The Hair is In and the Port is OUT!

Okay the hair is in! Not exactly the hair style I'd like to have but it will do! I've said it before I WILL NOT COMPLAIN. So here are a few things I've been enjoying while the growth of my hair is coming in...Running my fingers through my hair when I'm laying in bed, being able to put shampoo in my hair and having lots to wash!, putting sunglasses on my head and they stay! Able to use products like spray gel and a little "Curls Rock"! Fun Fun How Cool is this? Here is the scar from where the port was placed...Doesn't look to bad.

This is the port that was in my chest. The surgery was a piece of cake! Not much to it. I needed to blog about it because it was a part of me for 9 months. An everyday reminder.... Although I am grateful that I was able to have a port and not experience the painful IV's in my arm or hand. It still reminded me everyday of what I was going through... Kinda like a Love Hate Relationship. It is so small yet so powerful! The doctor gave it to Mitch... I decided I didn't need to keep it but a picture of it would be a good memory!

Life is going! I'm still seeing doctors and having tests done. But this is a GOOD thing! I will post results soon! Love each of you!

One More Thing Checked Off My List!

I SOOO have been wanting this port to be removed from my chest! It's just annoying, pokes out at times and I can not stand to touch it! So tomorrow I go into the Hospital to have it removed. It should not take long...the port is fed into my heart so that will be the only time consuming part which total time is approx 1 hour...

So another thing gone which was a constant reminder of the terrible poison fed into my veins which made me sick for months!

I will update you this weekend.

Reconstruction still on hold...

I met with Dr. Boll my Plastic Surgeon. She believes Hyper Barics Oxygen Therapy has done it's job. 20 treatments and I'm done. Happy to hear that... It was getting so old and there is only so much CSI I could watch. Anyways I thought I'd be told "what I wanted to Hear" but I wasn't. The plan after her examining me is to PUT THE EXPANDER BACK IN. My skin is so sunken in (to my chest wall) that she feels it would not at all have a nice result. Now remember I'm up against reconstruction with very little skin, and no nipple so if the result wouldn't look to nice I better do what she wants!!! I just wanted to cry... This means I wait 6 months for the radiated tissue to heal then put the expander in and wait till my skin can tolerate total reconstruction.




I have no control over this just like I had no control over this cancer.



The other day I decided to go for a run. I started thinking okay.... Why me! When I was diagnosed with cancer in October I was eating well and exercising. I don't drink and I don't smoke. BUT I still got the monster! Then a little voice said to me... you have no control over this situation. It is was it is and I now am learning what I need to learn from this experience. So reconstruction is down the road. Yes I'm sad because I want to be put back together again. But honestly I'm just happy I can get up in the morning face life and the challenges that come. I look back at how sick I was and realized that when a person is given a sickness it truly takes every bit of life out of you. Your whole existence becomes confusing and your body just shuts down to any outside life!





So today is another day of being grateful for life! I'll admit I am a hair person and would like to have a body that doesn't look cut up and actually scary looking... but in the end it really doesn't matter!



My best friend Kristen D. text me the other night and asked if I had seen "So you think you can dance" where they did a dance routine about breast cancer.... I hadn't so I found the link... I just cried and felt so much joy at the same time....What a wonderful thing
to be able express this in an amazing performance! Enjoy http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5596365/14689629








Love to everyone of you who thinks of me and gives me such encouraging words.

How Quickly I Forget!

Lately I have been thinking about how "normal" my life is becoming. ( Not completely) but it is getting there! I can get up in the mornings get the kids ready for the day, work a little, exercise and even cook! All these things I seriously could not do for MONTHS! 7 to be exact.

I've gotten into my own world again and have already forgotten how lucky I am to have the desire to even wake up. I said to myself the other day "How Quickly I forget" about the things I couldn't do. I tried to think about how sick I was. I've tried to remember what things tasted like during chemo. I tried to remember how my soul was gone and I wasn't at all myself. I really have forgotten a lot of this! Now don't get me wrong I do remember some things and believe I will never forget the trauma of doctors, surgery, shots and the chemo that was put into my veins and would immediately make me sick!! However, it is almost like a blur! So maybe this is a good thing! Maybe this is what will help me heal and become a stronger person. Isn't it funny when things are going good or we are in a "normal schedule " where our lives feel calm we can't even fathom the dysfunction or hardships that can come. "How Quickly We Forget" I pray everyday I can be indebted to my life and remember how lucky I am to just have a normal schedule or the desire to even be around my children.

Just a little update! Hair coming in well....Oxygen Therapy almost finished healing great! Waiting to see when reconstruction will take place.

Again Love to you ALL... I think of all of you often.

Taking in 100% Oxygen!

This is my 9th time doing the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. I can say I'm just now getting use to it.... The 1st day I didn't think I would last! It takes about 3 hours once I arrive at the hospital and approx 2hours 25 Min's in the Oxygen Chamber! I'm beginning to see a little improvement in the skin where it was radiated and so badly burned. My plastic surgeon saw me today and would like for me to complete 10 more sessions. Oh Man! This is no fun. Everyday I get up and have to drop off my kids somewhere and then I head to the hospital. My day is gone before I know it! My hopes are that my skin will respond and soak up 100% of this pure oxygen that is given to me. It is suppose to bring blood supply to the areas that no longer have enough for healing... So with that said I'm still not out of the daily doctor grin yet! I will meet with my Radiologist in a few weeks, have a PET scan in August and hopefully reconstruction by the end of the year. The daily tamoxifen I'm taking hasn't had to much side effects on me. Except I feel like I'm a 60 year old women who went through menopause (if you know what I mean) Not fun! But what else do you do? Everyday I wonder what would happen if I didn't take that tiny white pill but then I realize that this is not a question for me to be asking. So tomorrows another day same thing as today just one step closer to healing....Love to all of you...

The 4th of JULY 2009

I decided I needed to get away. I haven't been anywhere since November and I was really getting tired of just being in my home... So I packed up the crew and we left for a relaxing weekend in Northern Arizona where there are PINE TREES, COOL WEATHER, and NO HUMIDITY. Perfect.... All I wanted to do was Relax and that is what we did... Mitch and I getting ready to go to the cabin in Pinetop Arizona a beautiful 3 hour drive and your in the thick of Green Pines....

The boys in front of the cabin. With Mitch having a broken leg and not able to pack and carry anything Sweet Ethen helped me with Everything! The little get away would not have happened without him.

My Mommy came to join the fun (actually to get out of the 100 degree heat!)

Drake hiked down to the lake and realized that it was just to deep to get in!

Me and Maya Girl taking a break from playing in the creek by the cabin.

The kids sitting on the back porch What amazing weather...70 degrees no humidity pure bliss!

A much needed break.

Starting "The Pill"

Tomorrow I will start Tamoxifen. This drug will be taken 2x's per day for 5 years! Besides the many side effects I might have it will be a constant reminder that cancer is going to be part of my life for a long time. Sometimes when I think about it I'm thankful that I am done with treatment and ONLY have to take one tiny white pill. I am in awe that a tiny white pill can do so much to supress this cancer and improve the survivability rates of so many women. I know that it is saving my life and I'm grateful that if I had to have cancer, I had it at this time when this particular drug is available to women with my diagnosis. So need I complain about starting

"The Pill?" No not at all.... I will keep you posted on the dreaded side effects

(1 being menopause. It's bad enough the boobs have to be taken but early menopause? Oh Man!!!!) to be Continued....