Black Friday...I missed it!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving...we had a wonderful day. Our cousin Linda, her husband Keith and their son Alex were here visiting. The kids played great together and it was fun catching up with Linda and Keith after so many years. Bret fried a turkey and it turned out perfect...just got done eating leftovers tonight - Yummy! I had a hard time falling asleep last night so I couldn't get motivated to get out and shop today...instead I took a three hour nap so now I am kind of bouncing off the walls! I got all the fall decorations put away today and am slowly pulling out some of the Christmas decorations while Jillian is sleeping...I can't stand the chaos if we pull it all out at once and she starts pulling it all out....not sure when we will do our tree...maybe tomorrow or Sunday. I am really looking forward to the holidays this year....last year is just a blur...I remember thinking I just wanted to get thru it and have them over with...things will be different this year...I told Tyler..."Mommy is back in the game!!"

My appt. with Dr. K. on Monday was disapointing...she has doubts that we can do much to fix the dent...there is also an area on my lower left breast that is puckering out into a small pocket...she thinks it is an area where the remaining skin and tissue is too thin so the implant is protruding. So, I still have my trainwreck foobs and we just need to give them some time to see how things settle after a while. She said we can try fat transfer but a lot of times that ends up lumpy which would just make things look worse....I am trying to settle my mind that maybe I will just be the poster child of breast cancer and bad reconstruction results.

Dr. K. is almost always right on time but at this appt. she was running late. As I sat in the waiting room one of Dr. B.'s breast cancer patients and her husband came in...we recognized each other right away...I had spoken with them on the day that she had her first chemo back in the summer...they are a very nice couple. She is getting ready to have her mastectomy so she was asking me lots of questions. After a few minutes a young lady that was also in the waiting room joined in our conversation. She told us she has expanders in right now and is getting ready for her exchange. She said that she was really having a hard time with all of this and just felt very alone...like no one else really knew what she was going thru. She asked me some questions about the exchange and then she continued to talk with the other gal while I went back to see Dr. K. While I was waiting in the exam room I wrote down my email address and the young survival web address. After I saw Dr. K and went back into the waiting room I went back to her to wish her luck with her upcoming surgery and to give her my info. She also gave me her card and said she would love to have someone to talk to. It was just so sad to see three young women all sitting there in various stages of having their breast removed and reconstructed...I made a comment about that when I saw Dr. K. and she said she is seeing more and more young women all the time...why is this? Are we finding cancers earlier, are we being more agressive with treatments? I don't know but I just hope that no one believes that breast cancer is easy to treat or that we are beating this horrible disease...we need more research to find better treatments and we need women to be better educated about their risks in their earlier years.


My Herceptin treatment on Tuesday went fine. Now that I no longer have a port poor Sharon has to fight with my horrible veins to start my IV....it took a while but she finally found one in the back of my hand. This was treatment 17 out of 18...it's hard to believe that I have sat in those chemo chairs that many times...plus 5 chemotherapy treatments...it's been 13 months. It will be weird to not go there every 3 weeks....I know I will have some fear of moving away from treatment and I am so thankful for the drug Herceptin....If I had been diagnosed b4 this drug was approved my prognosis would have much, much worse.
The chemo treatment room was full when I arrived on Tuesday....I took one of the last chairs and once I settled in with my water and blanket I looked over at the girl sitting directly across from me. She was there with her husband and mom...I saw the syringe containing the "red devil" hanging from her IV pole so I assumed she was being treated for breast cancer. She was very young and I could hear Sharon going over all the risks and side affects of the treatment she was getting...after Sharon did "the push" of the Red Devil it was hard not to notice that she was crying...my heart was just breaking for her and the journey that she was just beginning. A little later her mother-in-law came in with lunch for all of them. We both finished treatment about the same time. I had written her a short note telling her about the online support group that I belong to and I also gave her my email address and told her that she could email me if she had any questions or just needed to find someone that understood what she was going thru...I gave the note to her mother-in-law and went on my way...I have thought a lot about her this weekend and hope that she is doing well after her first treatment.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!