Wow! I feel Great!

I was mistaken, I am not going to be on a steroid feast! I only had to take four tabs total. Two the night before, two yesterday morning, and then they gave me a bunch as a pre-med yesterday. But that is it. No more, till next Wednesday! I got the most naseuous I have as I left the hospital and for the first few hours. But no big deal. I much rather feel sick to my stomach and have my mind. I have been awake since 2 am, because of the steroids, but again I don't feel like crap. I feel like Heather. In fact, I am going to stick with a massage for tomorrow morning that I had booked in the hopes that this is how I was going to feel.
With this chemo I do have chance of losing my nails and have neuropathy in my hands and feet, but I will just keep hoping that it doesn't come to that.

I have officially missed my first period. My body tried so hard. I learned yesterday that it isn't just that my body is shutting down and not bleeding. It is that my ovaries are so full of toxins that they are forced to shut down. Like my bones, they too are full of toxins and my chances of developing Osteoposis is high because of this. I have hot flashes now and its just part of it. I have total faith that after this chemo and I start doing all the detoxing that I plan to do, I will get it back. Hopefully...

I am really excited for the debate tonight. I am going to make popcorn and laugh. Oh, laugh, laugh, laugh.

Steroid Feast

Reluctantly, last night I ate two steroids and began my next hurdle of my LAST (yippee) set of Chemo treatment. I had a few minutes of, "Crap, I don't want to start all this again." But, after a little dinner, I downed the tabs and walked into the unknown. I slept pretty well last night, woke up only once. When I did wake up this morning, West Seattle was immersed in a blanket of thick fog. I welcome this change of weather. I want to move forward as fast as I can with all these seasons. It is hard to believe that I have been dealing with all this since early May. That is the day, the little girl in me brought myself to my regular doctor and had no idea what I was in store for in the coming month. She didn't scare me and just referred me off to get checked, just because she wasn't sure. WASN"T SURE!! Thank God forLeslie C. Tregillus, M.D., and that she didn't take a chance with me. DIDN'T TAKE A CHANCE. Huge! Unbelievable.
Those weeks of waiting came and went and I was nervous. But not that nervous. I knew in my gut though. I did. I tried to prepare D for it the "possibility" the best I could. When I got diagnosed I remembered about a year and a half earlier I had this really odd month. I wasn't pregnant, impossible due to my IUD, but I had three sponanteous times that I got really whoozy and then threw up. Maybe this is when I got "Cancer".
Yesterday I watched Oprah's show on BC. I cried a lot. The sisterhood of familiar feelings and depths of loss, only understood by Survivors.
So, today I start the treatment. I have not allowed myself to read what other people experience, just listened to my Onc. I don't want to fill my head with possibilities. I want to have my own experience, and right now I am very impressionable. So, I am protecting myself from myself. My sister is coming this weekend. I hope that I am doing awesome and we get to take a long walk together and make food together and cuddle and hold hands.

Is this it?

I have one day left before I start my next set of three months, every week of treatment. I am scared that I won't have a day like I did yesterday, or like the day I will have today, for three months. I don't know if I have the strength to go on, if I don't. I am freaked out that I am going to get fat because I have to eat so many steroids a day. I have to eat tons of them a day to counter act any allergic reactions that I may get. I think the steroids are the hardest part of this treatment for me. Besides feeling like I am going to blow chunks, and never do. I did throw up last time at the doctors office.
I just pray and am going to have faith that I will have at least two good days in between treatments. Yesterday, D and I took a long walk down to the beach and layed out on the rocks for a bit. I told him that I had to keep walking. I used to love to sit and take in the rays on the beach. But now, since i lay around in bed for so many days on end, all I wanted to do was walk like the energizer bunny.
I don't have much more to say. I am really pretty darn happy right now. I feel like this past week has given me the strength to look at my next three months. And I know I can make it. Its just going to be rough.

Tamara, thank you for getting me some fat pants. It really meant the world to me!!

Weekend gone where?

This weekend I worked doing massage and real estate all day long and into night. Old little worker bee Heather came out for a little dance. It felt so good to spend my time the way I did. Sure a camping trip sounds heavenly, but while I feel good I thought I should be working. I am so bummed that Wed is just around the corner. I sure hope this Taxorete is easy on me, as everyone seems to say it will be. AC was really really rough the first time and the second. But each treatment got easier and easier on me. I wonder if it was just that my body was so pure that it took doses of toxic shit to get into me and pollute or kill off everything in me? Maybe now, my body is just full of toxins and so its like no big deal when it gets a new dose of AC. So... I am hoping that is the way it is with this next chemo drug. Although it could totally skip the first one being sucky, that would be okay with me.
I am nervous about the steroids, since I have to start taking mega doses of them. I am afraid that I am going to get fat. Sure D says he doesn't care, but he sure does notice when I get big. I mean, its impossible for him to not notice. I am just really sensitive right now. Its hard to tell someone they look pretty still when I am bald, fat, and red as a beat.
I have been eating lots of fresh fruit and salads and veggies. My body has suddenly been "needing" all that. This makes me happy because for a while there all I wanted was comfort food. Three months is a long time. I am really nervous about this next set.

Word to all. Please call me and cheer me up if you notice that I am having a hard time in the next few months. I am worried that I won't have any good days and that it will be like a horrible run on sentence of pain and icky feelings. If this is the case, I'll need some good jokes told to me on a regular basis.

Chemo Nurse

I woke up and cried last night. I remembered that in my chemo induced fog, last time I was at the hospital my chemo nurse Cara told me that it was the last time I'd see her. I was so sad to say goodbye. She is one of two nurses that has always given me my chemo. They are both my age, a bit younger and are traveling nurses. It is crazy that I just processed it. Chemo makes me so icky and all I can do is focus on me and getting better that now that I am better I remembered and I am sad about her departure.
I have officially reached the point that anytime I even write chemo, I get sick. My mouth waters and I get a full body "Icky" feel. Ewhh!!

The changing weather has given me an invigoring feel the past few days. I love my head being cold and not hot. I never realized how many spider webs my head goes through with hair. Now, I notice it a few times a day. My taste buds are still wacked out. Water tastes like poison. I can't handle anything spicy. Not even pepper.

I can't wait till the debate tonight. I can hardly wait actually.

Sad for a friend

Today I ran into another Keller Williams agent that just had surgery on his neck. Within one month, a tumor grew and he found out that though it didn't appear on MRI to be cancer, that the surgeon said it looked like it was. I couldn't help but get sad for him and his lovely family. What choked me up was when he talked about the things that could've happened during the surgery and how lucky he was that that didn't happen. I said to him, "Yeah, but even if it did it doesn't matter because your alive." He and his wife, now having entered the cancer realm knew what I meant, and he said, " Its true. Life is so precious." It killed me. It killed me because I was/am so sad that another person has to look at life in such a serious paradigm shifted way. Sad, that they are sad.
Off to do a few massages. On my merry little way. Loving it..

Down with AC

Yippee! I am so happy that I am finally done, for the rest of my life, with Adriamycin!! No more, and done with Cytoxan! Thrilled. I have been really emotional the past few days. I don't know what is about going to the PCC but I always have a little cry when I am done. This morning, I woke up and cried too. I have moments of disbelief still. I just can't believe it. It, being the simple, very simple truth that I got cancer. I no longer have cancer, it was taken out of me, but just the fact that it grew in the first place. I feel this crazy healthy person rising inside me, and I know that when I am done with this freakin' nightmare of a treatment, or as my Oncologist likes to refer to it, precautionary clean up, I am going to REALLY take care of myself. Not just as in food, but in every aspect of my life. I am going to make sure that I am happy and that I am living and doing what it is the way I want, because life is too short to not live this way.
There will be major changes. But honestly these changes have already begun, they're in the works right now. There is so much to change because of my growth. The growth I guess is what makes me cry, and made me cry today. Its painful.

I get to ask myself each day, "Is this the kind of woman I want to be?"