Rock hard foobs for months...

Well, things went ok with the PS on Friday. She had a hard time accessing the right foob again...it is now so far under my arm that she has a hard time getting the needle in..this was the first time a "fill" hurt...I guess that's because I still have nerve endings under my arm. We did another 50 ccs on each side. They have been pretty tender all weekend but really cause me the most pain when trying to sleep...I just can't quit sleeping on my side. The plan for right now is to go back to see her in October...we will decide if I want to go a little bigger and fill 1 or 2 final times and then do the exchange the first week of November. It will be nice to take a break from this for a couple months! The foobs look ok....the right side is funny to see how far it sticks out...I had a sleeveless shirt on Friday and that afternoon at work I was shocked to look down and see the side of my foob just sticking out for all to see!! We started joking about it..we called it "peek a foob". I have never been much of an exhibitionist but maybe I will be now! It's kind of weird how many people I let feel these things....if you would have told me I would be doing that a year ago I would have said "no way"! They are just so odd...just feels like a hard ball under the skin...when I get in a conversation with someone about them I just say "here, want to feel them?"....ok, it has been all women except for Bret...calm down Mom.....

I have Herceptin treatment this week and will see Dr. B. for a check up. I am feeling fine except I have started to have swelling in my ankles and feet. He has always asked about swelling but never said why...I guess I will find out this week. It seemed to start after I started taking the Tamoxifen but I do worry a little that it is related to my heart since the Herceptin can cause heart damage....I will get my MUGA heart test later this month..

I have noticed that my finger nails are getting in worse shape every day...they have always been so thick and strong but now they are so soft and just peel away. I had heard that Herceptin can cause nail problems so this might be a problem for a while...

We have had a good weekend...the highlight of our weekend was attending Amanda's Adoption Party. She has been living with Heather for a couple years and now she is "officially" her daughter. What a lucky little girl....she has been blessed to make it thru the foster system and be a success story. She was taken care of by a wonderful couple before she came to live with Heather....she is loved so much and has overcome so many obstacles in her young life. She is a joy to be around...she and Jillian are so close...we just love her and are so happy that the adoption is final.

The party was an "Alice in Wonderland" theme..Heather did an awesome job on everything to make the day just perfect for Amanda. There were lots of kids and even some adults that were dressed up as characters from the story. Jillian kept changing her mind but she finally settled on "The Queen of Hearts".

I attended the party without anything on my head...I was pretty nervous but it was a hot, humid day and I decided to give it a try. It really turned out fine....one person that I have only met a few times over the years told me that he thought I had cut my hair...he said he didn't think I looked like someone that had lost all their hair....I was actually surprised how many men actually made comments about my hair...guys don't usually notice things like that but they were all very kind. Now I have to decide if I am ready to stop wearing scarves to work...as of last week I was thinking I would still do it for a few more weeks but everyone at the party on Friday was telling me to stop now. I miss my old hair...it's hard to believe I lost it over 7 months ago. When I look in the mirror it is still like looking at a stranger every day...who knows if my hair will ever be like it was before...

We probably need to post a pic for those of you that I don't see very often but to date I have NO pics of me with my head not covered...maybe we will take one later this week...

Have a good week (Yeah! It's a short work week) and thanks for reading!

Foob check..

Well, the PS said I would start noticing today if I was leaking and so far the foobs are still rock hard...I went ahead and made another appt. with her tomorrow morning..hoping to get another fill and stop worrying about leaking foobs...have a good day!

A Three Day Weekend!

Yeah! We took a three day weekend...we went up to Vermilion for my nephew's graduation party. We had too many storms and rain but we had a good time. It's always nice to spend time with family. Kay and Dean had a great party for Eric on Saturday...they had almost 100 people show up and luckily we were all under cover when the storms arrived. Later the weather cleared up so everyone could move around a little more and they kids were able to have a bonfire and campout...Jillian loves hanging around with all those "big kids"...she even thought I was going to let her sleep out there with them..NOT!

One thing that was very nice was seeing my cousin Rob and his family. I have only seen him a handful of times since I moved away in 1987. After the graduation party as I thought about our visit it dawned on me that Rob was my first "best friend" in life. We are second cousins and we grew up right next door to each other. We didn't live in a subdivision so it wasn't like we had a bunch of kids our age to play with when were preschool age.....we were the youngest of the group that lived close so we had each other. Our Moms were "stay at home Moms" so Rob and I spent a lot of time together. I can remember just standing out in his front yard playing catch or going down in his basement to play pool or our basement to play ping-pong...we rode bikes together, rode motorcycles together and went sledding and ice skating together in the winter...almost all my memories from being a kid on Risden road include him...I don't have a brother but I would say he was the closest thing you could have if you didn't have the real thing.

Rob's wife brought a black and white photo of Rob and I eating cake together at his 3rd birthday party...I think it just made so many memories come flooding back that I haven't thought about for a long time. He is a great person and he has a great family....I am very thankful that he was such a big part of my life growing up and I will always cherish the memories of our years together!

Today we used our "extra day" to visit Amish Country in Central Ohio. We shopped a little in the town on Berlin and then went to visit Hershberger's Farm. We took a tour of the farm in a real Amish buggy which was pretty neat...when I was a child I used to think that I wanted to be Amish....Jillian said the same thing at lunch today....I quickly told her that they don't have cable but she still thought it sounded pretty good. Jillian got to take a pony ride after our carriage ride...they had some baby animals that we just a few hours old...they were too cute. Of course, we visited the bakery and then went on to the cheese factory...as Tyler says "one of the best things about Amish Country is the food"! It is just such a pretty area...it started to storm as we were leaving and at one point I looked out of the car window and was just amazed at how beautiful the scenery was...the rolling green hills, the bright white houses and barns with the Holstein cows in the pasture...the bright flowers in the yard and the blue/black dark storm clouds with the bright yellow sun trying to poke threw. I am thankful to be able to see such beautiful things......then all Hell broke loose.

Yep, Jillian had a major tantrum in the car. This one lasted about 45 minutes...I wanted to turn around and take her back and drop her off in Amish country so she could really find out what it is like to be Amish. She certainly ruined my plans for a long scenic drive home...we cut back over to the interstate so we could just get home....some days I think we are all going to go crazy because of that girl!!

Here's a quick update on the foobs...I went for another fill on Friday. We decided to just do 50 cc's on each side. The left side went just fine. When she inserted the needle on the right side she immediately pulled it back out and started using her "tool" to find the "access area" again on the expander. In a very calm voice she said "I am pretty sure I just punctured your expander...you will need to watch it and if I did puncture it you will notice that it will go flat by next Thursday or Friday. If it does just call my office and we will go ahead and do your exchange surgery in the next couple weeks"....I think I was in shock...WHAT?? I don't want surgery right now...I wanted to wait until November. I was surprised how calm I was and she pulled an expander out of the cabinet to explain what she "thinks" happened. My expander on my right side has shifted so far under my arm and the "access area" that she sticks the needle into has become VERY difficult to get to....she said that she thinks my muscles will be fine if we go ahead and just put in the final implants...she said she did not want to put another expander in. I am nervous about having the surgery so soon because I have heard of patients having complications if you don't let the muscle "rest" for 6-8 weeks after it is fully expanded. I asked her about this but she doesn't feel that it is an issue...Friday I was pretty overwhelmed once everything sank in but I wasn't upset with her...we are all human...she had just told me about operating thru the night on a mastectomy patient that had severe vomiting from the anesthesia the day before...she had vomited so much that she started bleeding and Dr. K. got called back in to operate on her again...I just kept thinking about that woman and telling myself that things could be a lot worse than a "punctured foob". So, as of today I can't tell that it is getting any smaller so maybe we will get lucky and not have to deal with this later this week...every morning I get up and the first thing I do is check the foob...I sleep on that side so I just kind of envision that I am pushing all the saline out even quicker by putting extra pressure on it... I will let you know how things look later this week...enough for now...I am tired from the long weekend and Jillian is driving me nuts to get off the computer and help her pick out clothes so she can look "vantastic" at school tomorrow...not sure what that is about!!

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Penny - love you!!

A long, hot weekend..

Happy Father's Day to my Dad and all the other Dad's out there...hope you had a good one. Happy B-Day on Saturday to my good friend JoAnn!

Our weekend kind of revolved around the monster that lives in our house that we call "Jillian". We had final dress rehearsal on Friday for her recital that was held last night. When we arrived at the Junior High on Friday the janitor said they forgot to turn on the air so hopefully it would cool down before the recital. The practice took over three hours and it was miserable in there. On Saturday morning we woke up and thought the house seemed too warm...yep, the air was out again. The repair man could not make it to the house until the afternoon so it was hot and muggy in there all day. Jillian was in a bad mood all day even though she took a pretty good nap in the afternoon. I did her hair and stage makeup before we left and we all loaded in the car to head back to the school. Before we even made it to the corner she started arguing with me about why I would not agree to go to BW-3's with some people from the dance group after the recital...I told her the last place I wanted to be at 10:00 on a Saturday night was with a bunch of tired kids and crabby parents...this somehow escalated into a major tantrum...she was screaming and crying, I was crying and trying to drive, Bret was yelling and who knows what poor Tyler was doing in the middle of this chaos....this went on for the entire 30 minute drive to the school and she finally cooled it. When we entered we found that the auditorium felt pretty comfortable but the room where the kids got ready and stayed for the evening did not have any air....it was very hot. So, I re-did her hair and makeup and stayed for over three hours in that room with her while she continued to argue with me about other "little" things. She did great on both of her performances. The Mom's dance went ok....I am sure we all looked like a bunch of fools up there but I was just thankful to finally get that over with. I walked out of there exhausted and felt like I was on the verge of a complete meltdown. I came home and took another cold shower and crashed...I didn't wake up until after noon today...I guess I was tired. Today I am just really crabby and tired...this is one of those weekends I would prefer to forget....

Thank God it's Friday!

It has been a crazy week but I think I am starting to get a little more of my energy back...On Monday I saw the PS to do another quick fill on the foobs. I asked if we could do 100 on the right side because it seemed so much smaller and 50 on the left. That plan didn't work out so well...now the right foob is really sticking out under my arm pit and the left looks ok....Very mismatched!! It's kind of like going around all day trying to hold a softball in your pit....not sure I can hold another 250-300 ccs in there and not go insane!

Monday night Jillian had dance class and then on Tuesday I had our final rehearsal before the recital...things have not improved much on that front. We still look like a bunch of clowns up there trying to dance. Tonight is dress rehearsal but we only get a few minutes per group so there really isn't much hope that we can pull this together in the end.....boy, Jillian really better appreciate this.....

Wednesday afternoon I had another Herceptin treatment. That went fine. I was doing my usual....curling up in a ball in my recliner, trying to sleep but that didn't work out again. The older lady that loves to talk constantly while she gets treatment was there again and she was telling horror stories to a "newbie". This was a younger woman who had breast cancer. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THINGS LIKE THAT??? I could tell that the woman and her husband were gettng more and more nervous as the woman kept talking about all her muscles locking up during her first treatment and all her hospital stays because of complications....luckily, she has a short treatment so she had to leave before too much damage was done. After she left it was just the "newbie" and her husband and I left in the room....I was trying to decide if I should say anything to them because I had heard her say she was doing the exact same treatment that I did. They were talking to the nurse about the Neulasta shots and I finally just spoke up and told them that they might want to check with their insurance to see if they could get the shots at home like we did....instantly her husband got up and came and took a seat by me and started asking questions. We talked for quite a while and when his wife finished her treatment she even came and sat down with me. I just tried to give them tips on things that helped me and told her that I really do understand what she is going thru..she laughed when I said "it's ok to just say that all of this SUCKS"!....I didn't tell any "horror" stories...I just reminded her that every person reacts differently to the chemo and assured her that she will do fine and their two young children will be fine also......just take it one day at a time, keep up with all the meds and you will do fine. I gave her my email address and told her she could contact me if she wanted to. I also gave her info on the young survivor's website and told her how much it helped me out and still helps me today. They were a really nice young couple...I hope I hear from them so I will know how she is doing.

Work has been very busy this week. We had our first big group training since November...it brought back a lot of memories about starting chemo....I can remember my hair starting to fall out on the final day of that training and I was hoping I could just get thru my presentations. With the group this week I just wore a scarf. It was a litle uncomfortable to do that but I just did not feel like wearing a wig. On Wednesday night we took them all down to the Reds game. That was the first time I have been down there in years...I lucked out and it was a breezy evening and it wasn't too hot. The Reds got spanked by St. Louis so we left a little early and I was home by 10:30 but had to be back in the office around 7:00 yesteday to prepare for a full day of training. I had not given a large group presentation since November so I was a little afraid that I would get up there and just go blank...luckily, just once, I totally forgot the name of a type of ballast and my good friend Scott was right there ready to fill in the blanks for me. The entire program went really well and we sent everyone back to the airport at the end of the day. I was exhausted but happy that things went so well. This is really the part of my job that I enjoy the most...I really like to coordinate these events and conduct the training sessions...we plan to start doing more of these now that I am back to work full time...

Enough for now...time to start the day!

New friends...

It has been a really busy weekend and what is up with this hot weather....I hate hot weather!! Add some hot flashes in there and I am totally miserable...I have taken three cold showers today just to get some relief....our air conditioner broke down yesterday....just in time for Bret to return home from his golf trip in GA where it was 100 degrees! Luckily, we found someone to come and repair it this morning. The hats, scarves and wigs are going to have to come off for good pretty soon...no matter how much that I hate the way I look it is getting so uncomfortable to keep my head covered with this heat.

Happy Graduation Weekend to my nephew Eric....I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Looking forward to celebrating with you in a few weeks!

Friday night the kids and I went to our neighborhood "end of the school year" pool party. It was hot and miserable but good to see everyone. Saturday evening I went to see Sex and the City....I have not seen many of the episodes on TV but it was a good movie...today was kind of a whirlwind...Vicki and I took Jillian and Lauren to King's Island in the morning. After that I met some girls for a late lunch. Then Jillian and I went up to the pool and then went to Kathleen's to grill out with her and the girls....I am ready to crash! Putting on that bathing suit and going out in front of friends always sucks but today I saw how much harder it could really be. Since our pool isn't heated I don't normally get in until July but it was just too hot today. I could have bought a mastectomy swimsuit that had fake boobs in it but it just seemed like such a waste since I am getting weekly fills. After sitting up there and sweating buckets I finally just pulled off my cover up (while standing right by the stairs) and got in a quickly as I could.

Anyway, back to our new friends. I received and email from a member of my Mothers and More group last week telling me about another member that was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked me if it would be ok for her to pass along my contact info....she thought I might be able to help her out. I look back to when I was first diagnosed and I didn't want to talk to someone else that had cancer....I have never really understood why that was...it was almost like a fear of hearing that persons story or maybe if I talked to someone I actually knew it would make it too real. Looking back I see that woman like Penny and Dorothy probably could have really helped me better understand some of the things that I was going thru but since I didn't reach out to them they were just very kind and continually let me know that they were there for me...what wonderful, strong women they are!

I went ahead and emailed the gal she told me about and gave her my history...I told her that I would love to help her out in any way and that she could contact me. I heard back from her the next day and we made plans to get together Saturday morning. We were hoping to meet at our pool but it was raining so she and her daughter just came over to the house. Her daughter is a few months younger than Jillian. We were shocked when we first met each other because they are very similar in height, hair style, etc. They hit it off right away and played well together.

She is just really beginning her "cancer journey" so we went over all her info...I just kept telling her that I understood what she is going thru and I think that helped in some small way. She is pretty overwhelmed right now with all the tests she is going thru to put together a treatment plan and like me, her biggest fear is how will all of this affect her daughter. I told her that to me, that is probably the worst part of all of this...what will our kids remember about this...it just seems so unfair for them. I tried to fill her in on other things that I have learned during all of this...we looked at my wigs and scarves and I told her where I bought everything. I offered to go wig shopping with her when the time comes....
we spent lots of time talking about chemo and surgeries....I think she is a lot like I was...the fear of the unknown is almost worse than going thru it...you just want to get it over and get thru it. She is a strong, vibrant woman and I believe that she is going to do fine.

It is so sad to see someone else have to go thru this....I know we will continue to grow our friendship and I just hope that in some way my experience will help make hers just a little bit easier...all of this has to have some purpose behind it...I want to do something good with it....it's just too bad that we can't find a cure....

Just in a funk....

Not sure what this crappy mood is about but right now I am just blaming it on the meds...

Anyway, Vegas was good. It was tiring from a work standpoint but it was so great to see so many people that I have worked with in the past...some knew about my "situation" and others didn't. The ones that didn't would say "hey, love your new hair style.." and I would say "it's a wig..blah, blah, blah". Once I was done working on Friday afternoon I moved to the Paris hotel....I had a wonderful room overlooking the pool...I had room service for breakfast on Saturday, then I went and got a fantastic pedicure and that afternoon I went to see the musical "Menopause". It sounds kind of odd but I wanted to see if I was losing my mind and what I learned is I am probably not...it is just menopause!! On Friday afternoon I took my wig off and went "uncovered" for the rest of the weekend. I absolutely hate the way I look but it is so much more comfortable. I noticed some people giving me strange looks or staring and I honestly just wanted to go up and grab them and scream "are you nuts?? Do you think I made a choice to look like this? Have you ever seen someone that has gone thru chemo or have you been living under a rock your whole life?!!" Instead I would just stare right back...that is one thing that is definetely different about me....I would have never done that a year ago and now I find myself giving the "stare" right back. Oh yeah, over the five days that I was there I also lost a lot of money in the slot machines...trying to forget about that...come on chemo brain...

Went to get another fill on the "foobs" Monday. During the appt. I learned that I was really only getting 50 cc's per fill...no wonder they looked so small. Not sure how the "wires got crossed" but she will start doing 100 next week if I want to...she also wanted to talk about my exchange surgery. I guess I gave her the impression I wanted to rush things so she said let's do it at the end of August b4 she has the baby...I said ok and it was scheduled. All afternoon I could tell that I was stressing out about it and feeling way too rushed. I called back today and talked with the secretary and we moved it to the first week of November.

I think my chest kind of looks like a disaster at this point....the "foobs" seem to be way too far apart and the right side is not "filling in" in the middle...it just looks like I have a big hole under my skin. When I ask her about these things she said we will just have to give it more time and see how it turns out...I guess a lot of how it looks depends on the scar tissue and it is my scar tissue in the middle of my chest that is kind of making things look so bad. She will try to go in and remove that scar tissue when she puts in the final implants but there is really no guarantee that this area will fill in....I guess the lesson learned here is that with "reconstruction" you can always get bigger boobs than what you had but there are no guarantees that they are necessarily going to look "better".

Well, I think that's enough for now...I feel like I can't spell or get my grammer right tonight.

One more story...my flight home on Sunday had 2 male flight attendants and 1 female...I ordered a "girlie" drink when they came by and the older male flight attendant started to prepare it and we were joking around....the remainder of the flight was completely uneventful and quiet. When they announced that we were making our final descent into Cinci I looked down the aisle and I saw that same flight attendant carrying a plate from first class with a huge piece of chocolate cake on it. He walked up to me and simply said "I hope you enjoy this". The cake was absolutely yummy so I ate and cried at the same time....why did he do that? Did his mother/wife/sister/daughter have cancer?? The older couple next to me asked how he knew that I liked chocolate and I said he didn't....I told them that I thought it was just a random act of kindness....he recognized the "bad hair" and my "Save the Ta-Ta's" t-shirt made it even more obvious. Kind of funny timing because before I boarded that flight I purchased a book entitled "the power of kindness...the unexpected benefits of leading a compassionate life"....

Signing off for now...

Back from Vegas...

Well, I played big and lost big...that sucks!! Overall, it was a good trip. I don't have time to write much now because I am trying to get caught up at work and my computer at home crashed while I was out of town.

More later....