Bald and beautiful

Just a short post today. I went and had my white blood cell booster shot this morning and this one went over much better than the last! Some Claritin D and Tylenol really did the trick (thanks to all who gave me this advice). I've felt pretty good all day and even had the energy to do some laundry (wash and fold- not putting it away, now that takes too much energy), do the dishes, and the biggest, most heartbreaking thing was getting my head shaved.

For the past couple days my scalp had been really sore and I was told that's usually the first sign of hair loss. I had been preparing myself for this moment since early November, but nothing can compare to the moment you run your fingers through your hair and all you get is a big clump of your own hair... I had a mini breakdown in the shower and made my husband come look at our drain. This is what we both saw...

It really hit me then.

I was losing my hair. Right now.

After my breakdown, I tracked down my hairstylist's phone number and thankfully she had an opening today. I was taking control. I was making the decision. It was my choice. I was going to just shave it all off.

Katy was wonderful and took me to the back of the salon so it could be a private moment. I'm not going to lie, there were tears shed, by all three of us (Colin was there too). It was an interesting feeling seeing so much hair sitting in my lap. I had never seen that much of my own hair on the floor before! But Katy was again fantastic and after she was done she washed my scalp and put on a scarf I had brought. While this was a traumatizing experience, well all of this has been, I felt powerful and beautiful. I just kept saying, "I hope I don't have a deformed head so maybe I can rock being bald." Katy reassured me that I had a beautiful head and that I could definitely rock it. So thank you Katy!

This is me, and my Starbucks, after my shaving event. My husband said there were stares while we were in Stabucks, but I knew that would happen! Thankfully I have a strong spirit and an army of supporters behind me, so no look or stare is going to bring me down. I'm going to keep my chin up and know that I'm fighting a battle everyday and it's just hair. Losing your hair is personal and emotional, but this is my reminder that I'm a fighter everyday and that it's ok to not have my brown, thick locks for the time being. Who knows, maybe my hair will grow back blonde and curly. I wonder what my husband will think of that?!

Well now that I've shown you me with a head scarf, here is me rocking my Natalie Portman/Demi Moore GI Jane bald head!

Thank you all for taking this journey with me. Until next time.

AD

Round 2

Well this morning starts round 2 of chemo. I'm a little nervous. Ok, I'm extremely nervous. Currently I still have a full head of my lush, dark, straight hair. Later this week I'm pretty sure I'll only have wisps as it's almost a guarantee I will lose my hair. I've come to terms with it, but it still makes me nervous because then I will look like a cancer patient. And ya know what, when they say you'll lose your hair, you lose ALL your hair! I'm ok it having to shave my legs and not blow drying my hair, but my eyebrows, that freaks me out!

The best part of this treatment is I got a new chemo outfit for Christmas from my dad. Now don't worry, the sales associate at VS helped him pick the outfit! And for those of you who know Mean Girls, you'll appreciate the reference.

I'm not really into selfies, but I had to share the outfit with you all.

The only thing that could make it better is if it said Monday since that's my treatment day. And why yes, that is a pink phone case too. Good thing I like the color pink!

Also, look at these awesome new nerdy socks my step-dad got me for Christmas!

New clothes always make me feel better and today I could use all the encouragement I can get! So if you're the praying kind please send some my way!

And here we go. Hope the IV goes in with fewer pokes this time!

AD

Christmas week!

I've gotten very lucky throughout this entire journey. While going through chemotherapy during the holidays doesn't seem lucky, I get to avoid having a treatment Christmas week. So yay for a week off!

When I last left you, I was headed back to work for Day 3 of my first cycle. I didn't make it past 12:45 pm. But hey, I was proud of myself for making it that far! My daily journal is helping me keep track of my days and how I feel. Let me tell you, Day 3 was absolutely HORRIBLE. I went to my car during my lunch hour, which I took a little early, and slept for an hour! That did not even help my body, it actually just made it worse. I was exhausted. So I went home... and slept for the rest of the afternoon. AND went to bed at 8PM! It was just a rough day all around.

Day 4 (Thursday) was much better. I actually felt good and didn't even take a nap during the day, even though I wanted to. That night, I was very proud of myself. I stayed up until 9PM! Woo hoo. Yes, I know that seems very early to a normal adult, but since I had been going to bed at 8PM since my treatment, and felt like going to bed at 7PM most nights, I felt it was an accomplishment. Small victories!

So far I am hanging in there and excited to be able to have Christmas week off. Not only from chemo, but today started my two (yes, I said TWO) week vacation from work!

I'm excited and looking forward to what 2015 will hold for me and my family, but until then...

Merry Christmas!

AD

Post-first treatment

Well I survived. The worst part of the whole experience that first day was getting poked three times with a needle trying to start my IV. That was an awful experience, and I felt bad for the nurse too. I could see she wasn't exactly enjoying making me cry while digging around in my hand and then my forearm trying to find a vein.

The treatment itself wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. The first thing they gave me was a mix of a steroid and anti nausea medication, which I was thankful for! Next came lots of saline. And then came the fun chemo drug. This is the one that causes mouth sores, so they had me suck on lots of ice cubes to try and help inhibit them from even starting. This med was interesting because it looked like the cough syrup that we give Kolton, bright red and goopy. Now the second chemo drug was a the "fun" one. This is one that had to be given over the course of an hour and gave me a really funny feeling, like having chlorine up my nose. Fun times in the infusion room!

Day one was pretty good, I was just exhausted. Which I guess is to be expected, I took a short nap in the afternoon, and then ended up going to bed at 8:30 PM because I was still so tired. I slept until 6:30 AM. Talk about one long night of sleeping!

Day two started off pretty good. My mom made sure I had my anti nausea meds early so that hopefully I would feel good going forward. Lots of cat naps in my recliner and waiting around to go get my shot at the doctor's office. The doctor's office was hopping when I went for my shot. There was even a therapy dog there with one of the patients. Kolton had a blast petting the dog and it eased a lot of the stress I was feeling! The shot itself only took about two minutes and felt like a bee sting. The side effects of the shot were much worse. I felt achey in my legs and knees and felt exhausted. So again, I took a nap.

I've come to realize that I am going to be tired for the entirety of this treatment. So long as I can take a nap or two, I think I'll be okay!

Today is my first day back at work and it's been an interesting hour thus far. Hopefully a nap during lunch will help with everything!

One treatment down. 15 more to go!

Until next time...

AD

Chemo. Such a scary word.

So today is the day. Chemo.

This whole process has been surreal, but knowing that I am going to have chemicals running through my body today that are not only going to kill the cancer cells, but also any other rapidly dividing cells as well (healthy cells). After today I do not know what my life will look like. I have no idea how I will react to the treatment. I have no idea when I will lose my hair, because it's a guarantee that I will. That is the hardest part of this whole ordeal. I have no idea what any of this will look like. Although, who knew a relatively healthy 26 year old would be the face of breast cancer (with no family history at that).

Today's post is a short one, but I wanted to share my frustrations and apprehensions with those who are following.

I have never been a very religious person, rather I would consider myself spiritual. This journey has made me realize there is someone out there with a greater plan and that I am going through this for a reason. Whatever your beliefs or religion, I ask that you pray today. Not only for me, but for my family who is going through this awful journey with me. Pray for my 15 month old who has no idea what his mama is going through (which I am VERY happy about). And pray for all those who have to walk this same path and may not make it to the other side.

I'm feeling very blessed this morning even though I'm terrified and I feel very lucky to have a sense of calming going into this first treatment.

Until next time.

AD

Needles, so many needles

Update: I am officially done with all shots! Well for IVF that is, not so much in general.

It is the strangest feeling. We've been conditioned all of our lives to avoid inflicting pain on our-self and now I have to (twice a day) give myself shots in my stomach. Two shots in the morning and two shots in the evening, that's a lot of shots over the course of 11 days. AND they even added in a third shot for four days. I have given myself a total of 25 shots and I'm pretty sure I'm over my fear of needles.

This cycle was an emotional roller coaster. They were trying to get as many eggs as possible to develop to give me the best chance for having kids later on. And let me tell you, they cranked my estrogen levels through the freaking roof! One minute I was happy making dinner and cleaning the kitchen, the next a puddle of tears (for no apparent reason, well other than my husband talking to me loudly). Yea, sorry babe for that :-). Thankfully though, that meant the shots were doing what they were supposed to and that's all I really wanted. This was an odd thing to have to go through and I can sympathize for all who had or will have to do this, it's not easy.

The night of my first shot was actually kind of funny. I'm so glad that I have some great nursing friends and Alli just happened to still be in Columbus for Thanksgiving to help! She came over and we watched the video on how to mix the medication (yea, not only did I have to give myself the shots I had to mix them as well!) then we gathered all the needles and medicine and all that goes with those two. Alli mixed the first medication and gave me the shot, it wasn't bad at all. Then came the fun part (and by fun I mean terrifying). I mixed the next medication and gave myself the shot. It was such a strange feeling and Alli's advice was to "do it like you're throwing a dart". Thankfully that advice worked and I survived the first round, but there were quite a few more to go.

All went well with the shots after that first night, except for one... When I finally had to add a third shot in the evening, it was easy (a pre-filled needle), except that I had freaked myself out a bit. When I went to do the third shot (my husband, who was my "fat" holder on my stomach, started laughing at me). Apparently I was too nervous and didn't do it quick or hard enough to break skin, and it bounced right off! That was an interesting feeling as well. But alas, I made it through.

During this process I have had more ultrasounds and bloodwork done that I believe anyone needs to have done in a lifetime. Every other day I was at the doctors office at 7:30 AM to have blood drawn and then an ultrasound. It was exhausting! But FINALLY the day arrived that I would have my retrieval (originally the day I would start chemo, but that's another post). We had to be at the office bright at early (well really dark and early) at 7AM to begin. It was uncomfortable and we talked about things I never in my life would have dreamed my husband and I would talk with strangers about. They hopped me up on a narcotic so I wouldn't really feel anything and the procedure went well. 12 eggs. Yes I said TWELVE EGGS were taken out of my body in a very short amount of time. Wham, bam and we were done. I think the longest part of the entire procedure was recovering from the narcotic, which my body doesn't always have the best response to. Dizzy, light headed, nauseousness were all side effects that are possible. I had all of them. The nurse sat me up slowly, extremely slowly. Finally she decided I wasn't able to walk to the car on my own two legs and got a wheel chair. Laying down I was fine, but as soon as I stood up, I felt sick. I dry heaved the entire walk from our driveway into our living room and finally just face planted on my couch because I was so sick! Lots of napping was in my immediate future!

After a few hours I woke up, ate some lunch and felt a little better. It was an interesting morning and I ended up being very happy that I did not have my treatment that afternoon, I couldn't even imagine what I would have felt like then!

Thank you for taking this journey with me. Until next time.

AD

Just pile it on

So I finally knew I needed to go through chemo. Lucky me...

Now on to the medical oncologist appointment. Thankfully I really liked the oncologist since I will be stuck with her for the next 5-10 years! This appointment went as well as I could hope for, except I found out what my chemo treatment would be, and this unfortunately was not was I was hoping. No pill. No keeping my hair. No "easy" treatment. I would have to go through an aggressive two-round drug cocktail for chemotherapy that will last 20 weeks. For those of you who don't know (I didn't before this appointment) cancerous tumors are judged based on their "stage" (research terminology) and "grade" (how fast are the cancerous cells reproducing). My "stage" was good, 1A the lowest they could hope for. Awesome. But my body hates me and my "grade" on a scale of 1-3 (1 is the best, 3 the worst) my cells were a 3. Of course. My cancer had been caught early enough that it didn't have a chance to grow any larger, but they way my oncologist put it, I have "very angry cells" that are reproducing quickly. This is common in young patients diagnosed with breast cancer, it's usually a much more aggressive type.

The one good take away from this appointment is that I had a plan, no more hurry up and wait for me. BUT it would be more of that. The doctor asked if my husband and I wanted more kids in our future, my answer was YES. Colin keeps saying that he has his boy, so he's done, HA! Because of the answering being yes, my treatment just became a little more complicated. With this aggressive treatment, my chances of having children naturally after treatment would be very, very slim since the drugs they are putting me on are VERY potent. So here's another wrench.

For once though, my body was working on my side and after contacting the reproductive doctor we could go through the process (rather quickly) and do an egg harvest. My chemo treatment was going to start last Monday, December 1st, but with the IVF, it was pushed back to start on Monday, December 8th. So now only did I find out I had to go through chemo, I also found out that I had to go through IVF to have any more children. It's been a rough couple of months for me and my spirit. But thankfully my body was working in my favor and it was possible to start the IVF process in time.

I think the IVF process has been one of the harder aspects of me to deal with. While I am thankful that this process is available and I am able to do this, they don't make it easy. It's expensive, time consuming, and very counter intuitive (having to stab myself multiple times with needles twice a day). And when I'm saying expensive, I mean E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. My insurance doesn't cover any of the procedure and it includes over $7,000 worth of medications, with the doctor's fee of just under $5,000 too. So looking at these numbers, there is a total expense of roughly $12,000. That is just bat-shit insane. Who can afford that? Surely not me and my teacher husband!

While these numbers were hard to digest, I did get some good news from the doctor's office. Because we were not opting to go through this and because I have cancer and will be going through chemotherapy, one of the drug companies has a policy in place to give the $7,000 in medication free. Ok, we could do this, with some help of course. I am definitely not the most religious person around, but I knew in that moment that there was someone up there working in my favor and making all of this possible. I freaked out a little still, just about the remainder of the cost, but with so much of the cost covered, I could get through. Now on to the hard part, stabbing myself with a needle! I'm probably going to need some help with that.

On my to-do list: call my nursing friends!

Until next time.

AD