1. Ever since I've been through chemo, I no longer perspire the way I used to. That's not to say that I don't sweat. I often wake up in the middle of the night with a clammy head and back of my neck. BUT, I don't perspire under my arms and have absolutely no body odor in this heat...weird
2. We took Zelda to the neurologist the other day for a check-up. She's doing well except for her sometimes very difficult 'pissy princess' routine and the fact that she doesn't want to go to sleep at night. She'll get quiet, lie down and go through the motions then it's up and party time sometimes until midnight! Several things may be going on here but one that her Dr Mike suggested is that due to her blindness, she doesn't acknowledge the darkness and therefore her brain does not release melatonin. So, we have started her on a mild dose of melatonin - mixed in a spoonful of applesauce - each evening about a half an hour before bedtime. So far, so good. And no hangover as of yet...curious
3. My Mom has finished her 33 radiation treatments but has developed a strange pain in her head. Her idiotic GP called and said there was an 'abnormality' in her blood work and my Mom, being the 85 yr old in denial, didn't want to know what it was and just went for the brain MRI with no questions asked. So now we are waiting until after the holiday weekend for the results. She thinks it's shingles...weird, curious, and a bit scary
4. Manu has gone back to Paris after his usual 2 week stay and my brain is still running in French. We talked of politics - Sarkozy & Obama - film, television, neighborhoods changing in Paris, old friends, child rearing, relationships and thankfully not so much about cancer...not weird at all
5. Creed latest phase is hanging out with his 'guys' i.e. his stuffed penguin, puppies, horses, etc, the employees at Jo's, or his favorite guy, his Daddy...normal, I guess
I hear Zelda in the next room singing Amadeus by Falco...gotta run
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
"Stop Copying Me!!"...
...AKA "You're just jealous of my success!" My older sister, Shakti, had a dear friend, funny friend in the eighties who always used that saying - kind of snarky, kind of silly and we use it to this day. So when the other day, we found out that our youngest sister, Lori, had been diagnosed with breast cancer - yes, it's true - I just had to call her and yell at her. She's just jealous of my success...always wanting to copy me...
So, what do we do now? I was diagnosed in December, Stage I, Triple neg, had a lumpectomy, had my chemo #6 this past Tuesday. 2 more to go, then radiation. Mom, 85, was diagnosed in February, Stage II, ER/PR+, had a lumpectomy, will not do chemo and begins radiation any day now. Lori, 45, got the results of her biopsy as I sat in my chemo chair. She called me crying. The tumor is larger than mine or Mom's. They want to immediately put in a port and start her on chemo first in order to try and shrink it before any surgery. No staging or other pathology results yet. Needless to say, Shakti is freaked out. How did she escape the bullet? Or hasn't she? How does this all happen at once to one family? My genetic testing of the BRACAgene came back negative last month but I guess there are other mutations that need to be examined. Our family is reeling...
Chemo #6 flowed through my veins for 6 hours, then a neulasta shot yesterday. Have done 2 photo shoots for the Art Bra Calendar. More friends, Jerry & Mary, arrive from NY tomorrow for the weekend. Hopefully this round won't hit too hard as we have tickets to see Springsteen...just need an injection of that New Jersey fight back into my veins...
So, what do we do now? I was diagnosed in December, Stage I, Triple neg, had a lumpectomy, had my chemo #6 this past Tuesday. 2 more to go, then radiation. Mom, 85, was diagnosed in February, Stage II, ER/PR+, had a lumpectomy, will not do chemo and begins radiation any day now. Lori, 45, got the results of her biopsy as I sat in my chemo chair. She called me crying. The tumor is larger than mine or Mom's. They want to immediately put in a port and start her on chemo first in order to try and shrink it before any surgery. No staging or other pathology results yet. Needless to say, Shakti is freaked out. How did she escape the bullet? Or hasn't she? How does this all happen at once to one family? My genetic testing of the BRACAgene came back negative last month but I guess there are other mutations that need to be examined. Our family is reeling...
Chemo #6 flowed through my veins for 6 hours, then a neulasta shot yesterday. Have done 2 photo shoots for the Art Bra Calendar. More friends, Jerry & Mary, arrive from NY tomorrow for the weekend. Hopefully this round won't hit too hard as we have tickets to see Springsteen...just need an injection of that New Jersey fight back into my veins...
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Three strikes...
...Me...Mom...now my younger sister, Lori. She has a lump. The ultrasound reveals it is irregular and suspicious. It's not fluid filled. It's larger than mine was, or my Mom's. Dear Dr Smith, my Eagle Scout surgeon...can I get a commission for referring patients to you? Sorry but I have to say it: What the fuck????
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Chemo #4...Mom's update...
I haven't been posting too much because sometimes this cancer just overwhelms me. It is so present in my life: emotionally, mentally and physically. I have to force myself to focus on other things. Each morning I wake up with mixed signals of how many things I can accomplish in one day (I'll make a list of 5 or 10 and MAYBE get to 1) but am also filled with trepidation of possible side effects. The effects can happen unexpectedly at any time, not unlike the food aversions or cravings I may have.
I sat in the chemo chair yesterday as I watched the nurse push in my last dose of the "Red Devil" - the dreaded, harsh adriamycin that they have to infuse by hand. It looks like the thickest, brightest most syrupy red stuff going into my body. Afterwards, I pee red for about 12 hours...lovely.
I usually feel good the afternoon of chemo so my friend Liz took me to the Woodland on South Congress for my favorite big pepper-crusted hamburger, a limeade ginger soda and a pie of peanut butter chocolate pie. I ate the whole thing as my oncologist thinks I am loosing weight and who knows if the nausea will set in anytime soon. Today, this day after, can be conflicting: still energized by the steroids in the morning but with the onslaught of SE's.
*Strange things that happen or I feel during chemo: (sorry if it's TMI but everyone should know in case you have to go through this and remember everyone is different) 1) constant or underlying nausea - can hit anytime and for any length of time. I haven't puked but I can be very close at any given moment. 2) the tips of my fingers are sore at night as if my finger nails are trying to grow and they can't. 3) I have to constantly battle constipation due to the chemo drugs, I take Senekot almost daily, nice... 4) my hair is now reduced to stubble, I thought it would be smooth but it's not and at night it stands up on end and hurts to lay my head on the pillow. 4) I have to pee constantly because I drink so much water to flush my system. 5) my skin is dry, dry, dry. 6) there is absolutely no moisture in my eyes, esp at night, and I awake to put in eye drops to pry them open. 6)usually the day or so after chemo I am hit by a sharp, troublesome headache that lasts for several days. 7) the hair on my legs has stopped growing, my underarm hair is gone and my pubic hair is thinning. 8) perhaps the most troublesome SE besides the never ending fatigue which doesn't allow me to do much esp with the twins (or moreover, I push myself to walk or play with them for an hour or so, and then collapse into a nap) is the "chemo brain". I forget things, I have trouble finding words, I get lost in the middle of a sentence. Evan will ask me to remind him to do something and I'll have to REMIND him who he's talking to...I could forget at any moment. And these are just the physical SE's...
As for Mom, her surgery went splendidly but the results were not great, but not bad either. She is Stage 2 as her tumor was 4.5cm. Her lymph nodes are involved with 3/7 testing positive so Dr Smith did an axillary dissection. With lymph node involvement she is no longer a candidate for the mammosite and will receive the long term whole breast radiation with a boost to an area as they found cancer in a small piece of the margin taken from the tumor. She has elected not to have another excision surgery and I don't blame her with a cancer that has metasticised who knows where else it could already be in her body. My Mom is strong and exercises regularly so hopefully she'll sail through all of this and continue to live many more years past her current 85.
AND back to me, me, me...I am looking in the mirror at a sallow, tired, bald woman with bags under her eyes...I look sick. Nice people say I look chic with my cheekbones, shorn locks and tall, thin demeanor but I think I look like a cancer victim. So I put on my Gucci sunglasses and trudge forward...
Off to get my shot of Neulasta...
I sat in the chemo chair yesterday as I watched the nurse push in my last dose of the "Red Devil" - the dreaded, harsh adriamycin that they have to infuse by hand. It looks like the thickest, brightest most syrupy red stuff going into my body. Afterwards, I pee red for about 12 hours...lovely.
I usually feel good the afternoon of chemo so my friend Liz took me to the Woodland on South Congress for my favorite big pepper-crusted hamburger, a limeade ginger soda and a pie of peanut butter chocolate pie. I ate the whole thing as my oncologist thinks I am loosing weight and who knows if the nausea will set in anytime soon. Today, this day after, can be conflicting: still energized by the steroids in the morning but with the onslaught of SE's.
*Strange things that happen or I feel during chemo: (sorry if it's TMI but everyone should know in case you have to go through this and remember everyone is different) 1) constant or underlying nausea - can hit anytime and for any length of time. I haven't puked but I can be very close at any given moment. 2) the tips of my fingers are sore at night as if my finger nails are trying to grow and they can't. 3) I have to constantly battle constipation due to the chemo drugs, I take Senekot almost daily, nice... 4) my hair is now reduced to stubble, I thought it would be smooth but it's not and at night it stands up on end and hurts to lay my head on the pillow. 4) I have to pee constantly because I drink so much water to flush my system. 5) my skin is dry, dry, dry. 6) there is absolutely no moisture in my eyes, esp at night, and I awake to put in eye drops to pry them open. 6)usually the day or so after chemo I am hit by a sharp, troublesome headache that lasts for several days. 7) the hair on my legs has stopped growing, my underarm hair is gone and my pubic hair is thinning. 8) perhaps the most troublesome SE besides the never ending fatigue which doesn't allow me to do much esp with the twins (or moreover, I push myself to walk or play with them for an hour or so, and then collapse into a nap) is the "chemo brain". I forget things, I have trouble finding words, I get lost in the middle of a sentence. Evan will ask me to remind him to do something and I'll have to REMIND him who he's talking to...I could forget at any moment. And these are just the physical SE's...
As for Mom, her surgery went splendidly but the results were not great, but not bad either. She is Stage 2 as her tumor was 4.5cm. Her lymph nodes are involved with 3/7 testing positive so Dr Smith did an axillary dissection. With lymph node involvement she is no longer a candidate for the mammosite and will receive the long term whole breast radiation with a boost to an area as they found cancer in a small piece of the margin taken from the tumor. She has elected not to have another excision surgery and I don't blame her with a cancer that has metasticised who knows where else it could already be in her body. My Mom is strong and exercises regularly so hopefully she'll sail through all of this and continue to live many more years past her current 85.
AND back to me, me, me...I am looking in the mirror at a sallow, tired, bald woman with bags under her eyes...I look sick. Nice people say I look chic with my cheekbones, shorn locks and tall, thin demeanor but I think I look like a cancer victim. So I put on my Gucci sunglasses and trudge forward...
Off to get my shot of Neulasta...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Cash...Check...or Charge...
Cost of 1 visit with the oncologist: $463
Cost of 1 Oncotype test: $3820
Cost of 1 round of Chemo: $4500
Cost of 1 Neulasta shot: $7600
Cost of 1 lumpectomy surgery: $19000
Cost of seeing my twins smiling faces when they run in the door after a day at Ecole: priceless
* I don't know how people without health insurance in this country manage their care - it is criminal. The bills are exorbitant. We are lucky enough, despite being self-employed, to have good health care, with reasonable co-pays. We pay out the a** for it and the bills still rack up. We open them, read them and file them and wait for the phone calls to begin. If anyone out there still thinks that our health care system isn't broken, then they are sorely mistaken.
**Mom goes in for her surgery tomorrow. Her breast cancer is clinically Stage 1 at this point. She'll have a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, a sentinel node biopsy and a balloon inserted to prepare for a mammosite insertion. This little device will then able the radiation oncologists to pinpoint the area of her breast to be radiated. (I unfortunately, was not a candidate for this device and will undergo 6 weeks of radiation.) She will have have 5 days/2x day of radiation next week and then her treatment will be finished. She'll have been diagnosed, operated on, and gone through treatment within a total of 3 weeks. For that I am grateful as I don't know if she could withstand the 6 months that I am going through. Good luck, Mom!
Cost of 1 Oncotype test: $3820
Cost of 1 round of Chemo: $4500
Cost of 1 Neulasta shot: $7600
Cost of 1 lumpectomy surgery: $19000
Cost of seeing my twins smiling faces when they run in the door after a day at Ecole: priceless
* I don't know how people without health insurance in this country manage their care - it is criminal. The bills are exorbitant. We are lucky enough, despite being self-employed, to have good health care, with reasonable co-pays. We pay out the a** for it and the bills still rack up. We open them, read them and file them and wait for the phone calls to begin. If anyone out there still thinks that our health care system isn't broken, then they are sorely mistaken.
**Mom goes in for her surgery tomorrow. Her breast cancer is clinically Stage 1 at this point. She'll have a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, a sentinel node biopsy and a balloon inserted to prepare for a mammosite insertion. This little device will then able the radiation oncologists to pinpoint the area of her breast to be radiated. (I unfortunately, was not a candidate for this device and will undergo 6 weeks of radiation.) She will have have 5 days/2x day of radiation next week and then her treatment will be finished. She'll have been diagnosed, operated on, and gone through treatment within a total of 3 weeks. For that I am grateful as I don't know if she could withstand the 6 months that I am going through. Good luck, Mom!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF...
My mom is 85. She is feisty, ornery, opinionated and smart but getting older by the minute. AND NOW SHE HAS BREAST CANCER!!!! WTF!!!
She had a biopsy on Monday and as she called for 3 days, yes, 3 days, for the results, she got the run-around from her boob (no pun intended!) of an internist. Today he told her, "Mrs C., I don't have the results in front of me but I can "verbally" tell you that they found cancer cells in your breast biopsy." Apparently he told her it's the "most common type". Huh?
I am:
-pissed off
-livid
-impatient
-anxious to be focusing on someone's illness rather than my own...
Tomorrow, I'm accompanying her to an oncologist that the "boob" recommended...then, we're going to see the rock star, Dr H.
This is not my idea of a mother-daughter bonding experience...
She had a biopsy on Monday and as she called for 3 days, yes, 3 days, for the results, she got the run-around from her boob (no pun intended!) of an internist. Today he told her, "Mrs C., I don't have the results in front of me but I can "verbally" tell you that they found cancer cells in your breast biopsy." Apparently he told her it's the "most common type". Huh?
I am:
-pissed off
-livid
-impatient
-anxious to be focusing on someone's illness rather than my own...
Tomorrow, I'm accompanying her to an oncologist that the "boob" recommended...then, we're going to see the rock star, Dr H.
This is not my idea of a mother-daughter bonding experience...
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