That's All Folks!

Hopefully anyway!

This past Thursday my very last Herceptin treatment was administered.  No more $12,000 little baggies of drugs dripping through my veins. No more one inch needle pricks.  Early December my port will be removed (I hope they let me keep it)... Can I get an Amen?!

I have decided to hold off with reconstruction at this point.  There is so much to say about this I just don't even know where to start but as for now I'm content to not go through more surgery, spend more money, and just work getting back to "normal."  After a couple of consultations and being told it is something I can chose to do at anytime I decided that was the best plan for me.  Take a deep breath and decide later!  

I guess it's been difficult to be ecstatic because it really never is the end, is it?  I think most of you cancer survivors can empathize.  The thoughts continue to linger.  You always wonder.  I'm afraid I am on the verge of becoming a hypochondriac.

But as for now all is well.  Let's pray there will not be a sequel!

I am alive!

I know...it's been a while!

Originally I had planned to do a weekly blog with the progression of my hair gain and hopefully my weight loss.  (I think the suckiest part of chemotherapy was the steroids they give you so you are not nauseous.  I know it helped but I also gained weight).  Well, the hair is growing back but I cannot say the weight is coming off!  And they all said it will come right off....yea, right!

Here is the final product of chemo

Wow...I look weird

No eyebrows or lashes

Much better with a little make-up and a hat!

Two months later.  My own hair, eyebrows, and lashes!  (Still working on the weight loss!)

I am still undergoing radiation treatment; every day, Monday through Friday.  As of today I have six more of a 33 treatment regimen.  I am experiencing fatigue, a lovely burn in my armpit and my chest wall itches like crazy.  The really bizarre part is that directly under my armpit I have no sensation when you touch the skin.  For example, lotion does not feel cold but when applied to the armpit but on the chest wall it's very chilly!  It's a good thing I cannot feel much directly under my armpit because if you saw it you would think I was in complete misery.  Today the skin broke open so now they have given me wonderful gel bandages to put on...hopefully it will help.  The most difficult thing is when I'm laying on the "bed" with my arms over my head for the "zap."  The skin, muscle, and scar tissue stretch and it is very uncomfortable.  I have even started doing some breathing therapy when I lay there to help me through it.  Think of the most inflexible person in the world doing yoga!

I know only six more treatments sounds like it is close to the end but unfortunately the worst part of radiation occurs about one to two weeks after the treatments are completed.  This means the worst is yet to come...yikes!  On a good note after next Friday I will only need to head to the cancer treatment center once every three weeks for the continuing Herceptin treatments.  These are very short (about one half hour) treatments that are administered through the port. They continue until November.

So there ya go!  Forgive me for not posting more often.  As always, we are very grateful for all the support and encouragement from you all.

Stacey

Time To Laugh

As so many of you know my LAST chemotherapy treatment was today, February 6, 2013.  It was hard to believe way back in July that this day would come and here it is.  Funny how time works like that.  I still have radiation to conquer, whats left of a year of intravenously administered Herceptin treatments (till November 2013), and a 5 year regime of Tamoxifen (hormone therapy in pill form) but I have been told the most difficult part is over and for that I'm ecstatic!

When first diagnosed there was actually quite a bit of comical relief.  When Taxol started I really could not find much humor in it any more.  Now that I have the ropes you have all thrown in the pit, and I can hear voices leading me out of the tunnel, I may find some things funny again.  I am not afraid to embarrass myself to spread a little laughter.

We have shared many funny moments around the dinner table.  Particularly my kids think I have very expressive facial expressions right now.  I think it has more to do with the fact I have no eyebrows.

I now fully understand what George Costanza meant when he mused that "Moses must have been a picker."  I have had a terrible issue going on in my nose...for months.  At first I attributed it to dry AK weather.  I think that one of the lovely gifts from chemo is that my dry bloody scabs cannot heal.  I recently had a funny moment in this area.  I was on the couch and had to blow a plethora of  boogers out.  I knew one had been projected out of my nose and did not make the Kleenex, but could not find it anywhere.  I woke up in the morning and Emma declared that something NASTY was crusted onto my robe.  It was the booger.  I knew it went somewhere!  We shared quite the laugh. (BTW...they are quite large boogers and are very annoying so forgive me if you see me desperately needing to clean house)

Taxol can cause arthritis type symptoms.  I'm not joking, I feel like I'm 90 years old.  I can barely tie my own tennis shoes.  My kids find this VERY funny.  I do not.

When we are driving and we see the left headlight out on a vehicle we laugh.  It's a whole new meaning to Popeye!

One morning Joel mentioned I looked a little swollen, to which I replied, and patting my left upper torso, "everything is swollen on my body...except for this boob."  This is now Joel's favorite quote.

Naomi calls me cyclopes.

There are more stories but I think the boogers and the swelling are embarrassing enough and you really would not want to hear about any more ailments!

As always, I'm very grateful for all of you.  Joel requested letters, cards, emails, Facebook posts, texts, etc be sent my way during this last day.  I received hundreds and really was not able to reply to all of them.  I hope you all read this post and know how beautiful and meaningful it was to receive the blessings in so many ways.  I have an amazing support system.  Thank you!

Lastly, I serve an amazing God.  My prayer is that all will see how Great He is and it is Him who deserves all the honor, power, and glory in everything and forever.

Keep Calm & Carry On

It has been a while since a post so I thought I'd throw in my two cents...

Last fall I had lunch with a friend I only see occasionally.  During that lunch I shared all that was going on with our family.  Towards the end of the conversation he said something to me that has stuck with me for months - "You are a duck.  You look calm on the surface, but I bet underwater your paddling like crazy."  I think this has stuck with me because it is true.  I've wrestled for years with my internal belief (fostered, in part, by the stoic community in which I was raised) that being a good leader means not freaking out in a crisis.  This belief causes me, in my public and professional life, to, more often than not, remain rather non-plussed by everything.  This gets me in trouble because this restrained emotion can come off as being aloof, distant, uninterested, upset, or even angry.  I've used this restrained approach, admittedly my default, throughout our families journey through Stacey's cancer and other recent challenges, but under the surface I've been paddling like crazy.

I think one of the reasons there has been no post in this space for over a month is that at some point the treatment of cancer becomes a daily reality.  It just develops into the life you are living.  Nothing much seems like news or breaks into the routine with a revelation.  Each weekly trip to chemo bleeds into the last.  Doctors talk about patients getting "chemo brain," a foggy headed feeling and some very minor short-term memory loss, but I think those close to the patient also develop a bit of a foggy brain too.  A brain that is just a bit numb to the whole thing after a while.  Everyone's attitude moves quickly from the shock of  diagnosis ("Is the really happening?"), to the resolve of early treatment ("We are going to beat this thing!"), to a very level "Keep Calm & Carry On" (that great WWII British statement of unemotional resolve and determination - those posters were meant to improve morale!) of ongoing treatment.  We are deep into the "Keep Calm & Carry On" phase.  

I have woken up many mornings in the past few months with a song in my head.  The track comes off one of my favorite albums of last year Some Nights by Fun.  The song that my brain has often brought me into a new day with is Carry On.  The chorus states:

if your lost and alone

or your sinking like a stone

carry on

may you past be the sound

of your feel upon the ground

carry on

I have never once felt alone on this journey.  However, I have felt lost, and like I'm sinking (I've described it to friends as feeling like I'm drowning).  Frankly, most days I feel like the best thing I can do is carry on.  Simply keep moving one foot in front of the other - keep my little duck legs paddling like crazy under the surface and staying calm above water as best I can.  Sadly the calm is mostly broken by yelling at the kids who are themselves just trying to make it through the mess.

Stacey has two more chemo treatments.  That portion of the journey ends on Feb. 6.  She tells me everyday how much she just wants to feel normal again.  Once chemo is done its on to radiation, and continued hormone therapy.  

Paddle, paddle.

Step, Step.

Keep Calm & Carry On.

Joel K.