Fight like a girl.

 I celebrated my birthday last week. It seemed a little more significant this year; not just because I'm getting closer to 40 (😬), but because I'm alive and I GET to celebrate another year of being alive. I was heading to lunch on Tuesday and I got a little emotional thinking about this past year. I had an aggressive cancer that would’ve taken my life 20 years ago. Due to medical advances, I was able to receive, and still receive, a medication that's very effective against my type of cancer. I'm so very grateful that I live here and now and that I'm able to continue to live and raise my children and grow old with Ryan. 

 Man. I was scrolling through my instagram pictures from this past year. There is a lot of emotion looking at the different stages I went through: surgeries, first day of chemo, last day of chemo, being bald, having my siblings with me, Ryan taking care of Courtney.... There have been so many hard things. But there have been so many good things. But so many hard things. Ha Ha Ha.   I pray that I don't have to do this EVER AGAIN. 😉

 Radiation done! Ryan and my friends were like, "We need to go celebrate!" I'm kind of like, "Eh, no big deal. We don't need to celebrate. Chemo was WAY worse than this." BUT it's another box checked off on this list of cancer treatments. I only have to finish out my year of Herceptin and then the exchange surgery. Hallelujah!  I ran into a lady this week at the cancer center. She was getting ready for her radiation treatment while I was heading out the door. We started chatting for a minute. She made the comment- so this is your first dance with cancer? I said, "Um yes my one and only dance." I was thinking, no I'm not doing this again.  I saw the doctor and nurse yesterday. The nurse sat in with me first asking about my skin and fatigue. She looked at me and said, "You look like you're ready to fall asleep." I was super tired yesterday and yes I needed a nap. She also said that my skin will continue to react for the next ten...

Alright, I did pretty well with the lack of skin issues with radiation. I've started with a pink sunburn this week. It's not too bad on my back but it's quite tender under my arm. I know it doesn't look like much in the picture but it hurts a lot more than it looks. And think about your arm moving constantly throughout the day and rubbing against the sunburn.  On my neck/shoulder/back, my bra strap rubs. It's not a huge problem but just a little discomfort. These pictures are from the beginning of the week so it's a little more red and tender now.  This week was kind of a roller coaster. Tuesday morning, I got up, went and worked out, got going with my day and was feeling really good. I called the hospital, labor and delivery, and said, "Hey I'm feeling pretty good. What if I come and break some nurses for lunch? I could do one break before radiation and one after radiation." So I got Courtney off to school and headed to the hospital. I sent one nu...

 I've been meaning to write this post for a week now. I'm almost done with radiation. When I heard I had 25 rounds of treatment it sounded so daunting but now I only have 7 rounds left. YAY!!! I'm so excited. I've gone to the hospital Monday through Friday for the past three weeks. These three creams have saved my life. If anyone you know ever has to go through radiation give them this advice: Put the MiaDerm cream on every day, multiple times a day if you can. I got an old t-shirt that I would wear to bed and I would slather aquaphor all over the area. I don't think I'm going to have much, if any, skin breakdown.  With radiation, imagine going and getting a sunburn everyday. If you have a sunburn that peels and blisters, you can't really keep going and getting treatment. So it's kind of important to take good care of your skin to help prevent a disruption in your treatment.  When I get radiation, I can't feel anything. I go under this machine and it...

 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...