I Finished Chemo!

For almost 6 months I was put through the misery of getting myself pumped with poison. It's very hard for me to process that it's been 6 months, my brain thinks it's somewhere in late February. It's June! And I did it! 16 times I sat in the infusion room. 16 times I endured the side-effects of this harsh chemo. 16 times I had to leave my children and spend half the day at the hospital getting medicine. SIXTEEN!

I gone, done did it!

It's taken me a bit to process how I am going to mentally move on from this. Having an aggressive and late stage breast cancer means treatment for life. It means this isn't it for me as far as treatment goes. That is a hard thing to accept. I hate thinking about it.

BUT...

I decided I am going to celebrate and be happy that I finished this chemo (WEEEEE!!)! Instead of being sad that I am stage 4, I choose to be happy and optimistic that I am all done with chemo for a LONG LONG LONG time! It's a waste of time and energy to sit and worry about a future that is so uncertain. Let's celebrate instead!!

My friend Jen sat with me during my last chemo. My nurse asked if I wanted to ring the gong. Patients ring it when it's their last chemo. I wouldn't have done it if Jen wasn't there, I wasn't emotional or anything, but knew that I should make it "a thing" so I rang the gong! Yay!

I came home to this sign and the kids greeting me outside. I love how specific this sign is, love my engineer husband's mind, haha.

I spent a day shopping! It feels so great to get out and feel normal :)

This last half of chemo has been hard. I. Am. So. Tired.

Chemo feels as if the life is being sucked out of you. Death felt very close, in a dramatic way, but I'm not sure how else to describe it. Your body slows down week by week, your brain checks out, and sometimes you have no strength or even the will power to stand up and walk across the room. You feel sick. You look sick. You can't sleep it off or do anything to get better, you just have to endure it. Blah.

When I met with my radiation oncologist for the first time, he asked me "How are you doing this? How have you have managed all this chemo with 3 little ones?"

I pointed to Matt.

Matt has done everything. He takes care of me, letting me sleep or play with the kids or go for a walk or make dinner or be sad or be goofy or be lazy or be productive or anything. I have this stress-free freedom to do or not do or think or not think.

I get to be.

We've been at this for about 6 months now and Matt gets it. The best advice we've been given and from our experience when someone is going through cancer treatments, especially chemo, is to let that person do whatever it is they want to do. If it's staying in bed watching tv all day? Great! If it's organizing the linen closet? Awesome! If it's chasing your kids in the sprinklers in the backward and then walking to the store to get ice cream? Go for it!

Again, the biggest blessing has been Matt being able to work from home. I am ecstatic to be home with the kids again so Matt can go back into work. I'm not sure when that will be, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I was thinking how this happened so suddenly, so out of the blue. This cancer diagnosis smacked me in the face and changed my life forever. It scares to me think of those I love and how this can happen to them. We shouldn't live in fear, but we should educate ourselves and do all we can to live a healthy lifestyle so we can prevent any unnecessary diseases, like cancer, although in most cases it can't be prevented. (the only research I've found to link breast cancer to lifestyle is in postmenopausal women and being overweight since estrogen lives in fat cells and breast cancer is sometimes fed from estrogen...but this doesn't apply to premenopausal women (like me!)) Even the healthiest and those without a family history (like me!) can get cancer. It's more likely not to happen, but from my experience... it can happen. Cancer can grow or begin to grow and our bodies' immune system can stop it. We can help our immune system to be strong to fight off potential cancers. I'm educating myself on how to do this, for me and my kids.

Thank you to everyone for the outpouring of love and support during this tough time. It's a little unknown to me how I'll be feeling this summer. I have surgery (a bilateral mastectomy with the cancer side being a modified radical mastectomy with axillary lymph node dissection) on June 27th and begin daily chest radiation for 6 weeks starting the last week of July.

Oy vey!

I have a very good feeling that despite a heavy treatment load this summer, I will be able to enjoy myself and make memories with my family :)

This is what I looked like from last November and every month since. Now hoping to do the same, but in reverse order :)