I’M DONE!!! I’M DONE!!! I’M DONE!!!

I’M DONE!!! I’M DONE!!! I’M DONE!!!

I’M DONE!!! I’M DONE!!!


I’M DONE!!!
One for each month I have fought, struggled, cried, prayed and cursed with cancer. I can not even describe to you how I am feeling. I am sitting here boohoo bawling right now. I really wasn’t sure this day would ever come.

For the last 9 months, every day I have woken up terrified. What new torture or side effect was in store for me today. Please God, just make it go away. I got so very tired of being strong. I have so appreciated whenever anyone has said, Oh Cyndy you are so strong, you can do this. Inside I was saying, ha I guess I have you fooled. I was scared I wouldn’t live to see fall...

My sister said now I can start getting back to who I was. I am not sure I remember her and I am sure I will never be her again. For better or worse, cancer has changed me and not just physically.

My prayer for all of you is that you never have to walk this path. It is harder than I can tell you. I started out so stupid about it all. No one is there holding your hand and guiding you on the right path. If you are lucky enough to ask the right questions, know the right people and just plain stumble in the right direction, you can get there, but there are many potholes along the way.

Thank you God for my family, friends, neighbors and even strangers who have dragged, carried and supported me along the way! Next to my wedding day and the birth of my boys, this is the best day of my life. AMEN!

Mojo must be the sweetest dog in the whole world. With this flu, I have felt really cruddy all week. When I am lying on the bed, Mojo will jump up and put his paws on my chest, then his head on his paws. He looks up at me with his dark eyes wondering what is wrong. Why aren’t you throwing the frisbee for me? Why aren’t we running the weave poles. Little baby, I’m sorry I will make it up to you.

The new plan was to change the way the radiation is delivered so it will not be so close to the skin. Thank goodness. The doctor said it would probably not change the number of treatments needed, but she would evaluate it when we were near the end.

So there I was, slogging through last week. Not feeling great and really unhappy because my Dad had some significant health issues and was in the hospital. I was upset that I couldn’t be there to help my mother and sisters. As it turns out it probably was just as well I didn’t go there because on Friday I got the flu.

Ok, no just the flu, I got the FLU!! I had a fever of 103 and couldn’t get out of bed. Unfortunately, Scott was out of town on a boys weekend, but I was not on my own. I had Lauri and Sharon bringing me food and others calling to help. I didn’t want anyone to come over because I sure would not want anyone to get this. I still have a fever, but fortunately it is lower.

Monday, I went into the doctor’s office knowing she might order more treatments. Also knowing that because I had a fever of 101 at that point, she might not let me have my any treatments until I was better. While I do not enjoy the internal burning, by any means, there was no way she would have been able to keep me from finishing this week. Thank God she does not think I will need more treatments and I could continue that day.

I wore a mask and they threw me into that tunnel. Talk about your claustrophobia! Yikes, I don’t know how doctors can wear those things. But here I am about to write something that I never thought I would. In the words of Jean Valjean from Les Miserables:

ONE DAY MORE!!!!!

I know I haven’t blogged in a while, but I have been a little overwhelmed with this radiation. It has been more than I thought it was going to be. Everyone had told me it wasn’t going to be too bad. Well they were wrong.

It took a while for my skin to degrade, but when it did, it went like crazy. The area right under my neck was open, weeping, red, basically disgusting. I couldn’t believe how much it hurt every time I moved. Finally, the doctor gave me a day off from the radiation to let my skin heal. Then she decided to move the radiation to just the surgical site.

The radiation seems to continue to perk even after the treatment ends. The site was hot and blistered and getting worse. I went through 4 different creams, 2 of which are prescription.

Finally the area near my neck started to heal, but the surgical site area has gotten worse. I am treating it with hydrogen peroxide and silver sulfadine cream. I was hoping this would help dry and heal.

Anyway, I was still going to radiation every day and slowly but surely counting down the days to only 8 left. Last Tuesday I went at the regular time, but the technician wanted the doctor to see me, because of the condition of my skin. My regular doctor was on vacation so I saw a replacement. He was very concerned and stopped treatment for the rest of the week. I can’t tell you how relieved I was by that. It was really hurting and uncomfortable, not to mention how tired I was. The only down side was this keeps putting the end further and further away.

So last week I had a chance to heal and rest. This was particularly nice because I had a big weekend planned and wanted to be ready to play. I was rested but still have open raw degraded skin, that now is starting to itch.

After a great weekend, I was ready, if not excited, to go back to radiation and start the count down again. Then I got the call. The doctor, back from vacation, was looking at my chart and decided to change my treatment plan. What does that mean? I just don’t know. I guess I will find out today.

The pain is not bad at all unless I pull on the stupid drain, then I yell. It seems to be healing up well and isn’t really draining much, so hopefully when I go to the doctor this Friday they will pull the drain out.

Meanwhile, I have started radiation. It isn’t too bad. I go every day at 3:00. Once there, I take off my clothes from the waist up and put on a gown. I lay down on a metal table with my arms over my head, while the tech lines me up with the target marks they put on me, then slide into a large, round MRI looking machine for 2 minutes for a scan. I come out, have to lay there for about 6 minutes and the tech checks something and sends me back in for 7 1/2 minutes. I have to remain perfectly still throughout this entire process and that is very hard. As soon as she says hold still, my nose itches or my leg twitches or something. It is good for me to have my arms over my head for that long as it stretches all of the tight muscles across my chest. I am not allowed to have deodorant on during the procedure and there I am with my arms over my head and my nose right there at the arm pits. Smelly! Just kidding.

The machine has a constant noise like someone vacuuming and then when I roll into the machine it sounds like a train on a track going around my body. but I close my eyes and try to meditate. I read in the new Dan Brown book that it has been determined that yogis produce a healing substance when they meditate. I am no yogi, but I try to think happy thoughts. Anyway, the whole thing takes about 30 minutes or so.

On the way home, I start to feel, well not nauseous exactly, just really, really not hungry. Then a half hour or so later, I am very tired. Compared to chemo though, this is absolutely nothing. I don’t have any burns yet, but that might be coming. Apparently all of the side effects are cumulative, so I expect to become more tired and have effects on my skin. No worries though, I have fragrance free aloe lotion.

The next day, I do it all again. I have 33 treatments, so that puts me at the beginning of November to be done. I am counting down the days!

This has been quite a few weeks. I don’t know what I expected coming home from the hospital. But certainly the pain I have has surpassed anything I have known. I think I was expecting what I went through with the c-sections I had with the boys. I guess I was younger, healthier and more distracted by the baby, with that pain, and it wasn’t too bad. This time I didn’t have a sweet little thing to take my mind off things - unless you count Mojo (and I do).

Imagine every time you reach for something, with either hand but mostly with the right, gasping with pain. The pain also goes down my right arm as well because of the removal of the lymph nodes. The only time I wasn’t in pain during the first 2 weeks was when I was sitting absolutely still with my arms propped up. What is strange is the numbness under my arm. I wash or put on deodorant I can’t feel a thing, very weird. The nurse practitioner pulled my drains and that really helped. But it still was uncomfortable.

It reached a pinacle last Thursday. It hurt to move. Friday afternoon, (WARNING, this is where it gets gross) my right breast exploded with oozy stuff. It was dripping, no not dripping, flowing everywhere. Scott took me to the nurse and she took over a cup of fluid out of my breast, dressed it and gave me a high dose of antibiotics. She debated as to whether she should send me to the hospital for iv antibiotics but decided to try this first. So now I am changing the dressing at least twice a day and milking the icky out of it.

Now I know you are thinking this is just one of those things I should get used to it and get over it. The problem is how hard it is for me to look at the scars. I am such a wuss looking at it makes it more real.

I read a lot about the whole procedure beforehand. On line, books, brochures, you name it. None of them had any real pictures of what my breasts were going to look like after the surgery. It isn’t pretty. I don’t want to look at it and I sure don’t want Scott to see it, so this whole infection thing has been a nightmare. In a way, maybe it was good because it is forcing me to get used to the way I look now.

I finally did have a pity party for myself on Sunday. Saturday we were in the RV in Gainesville which was a lot of fun. There were a passel of people there, but Scott and our friends did all the work so it was easy enough on me. I don’t know, I guess it was the bouncing around in the RV on the way down and back or just the picking up after, or maybe because Nick came home and then had to leave right away and I was in a lot of pain and sort of had a melt down. Crying and carrying on, but at least I got it out of my system for a while.

The pain is finally getting better. I am trying to stretch my arm out so it doesn’t get too stiff and I lose any range of motion. Also, I am trying to avoid lymphedema, where my arm swells. The radiation oncologist referred me to a specialist, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. The trick is balancing exercising with overdoing. I am not to lift heavy things but light exercise is good for me. My question is what is heavy and what is light? Hopefully I will get in there next week. Meanwhile, I can go to the grocery store, I just can’t carry anything in.

So that is the update for now. I am supposed to go in for my radiation set up next Monday. Hopefully I have healed enough on the cancer side to allow that to get started.

Back home from the hospital. wow, what an ordeal!

I checked in and they started trying to put an iv in me. That is never fun, but apparently chemo degrades the ability of your veins to take an iv. They tried in 5 different places. Yes 5 times before they decided they would check with my surgeon if they could use my port. Thank goodness he agreed and finally they inserted an iv and I was able to get some drugs for the anxiety.

Next, my plastic surgeon came in. He marked on my breasts where he wanted the surgeon to make the incisions to minimize scarring for his reconstruction. I had called his office to let them know when the surgery was, but I found out later that he did not get that message and called my cell phone asking if I wanted to come in to the office prior to the surgery and get marked. When he didn’t get a response, he checked the surgery schedule and came to me at the hospital. He’s a nice guy.

Off to surgery I go. Three hours later, the surgeon comes out to talk to Scott, my mom and my sister. This surgeon is a riot, he has a very heavy accent - Iraqi- and a very high opinion of himself. I guess if you are having surgery, you want it done by someone who thinks he is the best at what he does. So out comes Dr. A telling them that all went well, that no does this surgery like he does and he is the best at it, blah blah blah. Then he announces to my family and of course all the wonderful friends who were there to support us that he saved my left nipple! Oh thank goodness, that was what I was worried about. And I am sure the rest of the neighborhood was vastly relieved as well.

I am in recovery at this time and not really coming around as expected. Scott believes I am doing ok and goes home. About that time I start to come around a little. I start projectile vomiting across the room. I see a bunch of people running around me in and out of the room and don’t remember anything else until later that night when I am moved into another room. It seems that my oxygen saturation rate dropped below 70% and the nurses called the rapid response team. They said I “coded”, whatever that means to them, and I was just a few minutes away from being intubated to restore my breathing. They were able to revive me and avoid all of that.

The next day, we find out the details from the night before. I am still on oxygen because I am not taking in room air well. We also find out I have fluid in my lungs and one is partially collapsed and has probably been that way for a while. I am not taking in food yet, so they try me on a liquid diet at lunch. (St. Luke’s has a neat system for food. They call it room service. There is a menu in your room and you call them, they check your file, to see what type of food you can have and then you choose from the menu.) i have some chicken broth which goes down and back up again immediately. So I’m off food again. It doesn’t seem to help much as I am still throwing up and not absorbing oxygen well. The new diagnosis is I am having a reaction to the pain medication. They stop the old and bring in new. This seems to help the nausea and the next day I am started back on food.

My oncology doctor has been checking on me everyday and he comes in on Wednesday, crying. Scott and I look at each other scared to death: What now? He was just overcome with happiness for me because (and this deserves bold print and exclamation points) THE PATHOLOGY REPORT CAME BACK IN WITH NO CANCER. ALL THE LYMPH NODES THEY TOOK WERE CLEAR AND THE TISSUE SAMPLES SHOWED NO ACTIVE CANCER LEFT ONLY DEAD TISSUE FROM WHERE THE TUMOR WAS!!!!
All the hell that was chemo for so many months was worthwhile. It worked! It worked! It worked! Oh thank God!

But the fun wasn’t over for me. My white cell count went up and my red count was down. The doctors weren’t letting me go anywhere until those things were rectified. They even were talking about making me have oxygen in the house when I did go home. Fortunately the white cell count rectified itself but I had to have 2 units of blood to get my count up to an almost normal level.

What is it about hospitals? What do they have against sleeping people? They come in all night to take vitals, blood and just to check on you. Then there is the non-stop beeping from my oxygen machine, and the alarm that goes off when I go under 85%. I have to unplug from everything every time I go to the bathroom and because of where they put the tissue dispenser and my surgery incisions, I can’t reach the tissue once I sit down, so I have to remember to get it before. Minor details that are a real problem when it affects you.

On Saturday, as a doctor would come in for rounds I would ask him what I needed to do to get out. Each said they were done with me, so I asked them to put it on the computer. This finally sprung me and I was on my way home! Without boobs, with drains and a lot of pain but at least this part is over.