Thankful

When I am remembering to be thankful for even the smallest of things I usually end that entry with "Life is good and I am blessed!" and today was another one of those days that I am happy just to be.

I ventured out by myself very early this morning to go to spend some time with my Mom....I wanted her to see for herself that her baby is doing just fine once again.....I have been told many times that with Cancer it doesn't just effect the patient it effects the whole family and everyone else that loves and cares about that person. I know this is hard for my Mother to see me go through this....she wished it was her instead of me......all Mothers feel that way I am sure...I know I do! I told her, "No Mom I want it to me rather than anyone else that I care about." I don't do very well on the sidelines, I would feel the same helplessness that I know others that care about me do....I don't do well with helplessness. At least with me being the patient I can be proactive..it's all up to me, my A Team of Doctors and the powers that be.

My Afternoon was spent at my Sister's house....laughing! Between me loosing all my hair and her having a full set of dentures put in a few months earlier and taking them out for me to see her toothless we both laughed till we cried........what a sight we must of been! Me bald and her toothless! The kids thought we lost our minds too! Love those Belly Laughs!

Dinner was spent with My Darling Jim and our "Sweetest Day" date. We went to our favorite steakhouse for dinner and I was hungry enough and well enough to eat Filet and Grilled Shrimp...skipped the soup, salad and appetizers...give this girl protein!!! lol  And then upon arriving home again I found a dozen PINK roses and a card telling me how lucky I am to have him.....LOL! I am luckier than he will ever know!

So you see, even with cancer I can still say....

Life is good and I am blessed!

Pizza, Construction and Pumpkin Pie

Now that I have found my focus once again (yesterdays post was about me having a brief moment of wanting to stop chemo and just take my chances, that is why I had to go back to my past to find my way to my future) yesterday was a very good day for me.....only a brief bout with nausea over pizza....I love Chicago style Pizza and I have tried other style of pizza from coast to coast but once you try it here in this fabulous city you don't know what good pizza is. Since the side effects of chemo has ruined not only my taste buds but my sense of smell Pizza along with a few of my other favorites (seafood) are all on my "Bring that anywhere near me and I will throw up on your shoes" list (lol) I actually wanted pizza for dinner last night and it was well worth the initial gag of the smell! lol

Another good thing happened yesterday, well last night was that my DH informed that I found my smile again! He said he missed it and that he hadn't seen it for over a week and was a sight for sore eyes! Now ya see why I love this man so much.....he notices everything about me...always has. Yesterday was also the first whole day I stayed out of bed....no naps...no need to....a little more worn out with this round of chemo but I'm back to feeling the effects of the "good week in between" kicking in..... and my Mother baked me my own pumpkin pie.... I love her pumpkin pie...good day indeed! lol

I also made my first appearance in my neighborhood "ALA BALD" grant it, it was only to the mail box and back but it was my "Ok, I can do this" walk. It has nothing to do with vanity reasons....it's just that this disease has attacked was is "WOMAN" about me. It took one of my breasts, leaving me with a new one that is still in the process of healing, awaiting it's final surgery early next year (fake nipple and tattoo' d areola) with it's drooping sista (hey it's a D cup and I nursed my babies, whatta ya expect?? lol) wondering what's gonna happen to me?? lol ( a lift later when I have my final surgery) a healing scar from hip to hip (donor area) and now my golden halo of hair! Well at least my eyebrows and eyelashes are still sticking around for a lil while longer. So this cancer has altered the only image of me that I "know." I have to admit there are times when I catch a glimpse of me and say, "Who are you Circus Freak?" but then I just remind myself that I am not a Circus Freak .....I am just "UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!!" lol

When visiting with my plastic surgeon last week , Dr. Hollywood he asked me what I expected after reconstrution.....I said my only wish is to live the next 40 years bra less!!! He said excellent wish! lol lol lol

Epiphany, Epiphany....Epiphany!

I had yet another epiphany somewhere in the middle of my dreams last night. Funny how that happens....trying to find a solution to something that is "bothering" or "unanswered" in your life all day long, unable or not satisfied with what is presented to you and then it comes back to you in the night in a way that answers everything...at least for me this is how it's always been. If I did something wrong, it would keep me up at night.......that is how I knew if I should be the one doing the apologizing or the one needing the apology.

My childhood was shattered with the death of my not so good of a Father's death when I was 16. He had many flaws but I loved him like a true Daddy's Little Girl. 27 years have passed since his death due to complications relating to loving the bottle more than life and I still can't help but feel by not taking advantage of all the programs that were available to him and by doing nothing to try and quit the disease he chose death over life without even knowing it was coming after him....many times I felt the booze and the bar scene were more important to him then the family waiting for him at home wondering if he was going to come home "Happy Drunk" or "Mean Drunk" or even come home at all...... Not much of a happy go lucky childhood written in between the lines. The day I finally challenged him on this I was around 12 years old.

Being a smart mouthed child that I was and not knowing the full history of my Parents marriage, he had gone to work on a Friday morning and didn't come home until Sunday afternoon....so when he walked in the door it was me with my hands on my hips asking him, "And just where have you been!!" Where I was told immediately by my Father that it was none of my business just as my Mother entered the room. It was at that moment that my Mother realized that she could no longer live her life that way.....she had to stick up for herself and her children, especially her 2 daughters if they were to ever grow up and know their own self worth as future Women and Wives, and by the following weekend she informed him while tracking him down at yet another bar with yet another woman that he no longer lived at "Home" anymore.

Within that year he not only lost his Wife, His children, His home but finally the boozing cost him his job with the government....he lost everything because he would NOT seek the help that was available to him....he chose the booze by choosing to do nothing of his addiction....that was the biggest let down of my life..... even all these years later.....He never choose ME, I was never "more" important.....tough revelation to a wild child on the edge of falling off...I was 16 when he died at the age of 41.

So when people admire my determination to win my battle with Cancer, I don't think myself so worthy of all their admiration. I am choosing to battle and battle hard because I am doing it for MY Children.....they are more than worthy of what I have to go through to beat this. By giving up or by choosing not to take full advantage of all the treatment available to help me with this battle I would be repeating the same mistake as my Father and that is far to heavy of a burden to place on my children..... that they weren't worth fighting for.

I am still madly in love with the man that I fell in love with at first sight over 25 years ago, I have 4 beautiful Children, I learned a long time ago to take nothing for grant it and appreciate even the most quiet and most simplest of things and I have all my priorities in order, even more so now that Cancer has realigned them even further.

Knowing what to do and when to do it is kinda easier when you know what you're fighting for...so when I am down, I remember that little girl still hidden in me and I refuse to make the mistakes of my Father and his Father before him, by not "doing" anything to change what is happening in my life. I just can't stop now.

Is it January Yet???

While I was busy trying to kick cancers ass, chemo was kicking mine! So where have I been the last few days.......sleeping, not talking because chemo steals my voice within 24 hours of treatment and more exhausted then I ever felt in my life.....keep in mind that between 1991 and 1992 within an 11th month period I had the last of my two babies (Irish Twins) and for some reason with every baby I had to have a puppy too! I thought I knew exhaustion.....now I know it from the inside out.

Sunday I lost what was left of my hair and I'm still trying to get used to the bald chick in the mirror with lifeless eyes and apparently I over did things by taking a shower and trying to master the stairs only to get within steps of my bedroom before passing out and hitting a wall.....what I didn't know was I was completely dehydrated and my blood pressure was 64/48.....not enough water this time. I thought I would drink less so I could sleep the night without the 2 trips to the potty........WRONG! Good thing once I learn something the hard way I don't repeat the same mistake. So yesterday was spent at the hospital being re hydrated and scolded for not calling the Doctor about the fall.....so now I know that the 3rd through 5 days following chemo are gonna pretty much suck but by that 7th day I start to feel 100% better with each passing day. So thank you GOD for that beautiful harvest moon last month, the gorgeous colors of Fall and that blessed week in between chemo drips and chemo side effects!

And how vicious is cancer that it turned me against chocolate and pizza?? One slice of buttered toast with a lil peanut butter and a lil jelly is my saving grace right now and I am going to look into that water that is fortified full of all good stuff for a lil extra boost when I have no appetite to replenish my system.

So is Cancer tough? Yup! Is chemo even tougher? ...yup! But you know what is even tougher? A really pissed off Irish Woman.....and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let cancer keep me down for long........like the song says...."I've got a lot of living to do!"

Quick Update

I had my 2nd round of Chemo this past Tuesday....a lil more queasy this time, Wednesday was spent quiet because chemo took my voice again, Thursday I slept most of the day.....hopefully because I won't be taking the Compazine (another anti nausea med) I should have a better weekend than the first round of chemo. I think I will spend most of today napping on and off too.... at 43 I am learning to rest when I need too and I take full advantage of the days when I am unstopable.....those days feel good....they build me up for the down days that come with the chemo.....but all in all and with many thanks for the cancer patients that have walked this path before me, I am doing awesome! I no longer fear Chemo, I am one of the lucky ones that is handling the side effects very well and for that I am grateful beyond words.

 

I'm shedding more now but you still can't tell I'm loosing my hair so I will keep it for a while longer. I am already done with half of the bad chemo treatment (The CA chemo cocktail) 2 more rounds of that and then on to the  tamoxifin (4 rounds of that too) my last chemo date should be January 2nd, then 2 months after that I should be ready for my final surgery. Yipppeeeee! lol

 

For now I am finished seeing the Surgeon and the Plastic Surgeon until after the new year.......happy that I get to cut back on the Doctor visits. Now I just see The Cancer Doctor for chemo one day, a white blood cell booster shot the next day then only a lab visit the following week. At least my second week in between the chemo visits are good ones.......and because of the throat infection right off the bat after my first round of chemo, my Oncologist will have me do a five day run on antibiotics starting every 6th day after chemo. The most important part of chemo is getting it on time every time, I can't afford to get sick and get off my chemo schedule. And another unforseen blessing is I feel almost as good as I did before diagnosis by the middle of the second week. What a relief to actually feel like my old self for a whole week!

 

Chicagoans are doing the Breast Cancer walk this weekend..... Imay not be up for it this year, but you can bet I will be walking next year...decked out in PINK of course! lol lol lol

 

Love,

Kimberleigh

What Cancer Cannot Do

What Cancer Cannot Do

Cancer is so limited.....
It cannot cripple Love
It cannot shatter Hope
It cannot corrode Faith
It cannot destroy Peace
It cannot kill Friendship
It cannot suppress Memories
It cannot silence Courage
It cannot invade the Soul
It cannot steal eternal Life
It cannot conquer the Spirit

Author Unknown

Just Happy to be here........Ü

Like I stated in a few earlier posts....I had no problem having a complete radical mastectomy (click link to see exactly what that is ~~>)  Radical Mastectomy  of my left breast due to the cancer. My feelings were that if it's trying to kill me why would I want to save it. Having 3 tumors plus a large mass of small ones forming I had no other choice if I wanted to live.....plain and simple.

Selecting the Tram Flap reconstruction was harder on my body then building up the space behind the muscle in my chest wall to later place a saline implant....but it was the fastest way to get the result and hey I had enough donor tissue (Tummy lol!) to make a new boob and now I have a new boob and no tummy............BONUS! lol lol lol  For an eight hour surgery recovery tough but I was never more than uncomfortable and I was out of the house at the lake just 11 days later.  Ü

And as I also stated in an earlier entry it was the Chemo that I feared the most.....not the surgical knife. So with one dose of Chemo under my belt (2nd one this coming Tuesday) and six more after that I am extremely blessed to say...........PIECE OF CAKE!!!! lol The chemo day itself was no different (except for a few tears) than the days before chemo, even the next two days I felt fine thanks to the strides they have made with dealing with the nausea. I would have to say the 4th and 5th days were probably my roughest but I think that was from the 3rd drug that was supposed to help with the nausea. The 6th and 7th days I slept a lot and after that I have been back to my normal self. I have been feeling awesome ever since and I am THANKFUL!!!!

So here I sit saying that even with cancer come blessings and for me a few perks! lol I will have the body back that I had before children (perky boobs and no tummy!) My hair may come back either thicker of if I am lucky with a few curls to it. I know exactly how much I am loved by people that I love in my life, I will yet again set my own personal standards higher at living even a better life, and I hope that through this blog and the way I am dealing with my own battle with Breast Cancer that the next person who gets that news has a few less fears and see's that not every diagnosis is a death sentence. You battle hard you can win the victory!

I want to thank all those that are walking this weekend for a cure, I am honored that some of you have added my name to your list of who you are walking for, I am humbled for every dollar that has been given this month of October for breast cancer awareness for my sake and so very thankful for all the encouraging comments left for me in this blog and the love you have shown for me and my family.....you, the people reading this blog are the ones that are truly inspirational to me.

Thank You All!

Love,
Kimberleigh