3 ACs Down

I’ve learned that it pretty much takes a full week for me to really recover from my infusion – and by “recover”, I mean feel like myself again. I think that’s what I hate most about the chemo drugs. I can tolerate nausea and other tangible side effects, but I absolutely hate feeling like I’m not myself. This third round felt a little worse than the first two. For the first two days I didn’t want to do anything, and then I felt really tired.

I’ve also been experiencing a lot of moodiness lately. I’ll be fine one moment, the next I’m angry at the pretty, full-haired girl walking down the sidewalk next to me, and the next I’m sobbing about my situation and my morbid thoughts about death and recurrence and metastatic disease. This rollercoaster sucks and I want off, but I have 5 infusions to go.

I know I’m supposed to be all gung-ho about fighting the cancer, but I am beat and just about ready to give up.

I have also been extremely anxious lately about my brother getting married. Tomorrow, I take a long plane ride out to San Diego for the festivities and I’m just so disappointed that I won’t be at my best for such a big event in my brother’s life. How unfair is this? I know he’ll be glad to have me there no matter what, but I just wish I didn’t have all this crap going on in my life so I could be there 100% inside a body I feel comfortable in with a full head of hair and all the most wonderful hope in the world for his future and my own. Dammit. Sometimes this is really hard.

The Big Bald Reveal: Video

Just Live

Sometimes, at 3am, you spend too much time on blogs and message boards and come across something like this that makes you sob uncontrollably: Writer Alicia Parlette, who moved many readers with ‘Alicia’s Story,’ dies.

There are worse things in life than Stage 1, TNBC. I hope I can take Alicia’s advice to heart: “She wants everyone to know that cancer sucks but always choose life and just do your best.”

Insomnia and other Side Effects

It’s an off-chemo week and yet I am still unable to sleep tonight, 2am on a Saturday. Sigh. Could be that I took two Compazine today – let me explain.

I have a mild case of oral thrush – basically a mouth yeast infection. Yeah, yeah, it sounds totally gross but it’s a common occurrence for people on chemo and mine has just meant my mouth feels slimy and I have some white stuff on my tongue. My doctor prescribed these big white tablets that I have to dissolve in my mouth for 15-30 minutes, and while they’ve been working, they made me a bit nauseous. At first, I took Ativan to help with the nausea – though my doctor prescribed it initially for my anxiety, it also helps nausea. Then I trolled the interwebs and learned all about Ativan addiction and got scared and switched to Compazine instead, a drug I was originally prescribed for nausea in the days after my chemo.

Every drug has a side effect, I guess (in fact, one of Compazine’s side effects as listed on the website I linked to is “fine, worm-like tongue movements… whatever that means). Hard to accept because up until now in my life the only drugs I’d ever really taken were Tylenol and here and there an antibiotic.

I’m also coming to terms with the fact that “bald from chemo” in my case does not mean completely, Samuel L. Jackson style bald. It means bald with delicate, dark peach fuzz all over my head. This is almost harder than just being completely bald, because unless I keep these rogue hairs always trimmed down, I can’t make it look like I meant to do this to my head. Did others have this kind of baldness?

My confidence is building everyday and I did have fun wearing a wig to work on Friday, but it might be a couple days before I post a picture here.

26 years on Earth

I’ve prided myself for being pretty strong throughout this whole experience. I only cried a couple of times, mostly back when I got my diagnosis. But these past two days have been extremely hard and I can’t say that I feel very strong at this moment.

I didn’t think losing my hair would be this difficult. But as I sat in the bathtub this afternoon and watched what little was left of my once long, brown, curly locks swirl toward the drain I just broke down. Getting out of the bathtub, I reached for a hair tie to put around my wrist and then put it back, feeling stupid. I have no hair to tie. I just have a patchy head with tufts of hair that are refusing to quit until the very last second. I wish they would go away so I could just be completely bald and not look like what I imagined the velveteen rabbit looked like sitting in a trash heap waiting to be burned.

I’ve been out in public but I don’t know how to act. All day yesterday and today I had a lump in my throat that literally made it hard to breathe. I thought my throat was swelling – allergies, maybe – but I think instead it’s anxiety. I don’t know how to be bald in public. What if someone pulls off my scarf? What if little kids laugh at me and ask their mommies why that woman is bald? What if people pity me? Make fun of me? Laugh at me? Look away from me, embarrassed to stare?

Today is my actual birthday and I want to celebrate and feel good about another year under my belt, but I’m terrified to leave my apartment. I know I should walk with my head up and not care what people think. It’s all about confidence and inner strength. But it’s easier said than done and I can only hope that, in the days to come, I find the strength I need to get through the summer like this.

 

Happy birthday to me

I never imagined that I’d celebrate my 26th birthday by having my brother shave my head in my parent’s bathroom. But I guess that’s just the way my figurative cookie crumbled.

Here’s my boyfriend and I after the monumentous occasion. I may look tough but I’ll admit I was a mess. There was a lot of crying involved but I knew it had to happen sometime – I just don’t think it’s something you can ever fully prepare for.

It begins…

I’ve just been waiting for my hair to start falling out in clumps. Well, no clumps yet but here’s the result of a few light tugs on my scalp. Sigh.
Luckily, my step-mom’s coworker made me a kick-ass head covering that I am totally excited to wear to the Phils game that I’m going to on Sunday!

Chemo Brain

I’ve heard a lot recently about this so-called SE of chemo: “Chemo brain”. People aren’t really sure what causes it, though in my opinion it’s simply related to all of the changes that happen in your life when you are going through chemo – the anxiety of a diagnosis and treatment, the stress of being on so many drugs, etc.

Still, I thought you might enjoy if I document some of my own chemo brain moments, because I have already experienced some!

Last Friday I left my glasses on my desk at work, meaning I was without them all weekend. No problem – I’ll just use my contacts. Yeah. Left my contact solution at my parent’s house over the last weekend so no luck there. I had to throw away a perfectly good pair of fresh lenses because I had no solution to clean them with. I guess I could have gone to the store to buy some new solution but… I HAVE CHEMO BRAIN!

Then yesterday I dropped my iPhone down 2 flights of stairs. Now dad, before you read this and say, “Dammit, Cara, don’t document that you dropped your iPhone because you have to present a solid, drop-free story to the Genius Bar people so that the resulting damages fall under warranty!” remember: I have chemo brain. I can’t help that I’m typing this right now! We did joke that I should wait until I lose my hair and then go to the Apple store with a sob story about my broken phone. They can’t resist feeling bad for a young, bald woman with breast cancer, muahahaha.

Again, cancer has presented me with a brilliant excuse for my own shortcomings. Late for acapella rehearsal? Blame the cancer. Didn’t get that newsletter out in time at work? Cancer. Forgot to flush the toilet? Cancer.

Ok, that last one really was the cancer. I swear.

Allergic reaction

On Tuesday I broke out in tiny red bumps on my chest. Didn’t think much of it – it was nearly 100 degrees in DC and I had worn a high-necked shirt, so I figured it was heat rash. The next day, I got the same bumps on my back and they were itchy – again, it was around 100 so I figured it was heat rash.

On Thursday I saw my oncology nurse for a week-after-chemo-infusion blood test and follow up. I showed her the rash and she didn’t think much of it. I also discussed some of the other effects of the chemo, just to make sure they were normal: my foggy head, insomnia, and poop problems (excuse my bluntness). She didn’t seem concerned about anything, and I went home feeling really great about everything. I can do chemo and not feel absolutely terrible? Hooray!

Another yay, this Chemo Beanie I ordered from chemobeanies.com arrived and it is uber cute!

I had a wonderful day Thursday and Friday – the weather calmed down and it was low 80′s with no humidity. I finally felt like myself again after some nights of sleep and I could work full days and be normal. I made lots of healthy meals with the bf. I ate a lot of fruit. Life was good.

Then on Saturday I had a bit of a hypochondria episode because I started feeling weird. The bf and I took a long walk in the morning through the National Zoo, and when we got home I had some pain in my lower back that started progressing to be really intense and throbbing. I also felt shooting pains in my upper thighs when I stood up and walked. I thought maybe a result of the long walk of the morning and my sad lack of exercise recently, but it was really a lot worse than I could attribute to that.

I also felt flush; I took my temp and it was 99.2. Slightly too high for comfort especially when I’m worried about every little chance of infection. On top of the hives and poop problems and a pounding headache that was coming on, it all felt too much for me and I considered going to the emergency room. Instead, I called the on-call oncology doc to discuss. “Am I crazy? Or do these symptoms mean something?” I thought perhaps I had a kidney infection.

He was very nice and explained that he would be worried if I had a high-grade fever and chills, but since I didn’t, he ruled out kidney infection. He also said it could possibly be side effects of Neulasta, the shot I had the day after chemo to keep my white blood cell (WBC) counts high. Really? It had been a week since the shot. He said some people just have a delayed reaction, and it continues working in your system for 2-3 weeks. He said take a couple Tylenol and some antihistamines for the hives – if things get better, I’m fine. If they get worse and I get a higher fever and chills, come in.

Popped some Tylenol and Benadryl and things did get better. My temp went down to 98.4, the pain subsided for the most part, and so did my hypochondria. It’s amazing how a calm doctor and a couple pills can help your nerves. An hour before I felt like I had a life-threatening infection and I needed a bus to the hospital. After, I was ready to head to a friend’s house for pizza and movies.

I guess I can’t blame myself for the hypochondria. I’m a freaking cancer patient on some heavy drugs and my immune system is slightly compromised. I’m allowed to freak out when things happen because if I don’t report something and it ends up being serious, I may not recover. But I guess I should also realize that I am on a lot of drugs I’ve never been on before, and they all have side effects, many of which are completely normal and non-life-threatening.

It is kind of frustrating, however, to be on so many drugs and have a reaction like itchy red bumps and not know which drug is causing them. Is it Compazine? Neulasta? Dexa? Who the heck knows! As long as my throat doesn’t start closing up, I’ll live with it. Pass the Benadryl.

My breast surgeon on GMA

Check this out – my breast surgeon, Dr. Christine Teal, was on GMA this morning talking to Robin Roberts about her prophylactic double mastectomy.

http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf

It was pretty cool to see the woman who operated on me go on TV and advocate for this procedure, as controversial as it is. Dr. Teal has a family history but no BRCA gene and no cancer herself, so some might find this a bit extreme. Still, it made me feel wonderful to know my surgeon was as adamant about eradicating her own chances of breast cancer as she was about mine, and seeing what she said about the strength of us breast cancer survivors made me tear up a little.

Go Dr. Teal!