I Love You! & Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you

I'm a lucky girl, actually a very lucky girl and I'm so grateful for the amazing people I have in my life! 

Since my ordeal with cancer started I have been dump founded many times by the generosity of family, friends, acquaintances and virtual strangers. You all help to restore my faith in human kind. I really don't know what I can say or do to express how truly grateful I am to them all, because saying thank you just doesn't seem like enough. People have made me and my family meals (which we turn to often when I'm not feeling my best), bought me gifts and donated money to help pay for expenses. I'm speechless! So since I've found nothing else.....

Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!!!

And a very special thank you to my Shoppers family who most recently left me in tears!

Oh my family, I Love you! I love you so much! Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you! I need to say this to you all everyday, you are nothing but amazing to me!  You mean the world to me and I couldn't thank you enough for all that you have & will do for me, so if I forget ever to say it, Thank-you! I'm very grateful for each of you from the young to the old, and lucky to have you all each and everyday. 

I love you and thank-you each and everyone of you.

I'm a BAD Blogger...ugh

I know, I know, I am a bad blogger! I have not updated this blog in over a month but in my defence it was a busy month. There was Christmas which was fabulous! It was the 1st time my father was able to be home for Christmas in 12 years, my baby's 1st Christmas and the 1st time my older child got that SANTA was coming! I had my family & friends, I felt good, I couldn't have asked for more really (other than the obvious no cancer).
Had to head in for my 3rd treatment right after Christmas so there were no celebrations to bring in the New Year, I went to bed in 2012 and awoke in 2013. So I guess I owe a lot of people a big Happy New Year!
So after today I will have 2 more chemo treatments or we could say I'm 2/3 done. Either way it's exciting, as long as the next 2 go off with out any hitches I will be done chemo by the end of February, woohoo! Treatments will still be going on until November 2013 but my hair should start to grow again and hopefully my food will start to taste normal again (no funky metallic taste, fingers crossed). After my 1st treatment they dialled back my chemo and I haven't suffered from any real unpleasant side affects since (diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, mouth sores etc..), biggest complaint is my energy is just not there sometimes.  I've had a few periods of insomnia but they haven't lasted for too long, so all-in-all I'm just rocking through chemo. A little side bar on rocking through chemo, my blood work came back before my 3rd treatment saying my magnesium was a little low so I had to have a magnesium drip before my treatment, my blood work this time said it was normal again but I'm starting to become slightly anemic.  These are both side effects of the chemo drugs, my oncologist assures me they are nothing to concern myself with they just need to watch that they don't become something more significant.
I promise I'll try and be a better blogger this year. It is not a resolution because New Years resolutions never pan-out, I'm just putting that out there.

Round 2!

Today I'm writing from my chair in the daycare unit (that's what they call the units where you get chemo); so I guess there is a daycare for adults and let me tell you we want to attend far less then most children, haven't witnessed any temper tantrums or crying for there moms here, I'm sure that can change as I said before it is kinda a sad place.
As for round 2 so far so good, and I'm not anticipating anything to happen today I'm sure the next few days will bring the side effects. I'm thinking I'll be fine, mind over matter, right?! Yes!
The one side affect that I can't get away from or hide from the world has begun, the hair loss. About a week ago I noticed the hair coming out a little easier then normal, so I shaved my head. My eldest son calls it my Daddy hair cut, hehe! his Daddy has longer hair and so does he and his baby brother.  So yesterday I purchased a wig for days I want to have hair and I'm in the process of looking for other head wear because it's soooo cold with no hair!  I'm starting to have some sympathy for bald men, I really never realized how warm my hair was. Today I've noticed that the hair is beginning to come out in clumps so I guess it won't be long now that I'll be taking on the appearance of a cancer patient, yuck!!  Regardless of my appearance I know it's just hair and this is only temporary and for many people it's permanent so I'm not going to complain, so it may be gone for the next few months but then it will start to come back and I will be looking normal again in no time ;).
Can't wait to be done sitting here and getting home to my little men!  I miss my hectic life at home and I think they may be killing there babysitters.

Finally a moment to breath...

Round 1: Done.  I didn't have any reactions during my chemo injections so it was just a long uneventful day. The next couple of days I was tired and just feeling under the weather, definitely felt worse and much better. The third day at home was probably the worse day for me; here it is in a nutshell diarrhea, most god awful taste in my mouth(and very tender mouth), back aching, nausea which turned into actual vomiting (thankfully only once). The diarrhea and the mouth issues have been lingering but everything else has thankfully gone away.
As I thought I might be turning the corner and going to be feeling normal again, not 1 but both my children got fevers and were sick for the next 5 days. I won't elaborate because we have all been sick and you can all imagine how much fun 2 sick kids are. Ugh! Of course this little bout with what ever they had had to fall just as my blood counts were dropping yah(that is a very sarcastic yah). Thankfully I and they made it through, we are all healthy!
Now this Mama needs to get some sleep to make up for the last week of not getting any, and make some play dates for the kids!

Hurry up...and wait.

So what's been going on lately?  Not much.  Just hanging out with my family, healing up so we can move on.  The second breast surgery went well and wasn't as uncomfortable as the first one, oddly enough, I'm thinking its because the IVAD (or power port) that was installed earlier in the week was so uncomfortable the boob surgery was nothing.  I was just had a black and blue chest for about a week then it turned a few different colours as the bruises healed. Now the only thing noticeable is the bump on my chest where the IVAD lives under my skin. I swear it has a bulls eye on it because my kids never miss it!  I've healed up nicely the doctor attributed it to my young skin and I've been cleared to move on.
Tomorrow I will receive my first round of chemo therapy. Part of me is terrified of the unknown (how my body will react, will I be sick, will I have an allergic reaction...) and the other part of me can't believe it is finally going to start ( it feels like I've been waiting forever, I do know it hasn't really been that long).  So for now I will have to wait and hope for the best because really what else can a person do with out driving oneself crazy? get some sleep.

Treatment suggestions

So what did the oncologist say? She said a lot but here are the highlights.  Firstly the hormone testing came back, estrogen came back 1+ (on a scale of 0-3), so that means the tumour is slightly affected by estrogen.  Progesterone came back a 0 so not a factor but the HER2 came back 3+. HER2 is a gene we all have but sometimes it is "over-expressed" and that leads to aggressive growth of the cancer.
The oncology team has suggested that I do 6 rounds of chemo therapy one every three weeks my cocktail will be Taxotere, Carboplatin and Herceptin.  The Herceptin will be administered every three weeks for a year.  Radiation will begin four weeks after chemo ends and that will be five days a week for five weeks.  They have also suggested that I take an estrogen blocker for five years.  All I can say is this is going to suck...

Well, that being said I'm experiencing my first set back in my treatment course (though it hasn't really started) this week.  Yesterday as I was sitting waiting to have my IVAD or port surgically installed and I received a phone call informing me I need to go back into surgery on Thursday they've decided the margins aren't big enough for there liking.  So I go under the knife, again.  Then I will have to heal, again! hopefully then we can get on with this treatment.  Ugh.
By this weekend I'm going to be rather unhappy because the girl who HATES needles/scalpels anything of the sort will have been poked and sliced far too many times for her liking all in one week. Also will have an injury on the right and left sides of my upper torso so that should make sleeping and general living interesting.
So here's to next week being a more agreeable one!

Sad place...

Last week I had my first visit to the Cross Cancer and met my medical oncologist.  Wowzers was that place SAD!  You hear every day that someone has cancer and you know it affects more people than we think but to actually get there and see all the people.  There was a moment where we were I cannot believe how many people are here and you know why they are all there.
Then the thing I knew I couldn't handle happened as we were standing line I saw a little girl crying in her mothers arms with her sisters and father standing around them.  It broke my heart no child should have to go through this, its not fair! There should be an exemption for children, they should not have there childhood ruined by cancer or any other disease for that matter.
As an adult who is rather rational about most things and I like to believe anyway fairly intelligent, I have a hard time wrapping my head around my diagnoses and understanding all the treatments.  So I know how scary it is for myself and then I imagine being a child and going through these things, it must be terrifying for a child!
Not that I believe anyone deserves this disease, its just heart breaking to see so many people going through it from the far too young to the old and everything in the middle.

On the other hand everyone who works/volunteers there is extremely pleasant and helpful.  You can tell they are trying to make your day a little less difficult and help in anyway possible. They are trying to make it a little less SAD and for that I have to say Thank-You.