I’m down to the wire, the last leg of this cancer journey. Four more Herceptin and Perjeta infusions to go and I am done. It’s surreal to have my last calendar with the last four dates left. January 15, 2020. I will be done and life will go back to normal…wait…not so fast…
Once you board that crazy train of cancer and chemotherapy and all the surgeries and nonsense, you can kiss normal goodbye and watch it float away. Everything changes, even the simple things.
I’m packing for a trip out of the country. I need to make sure I have a mini first aid kit with a few prescriptions packed. Then there’s the plane ride itself. Compression socks to avoid a clot, drink tons of water so I don’t dehydrate so fast, walk around, have the air blow hard to circulate, hand sanitizer and face masks. Then there’s my new worry of whether or not my port will set off the metal detectors. Good thing it comes with it’s own ID card, like my new boobs do. I’ll bring all those along with me just in case. I will be the in-flight entertainment.
I have bad fall allergies and they finally kicked up. Normally, call the primary care doctor and get a shot. Well, instead, call the oncologist and make sure it’s ok to get the shot, can’t have anything interacting with Herceptin and Perjeta. There’s always that additional step with medical issues now.
Something as mundane as getting a manicure and pedicure becomes a huge issue for me. My counts are rising but still not where they used to be. I’m petrified of getting an infection from a manicure or pedicure but at the same time, I think Jimmy Hoffa may be buried deep within my foot calluses. At the rate I am going, my feet can just exfoliate each other!!
I am still in physical therapy three times a week, trying to resolve my shoulder issue, round two. First time, I was fixed in six weeks. Not this time. Some days, my arm works just fine, other days, it’s busted and lazy and won’t do what I need it to. Other days, it hurts like crazy as a reminder that maybe I shouldn’t always over do it.
Sleep is anything but normal. I can’t sleep comfortably on my port side because it reminds my of it’s presence if I do. So, toss and turn for a while til I can get comfortable. I’m tired, really tired but simply cannot sleep through the night. Four hours straight seems to be my max for now. I wake up for a bit and just wait an hour and then fall back asleep for another hour or two, repeat. Same thing every night. Once I wake up, I’m foggy but not tired.
Moving around is a whole different issue. Everything hurts. I go to bed feeling decent and wake like an 80 year old who ran a marathon the day before. I really want an escalator in my home now. I am tired, wired and achey as hell.
Now in the colder weather, my bodacious new pair of tatas take some getting used to! Here’s what they don’t tell ya…remember, I had a double mastectomy, everything got taken out down to the chest wall. These implants are right on the muscle, over them, not under. Guess what happens when it’s cold out? They’re cold! Seriously! It’s like ice bags in my chest! They’re cold to the touch too! So weird and funny at the same time! There’s no fat nor insulation to keep them warm, so this is it. My fun bags are ice bags. I’m still getting used to them. Would have preferred a squeaky mechanism instead but this is still humorous.
I half look like a cancer patient and half not. I have a short cropped pixie do with all salt and pepper. That changes every few days though. Sometimes it’s pink, sometimes brown and sometimes auburn. I decided I don’t like the brown as it looks like a pigeon pooped on my head. Not quite the look I want. I need to throw some teal in there once in a while as well. I’m trying to have a little non-permanent fun while using conditioners that fade out evenly. I’m not in the mood to dye this thing as I still have no idea what it’s doing. I was hoping it would grow in all white because that would have been pretty. It’s also growing in curly, curlier than it was but not the chemo curl. I think I am happy about that.
My hair is growing in at a snail’s pace, but at least it is growing. Hair growth can start somewhere in the Taxol phase of chemotherapy, mine did, slowly. Normal hair growth is around 0.75 inches per month. Herceptin and Perjeta seem to slow that by around a third. I’m lucky to get anywhere between .25 – 0.5 inches per month. It doesn’t grow in evenly either. If I’m not careful, I can grow a mullet like it’s nobody’s business, I just wish my bangs would do the same. On any given day, I see a cross between Uncle Fester and Moe from the Three Stooges staring back at me from the looking glass. I’ve been mistaken for a boy a few times as well. So my hair is anything but normal too. If my hair has a mind of its own, it is clearly not doing a good job in thinking!
Once you are done with surgeries and chemo, people think life returns to normal. It doesn’t. It can’t, at least not yet. We are left with shrapnel from the war against cancer. No one wants to get back to life more than we do, and we try. Some days are better than others and there are short fleeting moments where life feels normal again but that’s not often. For now, I continue to operate at 100% even though I feel 60%, have hair envy and chilled boobs, or built in cooling devices.
I am constantly finding new ways to amuse myself with this crazy body and new parts of mine. When I had the expanders, I stuck magnets on my foobs. Fun party trick, right? It gets better! My foobs are perfect for Halloween. Innocuous smiling things during the day, but, at night, look out! I decided to shine a flashlight, in the dark, from under them. Guess what? They glowed an evil yet gorgeous red! Spooky foobs! Just in time for Halloween! Rawr! Hawt, no?
I have eleven weeks to go until my last infusion and then soon after, my port comes out. It will take several months for my body to recover from all of the toxic infusions meant to save my life and give me a longer life to clear from my body. I am looking forward to days without physical therapy and no longer being the human pin cushion. Until then…I’m anything but normal…
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