The drain was removed last Wednesday.  I was laying in the exam room & Dr. W told me to take a deep breathe and another & Fu*k, it hurt when he pulled the drain out of my breast.  He covered the little hole in my side with a band-aid.  I didn’t realize until later that some blood leaked out onto my shirt.  Oh well..just had to pre-treat and the blood came out.  I spoke to the doctor about the different  reconstruction options.  I’ll probably use my own tissue for reconstruction instead of going with an implant, especially after reading that implants aren’t recommended for radiated skin.

I saw Dr. W again yesterday morning because my scar was looking a little red and I noticed fluid under my skin.  Dr. W took a syringe and removed about 25 cc’s of fluid.  I see him this Friday to get the stitches removed.  It seems like a little more fluid has settled under my skin.  The doc thinks the redness was just from the stitches.

My right breast (or lack thereof) looks bizarre.  I still have stitches.  My chest looks sunken and deformed now.  I don’t know if the appearance will get any better.  I will be without a right breast for a minimum of 4 months, probably longer.  It’s weird.  I don’t really like wearing wigs as they are hot, itchy, and I feel that they don’t look natural.  But since I got the tissue expander removed and I am now lopsided, I am wearing my wigs more often.  When it appeared that I still had two breasts, I didn’t mind being bald. I could pretend that everything was OK.  Now, if I don’t wear a jacket (and it’s starting to get warmer), anyone can see that everything is not OK.

Prior to my latest surgery, I had a woman ask me why I shaved my head.  She also noted that my daughter had shaved the side of her head.   She thought it was something that we just decided to do as a fashion statement.  She had no idea I was being treated for breast cancer because I didn’t look like I had cancer.  (Though I’m not sure what a cancer patient is supposed to look like). As for my daughter and her “undercut”, my son Xavier and his fraternity brothers from Sigma Alpha Mu, held a fund raiser where they shaved their heads in public to raise money for the American Cancer Society and for Breast Cancer Awareness.  Both Xavier and my other son Christian shaved their heads, as did a number of Xavier’s fraternity brothers.  My husband Charles’ head was already shaved.  Gillian has a head of thick, curly hair.  We weren’t keen on having her shave her whole head, so she had the side of her head shaved.

What does a cancer patient look like?  There are a number of cancer patients that appear sickly (pale, yellow, gaunt, etc).  But there are also many cancer patients that don’t look “sick”.  We look pretty good.  We aren’t gaunt (contrary to popular thought, most people gain weight on chemo, usually from the steroids given prior to the chemo drugs).  Someone who didn’t know us would have no idea what we were going through.  He or she wouldn’t know that we were going for radiation 5 days a week, or were receiving chemotherapy drugs once a week, once a month, or in some cases, everyday.  Or perhaps we were recovering from another surgery.  Many of our scars are in places that don’t show.  You can’t always see our fatigue or pain.  I know that in my case, I try to do as much as I can.  I guess if I can still run errands, visit friends and family, go to lunch, take the kids to dance or Tae Kwon Do (TKD) , I am not sick.  I am just another mom doing “mom” stuff.  Though I must admit, when I do sleep, I usually sleep late and when I run around doing errands, I tire very easily.  By 5 pm, sometimes earlier, I am done.  I just want to put my feet up, put an ice pack on my chest, and just “veg out”.   I am lucky that my son Christian drives because he has been a godsend.  He usually drives Gillian to dance and TKD.  (Unfortunately I won’t be able to do any TKD for a while.  As per Dr. W, I can use a stationary bike.  He doesn’t want me to do any exercises that will involve my chest muscles).

“How are you doing?”  How do I answer that question?  I usually say “OK” or “fine”.  I don’t think people want to hear, “Actually, I feel like shit today”, on those days that I feel especially crappy or “craptastic”, crappy and fantastic, as my niece Julia would say.  The “craptastic” days are usually chemo days and sometimes a day or two after.  I can usually tell my family and close friends how I really feel, but not my acquaintances.  There have been times when I’ve said, “I’m feeling like crap today,” and invariably the response is, “Well you look good!”  Every time I hear that response I think of Ricardo Montalban from “Fantasy Island” and I remember a line from a commercial?? where he said, “It’s better to look good than to feel good.”  It’s usually the reply that I give, though I can’t say I totally agree with that statement.  I’d like to look good AND feel good.  Why can’t I have both!  (I’ve been advised it was actually Billy Crystal on SNL.  See next post)

Yesterday was definitely a “craptastic” day.  First I saw Dr. W and he removed the fluid from my deflated breast.  I went home, tried to straighten up a bit and work on this post.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get the words to flow from my brain to my fingers! Charles and I then went to my chemo appointment.  I waited a bit, took care of some billing issues, waited a bit more, and the nurse finally called me into the exam room.  She took my vitals.  I actually lost about 4 pounds (woo hoo!), probably from the combination of no chemo for two weeks and the fact that I started juicing/ or drinking a healthy greenish smoothie for one meal a day.  (I usually juice beets, cucumbers, celery, kale, apple, lemon, and ginger and my smoothies have all of those ingredients plus unsweetened almond milk, flax seed, vanilla protein powder and/or vanilla yogurt.  I am drinking a smoothie as I type).  She didn’t realize that I was supposed to have chemo so she had to check with the doctor and make sure there was a space for me in the chemo area.  I waited…Dr. D finally came into the room and apologized for the delay.  He checked my lungs, my stitches, and said that I was starting cycle 5 (of 6 cycles of chemo).  I noted that I hadn’t finished all three weeks of cycle 4 because of the infection and surgery.  His response, “We don’t know how much chemo you actually need or if you need anymore chemo.  If you are a religious person, God doesn’t come down and tell us how much chemo you should be given.  You had a local recurrence.  No tests have shown cancer anywhere else.  This is cycle 5.”  That was cool with me.  I was afraid chemo was going to last through the whole summer at the rate I was going.

I make my way back to the chemo area and find my husband waiting for me in a cubicle with a nice sandwich.  I grabbed a few Honey Maid graham crackers and a ginger ale from the snack area (these are  my usual chemo staples).  I sat in the recliner, and I waited and ate half of my sandwich.  Nurse G came in with a new hire and started to access my port (sticking the big needle in).  As I mentioned in previous posts, it is usually quite a process to get blood return from my port.  As I was telling Nurse G the story of my surgery and explaining to the new nurse the  problems with my finicky port, Nurse G accessed my port and shock of shocks, she got blood!!!!! No lying down, turning my head, coughing a lot, or having a 7 minute saline flush going through my port to get blood return.  I guess all I have to do is excitedly tell a story! I’ll try that next week.

I didn’t have to wait for my blood counts to come back since I hadn’t had chemo in a few weeks so Nurse G hooked up the IV with the Kytril (anti-nausea medication) and the steroid.  When that bag was finished, she came back with another nurse and my bag of Taxotere.  “What’s your name?  What’s your date of birth?”  The Taxotere bag was hooked up and was supposed to run for an hour.  About 20 minutes in, I was eating a graham cracker and I had to stop, my throat felt weird and I started getting real itchy on my upper body and head.  Off went the Taxotere bag and on went the Benadryl.  I got real woozy and I passed out for a little while.  Then I started getting tingling in my lower legs and feet.  Off went my light purple Converse All Stars and off went my socks.  The itchiness went away though!  When the Benadryl bag finished, the saline bag was started.  When the saline bag finished, back went the Taxotere bag.  However, the remainder of the Taxotere was run through the IV at a slower rate than before.  I didn’t have another allergic reaction.  When the Taxotere back finished, Nurse G came back and removed the needle from my port, slapped on some gauze and tape and Charles and I headed home.

Before all the itchiness started, I was working on my iPad trying to finish this post.  I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but when the keypad came up on the iPad, I wasn’t able to type anything.  If anyone can give me pointers on how to edit a blog with an iPad, I’m open to suggestions.  Charles was using my laptop to watch a movie, Crank 2.  He was laughing so hard that I wasn’t going to ask for my laptop just so I could work on my blog.

I don’t know if it was the after effects of the Benadryl but I was pooped when we got home.  I brought our dog CJ outside in the front yard and lay down on the hammock on our front porch.  I couldn’t sleep though because my legs were still all tingly and I was nauseous!   I was exhausted and I couldn’t sleep.  Argh! Damn steroids and damn Benadryl and damn damn nausea. I took my Zofran and Compazine but they didn’t really help.   I was up most of the night as well.  I tried to sleep but couldn’t.  I went downstairs around 1 am and ate some toast and crackers.  I had a cup of tea.  I read some “Sookie Stackhouse” on my iPad.  I went back upstairs to bed.  I tossed and turned.  I finally gave up trying to sleep at round 4 am.  I went downstairs and had some mango sorbet.  I should have tried that earlier.  It actually calmed my stomach.  (Either that or the anti-nausea drugs finally kicked in).  I read more “Sookie Stackhouse” on my phone.  Around 5:15 am, Charles, Christian and Gillian came downstairs.  The kids got ready for school.  I fell asleep on the couch around 6:30 and woke up to a veggie omelet from Charles at about 9:30 am.  There was to be no more sleep after that.  An 11:30 am appointment with Dr. F (my regular surgeon).  I told him about my blog and about the woman who thought I shaved my head as a fashion statement, and what did he say, “Well..you really do look good! Some women shave their heads as a fashion statement.  You look good bald and unlike me, your hair will grow back.”

Dr. F made me feel so good that I took my bandanna off and spent the rest of today running errands bald (wearing long earrings of course).   I had to stop at the bank.  I had a 1 pm appointment with the acupuncturist (I’m not sure if it is working yet, but I have only been to her around 8 times and my sinuses seem better).  I then went to return some cans and plastic bottles, got gas for my car, and stopped at Kohls to get a juicing blender.  I got home and made a smoothie  (realized that the new blender had a crack in it), brought the dog outside, sat on the porch and started typing until the mosquitoes started attacking.  I am now inside on my recliner,with my feet up, finishing up this post.  I am done.  Exhaustion has set in……….But I look good.