Spring is finally here!

I am doing fabulous so stop reading this blog and get out and enjoy the sun.

Bunny has lost some ear!

It’s true! Bunny is back from the spa and is happy to report feeling very relaxed and healthy. The bad news is and to Bunny's surprise, he has begun to lose some ear. He is not sad because the doctors tell him the hair loss shows the chemo is working and that is the bottom line. For me, I too have begun to lose my hair. Mine unfortunately is not as cute and cuddly as our friend bunny. Mine is more on the lines of a drunk trying to complete a Wolly Willy Game after a long night on the town.



I am feeling strong, healthy, and happy so let me share a couple of really feel good stories with you that have happened in the last couple of days.

1. I was on bus #14 the other day. For those of you who do not know it runs right by our place and takes me within 1/2 block of my clients office. I try and walk everyday but for some reason on this day I got on the bus and was met by an angel. She made my day. The bus was full and I had to stand up close to her in fact just to her elbow. It was a tough day for me because it was the first day I had to wear a scarf. I officially looked liked a cancer patient. She and I chatted and I guess once she noticed my pink cancer pin she told me she lost her mother to cancer. I can't remember how we started. I told her mine was breast and she said " girl you are in luck because this morning I asked God to bless and heal all of my riders". I told her I was on the right bus and plus I met her. She told me how fabulous I looked, which my vanity needed to hear. I told her "Girl chemo can take my hair but it can't my style" and she tossed her hand up and said Hallelujah and laughed. Later that day on my way home I got her as the same driver when I got on the bus I said look who just happens to be and she said "Girl you know God doesn't do just happens". So I gave her my card and asked her to pray for me and of course she said she would be honored. Even on the bus God's love finds us.

2. You say how you can top a story like that? Well it's simple. As I stood in front of Tom crying yesterday after I brushed up a pile of my hair from my pillow and cried about my hair loss, my bald spots, my dry skin, fat ass, belly and hips, he told me I am beautiful. As I looked into his eyes I began to believe him. Now that's good medicine my friends.

Alright enough of this stuff here is some important info. On 5/15/06 I receive my last chemo treatment. On 5/14/06 there is a breast cancer walk sponsored by the American Cancer Society. I know it is mother’s day so no pressure to walk with us. Please check out their website and take a looky. http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=151078

If you are interested in getting out of the house for a couple of hours and want to come catch up with us and walk. We would love to have you. We will be walking and then meeting for a cold beer (me water you beer) somewhere. Now that sounds like a real mother’s day gift don’t you think? CALL me if you want to walk. Call me anyway I would love to hear from you all.


We love all of you and thank you a million times over for all of your support and prayers.

It’s official I have breast cancer.

On Monday the 17th I had my second treatment of chemo and by mid Tuesday morning my hair began to fall out. Not in an elegant way like you would think but in a crazy stupid way that no one is ever really prepared for . When I touched my hair it came out… like a chee- a -pet type thing but I don’t think it will grow back as quickly as the porky pig head on TV does. It hurts a little. It feels like I have goose bumps on my scalp and when I touch my hair the goose bumps are not tight enough to hold my hair in. I guess you could say I have loose goose syndrome. This is not the first time I may have been considered loose my friends hahahah.

What to do about the hair loss well at first I just didn’t touch it but to my surprise when I cleaned the couch with my lint brush from what I thought was cat hair I discovered it was my hair. Now I am as vane as the next person but I am also very lazy these days. The lazy side won this time so I decided to shave my head so I would not have to clean as much. This may win the lazy award. Crap my vanity isn’t doing me much good lately anyway so why not be lazy right?

Every day I feel like I have slight hang over so I eat something that will keep me from feeling crappy when I take my pills 4 times a day. Now you would think a nice healthy meal would do the trick but oh no my friends that would mean I would have to over come WHAT ? my laziness and cook. Instead I eat crap and just keep getting fatter because I am on steroids, lazy, and don’t feel like exercising. So with that said and to clear up any misunderstandings I am 40 years old, fat, 5”4” with a shaved head, lazy, white female who has thrown vanity out of the window for now and decided to wear my daily uniform of underwear and a t shirt and watch Perry Mason as much as I can. On the two days a week I do work I muster up enough “f” you attitude and get myself dressed in what some might say is decent and I walk my fat ass down town for a few hours. I really need to make me a shirt that says I AM NOT MUSLIM! I HAVE CANCER… My scarves are pretty but they are not the norm in this area and some might wonder about me. Do you think the Muslims will be offended by my t shirt. Come on of course they will. I have a wig but it itches since I still have some hair left. That is another kind of kick in my ass. I don’t have enough hair to look like a girl but too much hair to be able to wear my wig without feeling like I am in a science experiement of ants on your head.

Any who, the above two photos are of us getting my hair cut off yesterday. Norene in the photo with a flag shirt on has cut my hair since I was in 8th grade; there is of course Tom and my sister Terri. We shaved my head, tried my wig on and of course ate cake to celebrate just one more pain in the ass thing that comes when you are fighting cancer.

I told Norene it seems wrong that she has had to take me from prom hair to cancer hair but that is life I guess. And as my wonderful husband keeps telling me LIVING is the goal here so there rest is just the crap that goes with it. You can see why I love him more every day. Wig will be out soon but until then if you see me just pretend I just got paid millions to cut my hair for an up coming movie… it makes me feel rich and sexy instead of poor, fat, and cancery. (is cancery a word?)

Keep your prayers and laughter coming our way we love you all and all of your support is helping us get through this F'd up nightmare.

For those of you who are wondering where Bunny is, well he got nervous yesterday when we told him we were going to get a Hare Cut!!! so he declined the trip and will be returning soon for your enjoyment.

2cm x 2.5cm

You heard me the 3cm x3cm tumor is shrinking. It is official now it is 2cm x 2.5 cm. They measured my boob lump with a fancy device called a tape measure. You know the kind you would use in sewing. Very hi-tech I know. But let's stay focused here. To quote a very famous person who who liked flying monkeys my cancer tumor is saying
" Help me I'm melting".

That’s right MY CANCER TUMOR IS SHRINKING AND IT IS ALL BECAUSE OF ALL OF YOU.

I am feeling so good after this second chemo I think Bunny might think his job is over... well he is way wrong. I have lots planned for him over the next few weeks but today I felt so good that I did about an hour of yard work. Our apartment has a little 12 x 12 garden fenced area just for our use so I did some basic cleaning in there getting ready for spring.

On the hair loss front... not so much hair loss on my head yet that I have noticed but funny enough let's just say someone should have mentioned the other places on your body that hair will fall out in clumps... who would have thunk it. I may have to groom old Link before it gets ugly. Some of you may not know who Link is but think back to the Mod Squad. Oh yeah Link was the guy with the big afro. This may be too personal for some of you but I think it is just another funny little goofy thing that happens with chemo that I thought you might find interesting.

I feel healthy and strong and ready to get this crap over. It is an inconvenience if I do say so my damn self. Get checked early cuz if this dang thing had been under 2cm to begin with and since it had not spread into lymph nodes this chemo crap might not have been needed.

GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS EARLY AND CHECK YOURSELF OR HAVE A FRIEND CHECK YOU MONTHLY.

That brings me to this.

Many of you might say what should I feel for?. I will tell you what mine felt like. It is at two o'clock on my left breast. When I laid on my back and lifted my left arm it felt like a smooth funky sold mass. It hurt when I poked at it. It was smooth but like a lumpy thing under the smooth surface if that makes since. It was very solid feeling and scared the crap out of me when I felt it. Listen to your self if it feels funky than it is. Now that it is shrinking from all of the stuff I am doing it feels hard and shriveled. It feels like a small peach pit with pointed ends..

Never be afraid to see you doctor and never be afraid to ask for a second opinion IT IS YOUR LIFE take care of it.

Love to all of you keep your prayers and thoughts coming please. This thing ain't over yet.

Bunny is on retreat

As you can see from this new photo, Bunny is taking advantage of feeling fabulous these last few days and is off at a local spa enjoying the good life. I on the other hand have been using my time wisely. I have been cleaning, laundry, and little projects like staging funny Bunny photos and getting ready for the next round of feeling crappy for 3-4 days. My next chemo is this coming Monday so keep sending me "Good Vibrations". Have a great Easter weekend and check in next week for an update on Bunny goes to chemo part II.

Love to all of you

SPREAD THE WORD

I am feeling fabulous today so I wanted to remind all of our loving friends and family members to remember to SPREAD the word MAMMOGRAMS SAVE LIVES AT ANY AGE. Tell every woman you know about me. Tell them to get a mammogram and make sure you get yours.

Mammograms are not just for women 40 and over. I turned 40 on 1/26/06 and was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer on 3/20/06. Needless to say that was my first mammogram. I found the lump and went in, praise God. Who knows what would have happened if my doctor had not sent me for a mammogram because I was 40. This time waiting would not have been good.

Keep the prayers and love coming our way. It is working like you would not believe. I feel strong and healthy and able to fight. It is because of my husband, my sister, my family and all of you wonderful people and oh yes let's not forget our two furry cats and my body double, Bunny.

All of our love to all of you

Bunny has the day off

I AM HAPPY TO REPORT, I DON’T FEEL LIKE CRAP. Saturday and so far this beautiful Palm Sunday morning I am feeling a strong 80% of normal and since I have never really been 100% normal, I will take what I can get.

As you can tell from my newest photo Bunny is taking some time off. My substitute helper is Baby Boy Cat. He is working very hard for me. He knows I need someone to lay with me while I nap and dang it regardless of how hard it is on him he will do anything for me or Tom. In fact we find him practicing his nap assisting technique every day for hours at a time. He is a real trooper and a great nap helper.

I do not have chemo again until the 17th so Tom is taking advantage of my improvement and heading to St. Louis next weekend to watch hockey, the Blues vs the Red Wings. So if any of you want to call or visit next weekend it would be greatly appreciated by us both. I can’t guarantee I will be 100% but I am always up for a visit or a call. They can make me feel like crap but they will NEVER make me feel like not talking.

Thank you again for all of your love

Back

Well, I pulled my big butt out of bed this morning and walked downtown across the Hawthorne Bridge to my client’s office. It was a fairly nice morning but still a little chilly. With my recent cold I thought it was best to keep my ears covered. So here I am a sad little chubby girl walking across the bridge at almost a stand still with my bright lime scarf around my head. I kept thinking I hope no one thinks I am Muslim. That’s bad of me I know but let’s face it, it is a tough time for a Muslim woman. Any who, once I got to the office I realized the soft fabric of my scarf created static and made my very short hair stand straight up. Oh yes did I look foxy if I do say so my darn self. That reminded me of the other day when we were in the doctors office we over heard a woman say Chemo is the anti vanity drug… well I believe that my friends. With every tingle of my scalp I think CRAP I am going to lose my hair. Yah, Yah, Yah some women don’t but shit my tumor was only a 10% chance it was cancer so I am not batting 1000 here. Tom and I are so F’N happy the cancer has not spread but if we get to re-vote we would vote no on all of this. In fact I want to know, did someone use those defective chads from Florida when we voted for my cancer. I demand a re-vote!!!!

I do feel better today than yesterday or the day before so that is always a good thing as Martha might say. If you want to know what this feels like I will share my inner secrets with you my close friends and family. IT SUCKS like a very long hang over that you know will not go away for 6 months or more, But I am ALIVE and that is all that matters.

Keep us in your prayers and think of Tom and me when you laugh. Laughter is the best medicine only second to love.

Bunny isn't' feelin so good today

I have a few minutes between coughing and passing out so I thought I would update the blog.

This sucks let’s just say it up front. My cold has gone into my lungs which gives me the double joy of a fever and coughing up stuff that makes me feel nauseas. Oh that is ok cuz my doctors have prescribed nausea medication but I don’t want to take it because it doubles as an anti schizophrenic drug. Who the hell came up with that combo? Hey I know they have cancer and will feel like throwing up so let’s make a medicine that will help them and let’s save money and double that one up for the schizophrenic. Who the heck is making this stuff? So to make my long and painful update shorter, THIS SUCKS!

So I am off to the doctor today to ask the simple question, is there a drug that will help my get over my cough and allow me to not want to throw up every second? Maybe they could call that drug the combo #2 with a soda.

Love all of you and although it sounds like a bad day… Any day I am alive is a kick ass day so really no complaints.

My First Night After Chemo

Well it wasn't kittens and puppies licking me all night but it wasn't as bad as those hang overs we have all had. I have learned my lesson really fast about Chemo. You don't want to eat crappy food like cheese bread and fondue. OK OK OK I get it I have to be healthy or I will feel like crap. Last night was a long night with just enough discomfort to keep me from sleeping but not enough to make me take all of the medicines they wanted me to. However I did finally call my doctor on call just to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack. They told me the medicine for my white blood cells might make my joints hurt, well it did. Many may not think of the sternum as a joint but after a brief discussion with the doc last night I was reminded that all of our ribs attach to our sternum and so we have 24 little joints right over our heart that might be affected (sorry Bob can't remember your lesson e or a) by this stuff. As always I am a high achiever so all 24 joints hurt like hell. I will also say that if you are thinking you are having a heart attach and you have just had 5 lymph nodes removed from your left arm and a cancer tumor in your left boob it might make it a little hard to know if the pain is radiating into your left arm or not. The good news is I watched all that late night TV until 4:00 AM I never get to see since we usually go to bed about 9:00 every night. Did you all know that Jay and Conan replay around 2:00AM.

Once again I have to say Tom has been there for me as has his wonderful work place, Horizon Air. We got off to a very slow start this morning and we are blessed Horizon works with him on his schedule so he can be with me. This is not an Ad for Horizon but it would be a pretty good one. We are finding they really do care about their employees and family members. In fact the insurance company Great West has been just as wonderful and a true blessing. They have assigned a personal nurse to me for all of my needs and concerns and have not hassled us on any of my procedures or medicine needs. When we hear crappy stories every day about down sizing and bad employers Tom and I feel blessed he works for Horizon. Fly Horizon or Alaska when you can. Hey do you think they might pay me for this?

Lots of love to all of you

GREAT NEWS!!!! & Bunny Gets Chemo

Today we found out that the cancer has not spread to my lymph nodes. Your prayers and good energy is working so THANK YOU. We would not be able to do this without YOU all.

Now for the update: Bunny gets Chemo portion of our trip. Today was my first Chemo treatment and for you intellectual types the two drugs I am receiving are ALOXI a anti nausea drug DEXAMETHASONE to help reduce nausea, allergic reactions, swelling, etc CYCLOPHOSPHAMIDE and DOXORUBICIN both are anti cancer drugs that stop cell growth and division. They were all administered via an IV. I did receive another drug via an injection to help my body produce more white blood cells. I don't remember the name of the drug.

Tom sat next to me for the 2 hour treatment and we watched part of a movie in small very comfy blue leather recliners. The movie was Madagascar on a personal DVD player both courtesy of our Earth Angels Bob and Charlene Allen. The time went by fairly fast. I feel pretty good except for this BS cold I picked up over the weekend. At first I thought "MAN" how much does God have to pile on me and then we got the good news about the nodes and I said bring it on BIG GUY keep giving us this good news and I can take what ever you send my way. Hey I have had some pretty nasty hang overs where I wished I was dead so what ever happens this has got to be a piece of cake.

Thank you again to all of you sending us love and support. Please keep in touch via email or phone and of course keep checking in for the next adventure for Bunny. My next chemo is 4/17/06.

With love and gratitude to all

Here we go!

We know you are all on pins and needles what the heck is going on with Phyllis you say. Well on Thursday we saw our surgeon and she said I was not crazy, my lump has shrunk some. Yes it is a miracle but no I don't get out of this that easy. She is not against the miracle theory but she said it may also be that when she punctured the cyst around the tumor it collapsed. So I guess you could say Phyllis had a big zit and once that was gone it seemed smaller. So on we go...

Yesterday I had my first surgery ever in my life. For those of you who may not have heard I went in to have a sentinel node biopsy performed to see if the cancer has spread. In the past they would perform this as they were removing the tumor in a lumpectomy but our team has decided in this case we wanted to know before I began chemo. It will help the Oncologist decide which chemo drugs I should get. Our hopes are it has not spread but either way my treatment will be 8 weeks of chemo 1 time every two weeks beginning on 4/4 and hopefully ending on 5/16. Which means some hair back by end of July. The results we are praying for is my tumor will shrink so small the lumpectomy will be minor and if we are really lucky it might disappear completely. If it goes away I will still have to have some tissue removed where it was but it will not be as much.

It went way easier than I had worried about. I guess you could say I was a surgery virgin... at least I could still say I was a virgin at something. Great now I don't even have that to brag about. Oh well at least I waited until I was married for this one. (Sorry Dad if you are reading this). I feel as well as can be expected my left arm pit is soar and my throat hurts just a smidge but for the most part I am good to go. Oh I did forget to mention in honor of Easter my left boob looks like it was dipped in blue food coloring. That is from the blue die they used to find my lymph node. The nurses and doctors were FANTASTICS!!. In fact when I woke up from my surgery my small bunny my sister had given me was on my chest with a surgical hat on and a bandage on just like me. (see photo above)

Since I don't want to be one of those tacky women who win an Oscar and don't give the proper thanks to their families here is the first of many. My husband Tom and my sister Terri are my strength and my comfort. In fact they were so comfortable they both fell asleep while we were in my pre surgery room. If you know how small these rooms are you will know how tough they had to be to get comfy enough to sleep for a couple of hours. Tom snuggled right up next to me in my small bed and Terri slept in the chair while I hung half my ass off the bed and watched TV. If we were not laughing about how they wanted to know if I could find some place else to wait so they would be more comfortable or laughing at the notes Tom wrote on the nurses dry erase board then I was bitching I didn't have any room. Yep, just like home. Laughing and bitching made the six hours fly by. Thanks to all of you who are praying for me and keeping me in your happy thoughts. We love all of you and are proud you are our friends and family.

Make sure to keep spreading the word- Ladies get your mammograms and men check your ladies lumps as often as you can find the time. One last thing, you don't have to sign up to comment on my blog. Just send me an email or call.