifully, I’ve got to think that the drain incisions are also healing. Except they’re healing around the drain tube. 🙄 and the tube goes all the way up and aro...