Spring has sprung... and so has my hair!!!

Week in, week out, I have at least one dream of a night time, of my hair growing, or having long wavy locks. To say that I'm obsessed about my hair is probably a little bit of an understatement. Like looking at Donald Trumps "hair" I am found regularly in the bathroom, examining my scalp for signs of new sprouts!!!  And it is happening! Even the family checks out the new growth when they see me. We're all eagerly anticipating the arrival of a full head of hair!!!

What is concerning me at the moment although, is the apparent way that its coming back.                 At the  moment, I look as though I'd fit in at the old fellows bowls club! It's all around the back and sides.... and seemingly sparse on the top. As to the colour, there is a lot of grey, but there is also a fair bit of black. I'm watching with different levels of jealousy, the other ladies who are going through this and are "ahead" of me (pun intended) who are now sporting a really cute short pixie cut style of hair. I've decided to embrace the nana side of me when it returns, and jazz it up a bit if they still make Magic Silver Rose. I'll give the greys a bit of a pink tinge. For you young ones, it's what your great (or even great great) grandma's would put in their hair to give them that lovely pink or blue colour. Hence the term "blue rinse set".
 I will avoid a Dame Edna look. I just don't have those glasses anymore :)








So this week I start week 3 of radiation treatment. The skin is bearing up okay so far, with just a bit of tightness and tingling around the decolletage area (again for the men and the young ones, the area of the neck under the chin down to the chest) The is my already sun damaged area, so I'm wondering if that is making things worse. I was advised by the lovely radiation staff to use "Moo Goo Udder Cream" liberally. It's made by a lovely Aussie company from Burleigh Heads. Their products are all natural and they send out samples to a lot of the radiation treatment Doctors, and also donate products from their Dusty Girls range of natural cosmetics, to the Look Good Feel Better workshops. If you spot their products in health shops or some of the pharmacies, please try them out. I'm finding them to be particularly good.

One side effect I didn't enjoy last week was a sore throat that progressed to something akin to a lump in the back of my throat that made swallowing food very difficult and painful. I got to the point of wondering if the next 6 weeks or so would end up seeing me on liquid meal replacements. The upside being that most of these are low calorie, so I would be doing myself a bit of a favour and hopefully losing a few more kilos that the boss/doctor would like to see come off. I need to get my weight down a bit more, to be at my optimal health and fitness and help keep me healthy and well and keep this nasty disease from rearing its ugly head again. Luckily, the lump feeling has eased, but food and I still don't completely get along. The brain is saying eat biscuits, cake, sweet stuff like I used to. But if I give in, the tastebuds revolt about half an hour later I have this awful taste in my mouth, and if I'm lucky enough I'll feel, not exactly nauseous, but just yuk for a while after eating. I guess I have to get used to going from a sweet tooth, to a more savoury palete.


I suspect the fatigue they suggested would kick in, has started to show up. I do get a bit tired by mid afternoon, but I'm not yet willing to admit that it's the radiation.

Today I'm off to have my neck CT Scan so they can map the last week of my treatment. That week will see radiation only to the area of my neck that the cancer spread to. I also get to wear a specially made mask to hold my head and neck in place so that the treatment is very accurate. It will also be a higher dose of radiation, so I can expect more burning to that area. Better stock up on the moo goo.




So for the next 4 weeks, we just spend our days, pottering around the house and waiting on daily appointments. It's an exciting life (insert sarcastic tired tones). But at least it's not chemo!!!!

Radiation has started! And.... before and after chemo.

This week I started my radiation therapy. Compared to chemotherapy, this is a walk in the park. However, it will come with it's own set of challenges, and "compromises" as my very nice Radiation Oncologist puts it. I go every day of the week except Saturday and Sundays for 6 weeks, and all up the whole process takes between 30 - 40 minutes. The staff are just lovely, and spend about 10 minutes or so making sure I'm in exactly the same position each time, apologising for their cold hands as the pull and push me into the right spot. Then they run to what I call their bunker, to avoid the "rays" as the machine moves around me and shoots me with the radiation. 

For now, I have no side effects and in fact, the last couple of days, I've felt the best I have in months. My muscles are all very stiff and sore and I can't believe how inflexible I've become. It's time to drag out the pilates/yoga dvd I was given by the Breast Cancer Network at the beginning of this adventure and try to go from feeling like an 80 year old, back to a youngish 51 year old. If I spend too much time on my feet, my ankles swell so it's a balancing act between doing something and not over doing it. My tastebuds still are out of wack, although some days are better than others. I still tire easily, I have three iffy fingernails that I reckon I'll lose thanks to the chemo. My left hand nails smelt absolutely horrible for a couple of weeks as the nails started to separate from the nail bed. They needed a fair bit of care to get them feeling healthy again. I've lost feeling in the tips of my fingers, and my hands have ached continuously like I am riddled with arthritis. My handwriting looks like a preschoolers', and don't even ask me to open those stupid clip lock bags... it usually ends in tears or me cracking the you know whats and using scissors instead. I'm hoping that given time, these poor hands will get back to what they were. I miss my craft.

The side effects of the radiation to come, will be sunburn to the area (breast, armpit and neck) The breast and neck will both receive a higher dose for a week each, just to be sure that any lurking little cells that may have escaped the clutches of the chemo so I have to be extra vigilant in those areas and keep up the special moisturiser several times a day, and be careful of the sun and hope it doesn't blister, or it doesn't blister too badly. There are risks involved with radiation, and especially when they give you a higher dose. There can be damage to the lung and the heart. I do worry about my ribs and collarbone, so I must remember to ask about that when I speak with Dr Wong (radiation oncologist) next Friday. He touches base with me at the end of each week. 

My CT body scan, and bone scan was completed before I started radiation, and compared with the ones done just before I was to have the mastectomy, but was sent off to chemo instead. In this latest test, they flagged a few nodes in my armpit as being a little enlarged (I think it was) but anyway, they were a little different to the first scan. We had a discussion about that on Friday with Dr Wong and he agreed with my thoughts that they were basically pissed off nodes that had had the cancer through them (the cancer had to get to my neck somehow, and they were the likely pathway) I knew that the cancer was in the armpit (axilla) because the cancer had already involved the sentinel nodes. Remember the original surgery (lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy) was to remove the original tumour and see if the sentinel nodes were involved. The sentinel nodes are the first line of defence, and if they weren't involved then the cancer couldn't have gone further. Unfortunately I had heavy deposits in three of the nodes so it made sense that it had already spread through to the nodes in my axilla. Thats why they wanted to do the mastectomy and full axilla clearance. But then the neck issue popped up. 

Anyway, I asked the question that given this new CT scan had highlighted the nodes to the axilla as being different to the first scan, if the next scan after radiation still had them concerned, would it be likely that the surgeons would want to remove them. Apparently that could be the case, and the node in the neck. But the surgery to the node in the neck is very tricky, and would likely be done in Brisbane by Professor Ung. He's the fellow who made the final decision to not do the mastectomy and instead send me to chemo when they found the cancer had spread. I'm not keen to have axilla surgery because of the increased risk of lymphoedema (permanent swelling of the affected arm), and voiced my concerns to the good Dr. But we'll wait and see what the final outcome is once radiation is complete, and tests are done. I guess it's just a reminder that I need to keep my mind open to changes in my course during all of this.

What I really want is to just finish my radiation, heal my body and get back to work in January. I want to put 2016 behind me, and get back to whatever normal feels like next year. But I guess what was normal in 2015 is not going to be my normal in 2017. Already I've had to face so many changes and find that inner strength to cope with them. By far the biggest challenge has been in my appearance. I really feel I've aged about 20 years. My loving and patient husband tells me how beautiful I am every single day, and I love him for it, but when you look in the mirror and on a bad day, feel like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family, it's sometimes hard to find the old me in there, let alone, feel beautiful. Makeup is a wonderful thing, and helps me feel more normal, but during chemo, I was often too sick, too tired, too in pain to care and take the time to paint on a face. Then there's the whole "no hair" issue. While I've not used my wig as I find it uncomfortable, sometimes it's just been easier to stay home than fight with a scarf, so I've found myself being more reclusive than I used to be. The hair is slowly making its return, and I keenly watch the ladies I've met who are ahead of me post chemo and their lovely hair making a comeback. My fluff is getting longer, but it's nowhere thick enough yet for me to venture out in public without some sort of coverage and my eyebrows still need to be drawn on. 

I want you all to see, the full effect chemo has on a person, and take your own health very very seriously. Aside from my weight loss (which is really a good thing for me, but each treatment I would lose between 4-5 kilos in a week, then slowly put most of it back on) my skin is so dry, I have puffy fluid type bags under each eye, and with no hair or eyebrows,I really do feel like I've aged. So as per my promise to be "warts and all about this" the photos below show my face before chemo, and as of today. Hopefully, by Christmas, Santa will bring me a hairstyle probably shorter and eyebrows, but close to the first photo. Please Santa... I've been a really good girl I promise :)