I spent last weekend at a 2-day training to become a certified counselor with Network Of Strength, a 24/7 peer support hotline for breast cancer patients and their loved ones.
I attended, along with 16 other women from around the country, and shared a hotel room with a woman whom I met at my oncology ward, who was also in training. Together we all learned how to help patients who call the hotline to discuss their most pressing issues and emotions while dealing with diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. I learned a lot about various aspects of the disease as well as resources that are available to patients. I also learned a lot about the social prejudices that often keep wo(men) from seeking screening and treatment, and how to deal with people when they are at the end of their rope and want to end their lives. It was an intense and packed-full weekend, but one that assured me that this is the direction my life needs to go as I seek to turn my cancer experience into something that helps other people. Network of Strength’s mission is this:
“…to ensure, through information, empowerment and peer support, that no one faces breast cancer alone.”
This week I took my online test and I passed! Starting Wednesday and Friday this week I will begin shadowing calls that come in through the 1-800 hotline, listening to my manager speak with people who call, and then reviewing various aspects of the conversations and what I have learned. Next week she will shadow me as I accept the calls. Within the next few weeks my computer and phone will then be wired to their hotline headquarters and I will begin to be scheduled with shifts to be covered throughout the week while I am at home.
This new position will force me to STAY home more, which I need to do in order to complete everything around the house and with my business. I thought I would get a breather after the Christmas holiday rush, but things have picked up as much as they did in mid December! The only way to ensure that I don’t get behind, is to commit to staying home more and filling the orders as they come in.
Good news is that I haven’t had any allergy outbreaks since beginning the daily Allegra last week, and the rest of my blood tests should be in by the end of this week. Hopefully after the doctor reviews them all she can diagnose what the underlying cause of these are and what can be done to correct it.
Tonight we have 2-6 inches of snow forecasted, this, following 5 inches we got over the weekend! I think 2010 is now making up for a lack of snowfall we haven’t had in the last 3 years!
) So I am hoping to get some answers next week as to how to prevent this from going “full blown” (pardon the pun) again! They already tested me for the C-1 deficiency which I didn’t show to have, so maybe there are other immune disorders that they can test for. If anyone has ever heard of anything like this happening to patients who have been through chemotherapy I would love to hear from you!
t to the last infusion I will have for my one year chemo therapy treatment. Yeah! I am beginning to see the light at the end of this tunnel. This being a holiday week with Veteran’s day, I expect the wait to be long for a chair since they are sqeezing 5 days of patients into four.
The training has begun! I am walking an average of 3.5 miles a day to prepare for the Avon Walk that I will be doing in just 6 months. 
The fall foliage and cooler days makes this an enjoyable activity and I also frequent the gym for additional weight lifting and endurance work outs. I held a fund raising event at the breast care center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center last week and raised 8% of my goal by selling my jewelry creations. So far I am at nearly 30% raised so I continue pressing on with those efforts a little bit every day. Thank you to all who have donated so far! My Avon Walk page can be viewed 
and I look forward to entering this challenge with her. We are in it TO BEAT IT! Beat breast cancer!
After my last post my arm became worse and worse, more painful, and visibly infected. My neighbor took one look at it and was so concerned she pleaded that I go to the emergency room. I did go, and within 3 hours the baseball sized abscess was turning black, the tissues were dying. The pain was acute. They did a cat scan to be sure the infection hadn’t gone into the muscle or bone. Once I was admitted to a private room they gave me Morphine for the pain and began a heavy dosing of antibiotic for MRSA, a very serious form of a resistant staph infection. They did blood cultures and tissue samples.
arm. I developed one last week on my right upper inside arm area (they start out looking like a boil) and by Saturday was miserable with pain, hot red swelling so went to the doctor. She put me on Cipro but by Monday I was in A LOT of pain and the symptoms weren’t any better, in fact they were getting much worse. I drove straight over the the doctor’s office without an appointment after playing phone tag with the nurse all morning. She sent me to an Urgent Care clinic and that is when I met Dr. Al, an Iraqi refugee turned doctor and 15 year breast cancer survivor! She had an amazing story, by the way. Right away she said she thought this was the dangerous MRSA staph infection and because I had gone through chemo last spring (when all of this started) and because I frequent the hospital so much, that I probably contracted it there. She lanced and cultured it and sent me home with double duty antibiotics and instructions for the whole family so that they don’t catch it. MRSA is very contagious skin to skin, and if it enters the blood stream it can be deadly. She did a blood test right then and there and said I was very lucky. I won’t post a photo of my arm, but suffice it to say that my family keeps asking me to cover it up! I would, except that it is too painful to have anything touching it at all!
On this day last year, OCTOBER 1st, 2008, I was sitting in a doctor’s office receiving the news that I had breast cancer. What a difference a year makes! This is <——-me one year ago on my 45th birthday in October. It’s been one year and this is year #1 of my survival, and hopefully the first of many, many more! Most recurrences happen in the first 2 years following diagnosis than in any other time frame. After 5 years of no recurrence, a breast cancer patient has a very high chance of never having the disease again. That is my goal. My hope.
