**UPDATE 11-22-09—things are getting worse, not better, so Monday morning I will be going back to see the surgeon. Looks like I could be spending Thanksgiving laying down…can’t sit (if you know what I mean!) This time the skin infection is on the “backside”
I was back to the hospital this week with another skin abscess…suspected MRSA infection. This is about the 11th one, the last one being the worst one and the one that landed me in the ER! The surgeon was ready to “clean it out” but I declined and asked that we TRY oral anti biotics first. So that is what we are doing. I just couldn’t bare the thought of a needle going into that thing since it was terribly painful the last time.
If it responds, great! If it doesn’t respond, then MRSA would be assumed since the “R” in MRSA stands for resistant. No fever, so that is a good thing, though my lymph nodes have been tender. My body is fighting something. Let’s pray these medicines do their job and I don’t end up admitted to the hospital again. Here is my arm 6 weeks ago and (before surgery) again as it looks now. A referral to infectious disease will be next as we do not know what could be causing these. My white blood cell counts are great and my immune system should be functioning, but for some reason chemo has caused it to be compromised.
Thanksgiving week is upon us. Kyle and Curtis will be home from school and we’ll spend a quiet holiday at home with our 26 1/2 pound turkey. Yes, I did say 26 1/2 pounds! What was I thinking? Is my oven that big?
Holiday shoppers are shopping in full force and I am a busy beaver with my jewelry orders. I don’t have time to get sick! I guess with Thanksgiving falling a little bit later this year, the shopping frenzy started early. I’m personally behind the curve on that one, but ready or not, Christmas will come and if I don’t happen to get those Christmas cards out on time, so what. Maybe we’ll send our Happy New Year 2010 letter celebrating my completion of chemo treatments! The last one will be December 3rd – yeah!
To view my Avon Walk fund raising progress, go HERE! I am half way there! 5 months and $930 to go!
Learn how to Reduce Your Risk of breast cancer HERE at my own educational/informational web site!
Today is the next 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.
I am feeling great (well, a bit sore from spin class) but I have more energy than ever and am working to get my heart function back to optimum levels.
I had a phone interview yesterday with the Network Of Strength organization. You can find them at www.NetworkOfStrength.org . They “ensure, through information, empowerment and peer support, that no one faces breast cancer alone.” I am applying to become a peer support counselor for their national panel which fields phone calls 24/7, 365 days a year across the globe. I will attend training for 2 days here in Washington DC the end of January. It is an exciting opportunity for me to come along side other newly dianosed breast cancer patients and help them navigate the rough waters of diagnosis, treatment and recovery. When I, myself, contacted them a year ago I was paired with a woman 20 years older than me, not an ideal match since we were at very different places in our lives. There is a great need for younger women as counselors to help the many hundreds of young women in their 30’s and 40’s who need a friend to talk to who has been in their shoes. I look forward to channeling my experiences into a positive tool to help other women.
My AVon Walk fund raising is coming along nicely! I am almost half way there! You can access my page at
MY AVON WALK and you can also access my son CURTIS’ PAGE <–here and read why he has joined in the effort as well! He needs your support too!
Tim and I enjoyed 3 days in The Big Apple this past weekend. We had a great time forgetting all our cares and just having fun! We took a charter bus from D.C. and stayed in a 4 star hotel. What a treat!
Here are just a few pictures from our adventures! Click HERE to view
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 HERE.
This week my MRI results came back all clear so that was good news! I must admit I held my breath for those 8 days waiting for results. I am told that this feeling of dread lasts a long time, at least until the ten-year survival point. Even then, with no cure for breast cancer, the fear of recurrence looms all the time. The MRSA infection in my arm continues to heal well and is down to a dime-sized scab with some scarring.
In the meantime I celebrate LIFE and help those newly diagnosed whom I meet, which seems to be nearly every week. The numbers of women affected by this disease never ceases to amaze me. Giving them hope and support gives me a reason to continue fighting for a cure.
ClickHERE to view my Avon Walk page and to follow my fund raising progress!
As many of you know, I will be walking in the Avon Walk for breast cancer next May 1-2, 2010, which is just 6 months from now! I must raise $1,800 in order to participate in the walk. The funds raised will go towards helping women in our local community get access to early detection that they might not otherwise get, as well as to raise funds towards breast cancer research and development of treatments.
Having been through treatment myself, I have become aware that the drugs used in chemo therapy have had ot be studies for many, many years and funded in trials before going to market. One of the I.V. drugs I receive took more than 10 years just to gain FDA approval and even 5 years ago was unavailable to women with my type of breast cancer called her2Neu. Back then, these women were given little to no hope of surviving breast cancer. Today I am given an excellent prognosis because of the thousands of dollars raised in breast cancer walks around the country.
I will be walking with Rachael & Curtis, my college son at UVA. Rachael walked for me last spring and I look forward to entering this challenge with her. We are in it TO BEAT IT! Beat breast cancer!
Please click on the above link to be taken to my donation page. Thanks so much! Any amount you can donate is very much appreciated and truly does make a difference!
I am home from the hospital now, after 3 days on IV antibiotics. This was quite an ordeal! 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.
By Wednesday it became evident that the infection was worsening. They would have to open it up. The swelling had become so severe that the lidocaine to numb the area couldn’t be very effective. My screams could probably be heard down the hospital corridors. I felt like I was going to go into shock the pain was so bad. They began giving me Morphine every 2 hours and by morning the bright red bulls eye around the lesion had nearly gone away. The doctors left the wound open to heal, covering it only with light gauze. A neat and smooth scar is not their concern right now. I have to change my dressings at home now and the first time I did it this morning I must admit I had to sit down I got so light headed just looking at it. It looks like I have been to war!
The surgeon agreed that because the chain of lymph nodes near this site had been removed when I had my node biopsy last October, the drainage system for infection has been compromised and that’s possibly why this boil didn’t heal like the others have. Couple that with the many visits I have had to the hospital in the last 9 months, and germs floating around there, and it became a prime site for the dangerous MRSA to grow.
Hospital food is actually very good but I am glad to be home! I slept much better in my own bed last night. I am trying to manage now with Motrin during the day and reserving the narcotics for night time. I will go back for a follow up with the surgeon Next Tuesday.
Mercy! I finally think we have discovered what has been causing the lesions/abscesses on my neck, abdomen and 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 a brighter note, this being Breast Cancer Awareness month, I am beading up a storm of bracelets and awareness items for a fund raising event at Walter Reed’s Breast Care Center on the 22nd. I will be trying to raise $1,800 for the next 7 months for my Avon Walk for breast cancer that I am going to do with Curtis’ girlfriend, Rachael. I was just finishing up chemo therapy last May when Rachael walked in my name for two days in the pouring rain. I will post my Avon support page soon!
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.
So what am I doing today to celebrate!? I bought myself a dozen pink roses and I went to a spin class! With high powered velocity I sat on that bike next to my friend, a 2 year survivor in her pink tutu skirt, and together we rode our butts off for a full hour! Happy to breathe and breathe HARD and healthy!
I handed out more than a dozen pink ribbons to every stranger I saw and a guy at Panera and told him that real men wear pink! He put it on immediately. Today I also signed up to do the Avon breast cancer walk here in Washington D.C. May 1 and 2nd, 2010 along with my son’s girlfriend who walked it this past year in my name. I pledged to raise $1,800 towards my efforts along with Avon. I have a much greater appreciation for fund raisers for this cause now because I feel like I am a direct recipient of those dollars. The chemo drug that I am currently on took ten years of development and hundreds of thousands of dollars in research. Because of it I have a very good prognosis. Support your friends who are doing the walks and the runs. It counts! AND I started a new web site called Reduce Your Risk in an effort to educate others with what I have learned in the past year. Please pass this site on to all the young women in your life!
Thank you to everybody who stood by me this year and supported me through what was a very difficult year. I love you! And thanks to God for giving me strength to get through treatment and showering me with His love through all of my friends and family. I am blessed!
I love this song. I have heard it many times over the course of my storm called cancer and am well aware that sometimes God doesn’t take away the storms in my life. But I have felt Him calm me within. I am at that place now. A calm place. Sure, the dangers that lurk in this sea of my life hover beneath me all the time, but I have felt carried through this years’ storms and I know that come what may, He will carry me through those too. Please visit Reduce Your Risk pages to learn more about breast cancer risks.
Okay, so I knew that title would get your attention! This is me at my first social function in 8 1/2 months without a wig, a hat or a scarf! Last weekend I went to a friend’s birthday party “as is” with my fuzzy head of hair. I have to gel it a bit or else I look like I have bed-head, but there are worse things, right?
The blond behind me in the pink shirt in this picture is my friend and fellow breast cancer survivor, Donna, who has given me so much inspiration and courage through these last few months. (Birthday girl is behind her in polka dots – thatnks for including me Annemarie!) Together, next month, Donna and I celebrate our 1 and 2 year survival dates, respectively. Next week at my church ladies Bible study I will be giving my “story”, and telling how God has brought me and our family through the most difficult year of our lives. If I can get through those 12 minutes without melting in tears it will be a miracle!
I have been reading over some of my early blog entries from last September and October, which you can read too by clicking on the archive dates to the right on this page. I am reminded of how my life has rested in the palm of God’s hands and how I have felt “carried” through this past year. Carried because of those around me who have lifted my spirits, provided for my physical needs, and the prayers of many.
How do I feel?
Grateful. Strong. Empowered.
Please visit Reduce Your Risk pages to learn about breast cancer risks
This week I had a MUGA scan of my heart. This is a nuclear scan of the heart. Muga stands for Multiple-Gated Acquisition, a 40 minute test where the radioactive tracer injected into my bloodstream is tracked and followed by a gamma camera as I lay on a table with electrodes stuck to me and a machine records all of the activity. I began getting muga scans before starting my chemo therapy in December. Things looked fantastic then, as I scored a 69 and was told that 55 would be optimal. Then I had another scan in March showing slight decrease in heart function at a scoring result of 65. In July that number had gone down to 62. That’s when I began to worry that the remaining 5 months of therapy were going to do more damage, and I’d better to something to get my heart back into shape if I could. That’s when I joined the gym and for the last 6 weeks have been exercising rigorously 3 – 4 times a week. Tuesday’s scan showed a slight improvement and came in at 64, the ejection fraction which is an indicator of heart function. It is no wonder! I feel great and I feel strong and am not tired all the time like I was earlier in the summer. I will have another scan when chemo finishes after Christmas. What will a full 3 months of spin classes and treadmill do for me!? I can’t wait to find out!
I finished my 25th infusion of Herceptin yesterday and have just 5 more to go now before completion, just before Christmas. Then I will officially be done with one year of chemo therapy! While at the hospital, I got to meet with my new oncologist. This new doctor is actually the head of oncology at Walter Reed, and has agreed to take me on as his patient. I had begun an oral chemo medication in May, designed to block the hormone receptors which feed breast cancer, but I developed a reaction to it in the form of daily hives. After meeting with the doctor yesterday, I am no longer taking the medication and he sees no reason for me to take anything else orally. Because chemo therapy put me into early menopause and I am no longer producing the volume of hormones that I was prior to my surgery, he feels that I am not susceptible to the hormones feeding any rogue cancer cells. He feels that with the chemo therapy and Herceptin which I have been given, I have every possible chance of remaining cancer free. This was very good news to me, since the oral therapies given women after breast cancer carry with them some undesirable side effects and risky complications. My doctor believes this is mostly because the field of oncology just doesn’t know what else to do, and the fact that other than Herceptin, there have been no ground breaking breast cancer treatments in the last 30 years. We are still using surgery, chemo therapy, radiation and oral hormone blockers to fight recurrence. Despite all of this, women continue to get new breast cancers at epic proportions. I am reading and researching what are believed to be the major causes of breast cancer and find it interesting that so much is directed at funding the pharmacuetical companies and their studies but NOT determining and fighting the causes, namely hormones. That would put a lot of big name manufacturers out of business. Unfortunately beating cancer is very political and financial.
At any rate, I am feeling great and doing well, and look forward to celebrating my one year survival point next month! In celebration, I bought myself a new kayak last week! I loaded her up last weekend and went with a girlfriend out on the water Saturday! I call her MY SURVIVOR”SHIP“ ! Now, you may be wondering how I got that 42 pound boat up there all by myself while Tim was out of town? With much determination! Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I don’t let much stop me anymore…that is one positive outcome in my fighting cancer – I have a new-found strength within. (In case you’re wondering, I bought Tim a matching kayak too.) Now when our local marina closes for the season at the end of September, we can still get out on the water and explore the local rivers during peak fall foliage! The leaves are already beginning to fall here in Virginia!
I loved what a new friend had recorded on her home answering machine the other day. After the usual message of “leave a message at the sound of the beep”, she reminded me of this:
The hand of God will not bring you to any trial where the grace of God will not protect you!
I want to share a wonderful song called Courage To Fly, by a group called Dichroic Glass. They are two couples making music together and recording CD’s to raise money for breast cancer research. Kristin, one of the members, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. I met her by chance (well, by divine appointment )and wanted to share the words of this song with you. Click on the video below to listen (click on the arrow) If that doesn’t work click HERE! Here’s the lyrics so you can follow along. Enjoy!
Courage To Fly
Now it’s time for me to fly
so far so fast so high and wide
I don’t know where I’m goin’
But I know I’ll make it there
Sometimes it feel like someone turned the lights off
Well this past weekend Tim and I were kayaking out on The Occoquan again (this is practically an every week outing for us). The season is drawing to a close and we are hoping to purchase our own kayaks soon as the marina where we normally rent them is closing the end of this month. Once we have our own boats we can put in on any river at any point and will have much more exploring ahead of us!
Physical exercise has been key to me raising my energy levels and so I joined a gym. Yes! You heard me right, Gold’s Gym! I have never been a gym person. Those places have ALWAYS intimidated me, but my last heart scan was not very encouraging, showing a 10% loss in function since starting chemo. So, I laced up my tennis shoes and decided this is my time. My time to get fit, to feel healthy, to gain muscle, to lose fat and to strengthen my heart. I have been taking spin classes and also working out with weights and machines. I have been on the eliptical and treadmills and bikes, and am feeling better than ever! I have found several friends who go to the same gym, and so we meet there for classes together or to just have a partner next to each other on the machines. I also started taking iron supplements since my hemoglobin has been low and I was feeling so incredibly fatigued. This has seemed to help a lot. My next infusion will be Wednesday next week, and then the countdown begins! Five, Four, Three, Two One and Merry Christmas to me I will be done with chemo! What a celebration that will be!
The kids go back to school next week and the start of a new school year marks the one year point of my breast cancer diagnosis. It is hard to believe all that has happened in that amount of time. I am done looking back! Only looking forward now!
“Hope is like a bird that senses the dawn and carefully starts to sing
while it is still dark.” ~ Anonymous
I awoke this morning to an e-mail from a college student named “Sam”. She was writing to remind me that one year ago her mother, Charlotte, found me on the internet. Charlotte and I designed a pair of necklaces together which would serve as mementos for her and her daughter as Sam went off to her first year of college. Sam is the eldest of three children and her mother and she had a very special bond. Her mom reached out to me at a time when she was struggling with letting her first bird leave the nest. I guess I was a “seasoned” college mom.
Well, unknown to me, Charlotte began reading this blog last fall. I began these writings months after our internet transaction. She found strength and inspiration here which would become a source of power in her own fight a few short months later. She developed stomach cancer earlier this year and endured months of chemo and radiation before finally losing her battle in June, just 2 months ago. She left behind a husband, Sam and two younger children.
I am humbled and saddened this morning. I grieve for a young woman whose life is now forever altered by the loss of her mother, and a family broken and hurting. I am all too aware that this could could easily be my family, and yet it is not. Cancer is an indiscriminate and evil thief, who without warning will strike its next victim. I think that some days I am oblivious to the statistics and the stories, never believing it could happen to me. I don’t think that anyone with cancer ever truly believes it could be them or their loved one.
Sam wanted me to know that this blog had helped her mom during her darkest days. It helped her fight. Today I hope that Sam can see that in spite of this pain, God has a tremendous love for her that will be ever present in her as she remembers her mom. I pray that as another school year begins, that Sam will see hope in her future, and that she too will sing in the dark.
Women know. It’s the single most identifying feature of us all….our hair. Straight, curly, permed, highlighted, low lighted, we have done it all. Women pay big bucks to have the looks they desire for their hair, and they do it often and without remorse. They feel entitled. It comes with the territory of femininity and fashion. It’s just what we DO. We also cry about our hair, call our girlfriends about our hair and here’s a new one, BLOG about our hair! Ha ha!
I have never done THIS before, and it feels very, very foreign. Sprouting a new head of hair isn’t like growing a garden. No Miracle Grow for hair exists. It comes in at its own sweet pace, and it comes in with no idea of where to lay down. No part, no cowlick…just WILD, funky and uncontrollable hair. Mine came in very gray a few weeks ago but I finally couldn’t take it anymore and decided to color what little I have to its original medium brown. Even still, looking at myself in the mirror is not something I have gotten use to. I still long deeply to have my old hair return, to be able to twirl it between my fingers and to brush its long strands, to twist it up into a claw clip or to rope it off into a pony tail. Instead, I have wavy, spiky sprouts, each with a mind of its own. The day can’t come soon enough when I will have something that can actually be trimmed and styled. Until then, ball caps and bandanas cover up my crazy locks when I go out in public, and I do a double take when I pass by a mirror in the hall. Who is that person? I still can’t believe it’s me. I watched a hilarious video about a woman’s history of hair, and I thought you’d enjoy it too. So here’s to our hair, ladies! Enjoy what you’ve got! “Every day with hair is a good hair day!”
A fellow breast cancer survivor wrote to me today and said something that struck me…she said, “Use this time as a gift”. I am trying to find God’s gifts to me in breast cancer instead of the many curses a disease can bring. I am sure years from now I will look back and wish for these moments of reflection, days of thinking about what matters most in life, and counting the many blessings in my life.
(This video is courtesy of Brian Walsh who write’s My Wife With Cancer’s blog at blogspot.com. His wife Karen is battling breast cancer too. Karen is about 6 months behind me in her treatment. )
I just love the Disney movie Finding Nemo, don’t you? And my favorite quote from the movie is “Just keep swimming…just keep swimming…” as Dori tries to encourage Nemo to not give up. Can’t you hear her singing it now?
This week will mark my 25th infusion of Herceptin. I will have 6 more after this on Wednesday, ending on December 9th. We often say where did the year go, right? Well, this is one year that seems to be dragging on forever. I have to keep telling myself to “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” and that the end WILL come to all the drugs pumping through my body. One of the listed side effects of Herceptin is fatigue but I have never read of anyone experiencing the fatigue I feel now, and in fact they all seem to say that they notice virtually no side effects from it. I guess I am one of the few who do. I have the constant drippy nose and feel like I must lay down for a nap often during the day. I survive on caffeine! The doctor says it could also be a result of the Tamoxifen I am taking, an oral daily drug that blocks estrogen from feeding any lurking cancer cells. I am suppose to stay on this drug for at least another 9 months but something tells me I would opt for quality of life over this. That has led me to researching and reading all kinds of information about treatments for breast cancer and has me questioning the common sense of some of the standards of care given to women in my situation. The fact is that doctors don’t know what else to do.
It is really quite staggering that even with all the increase in breast cancer diagnosis in the last 50 years, why they have yet to figure out a definative cause or cure. Surgery, radiation, chemo and hormone therapy are still the only arsinal we have. Thirty years ago 1 in 30 women got breast cancer. Now that figure is 1 in 8 women. Scary, isn’t it? So what has changed and why hasn’t treatment changed? On a positive note, researchers HAVE discovered what FEEDS 80% of breast cancers and that is estrogen and progesterine. So where are all of these hormones coming from? Why are our little girls developing into young women at age 9 now, instead of 12 like it was years ago? Why are we allowing our dairy farmers to inject our poultry, beef and milk with these hormones and why aren’t doctors warning women of the dangers of taking birth control pills (that was me for 13 years but NO doctor EVER warned me) and hormone replacement therapies? It all boils down to economic and political reasons. It is no coincidence that in cultures where women consume mostly a vegetarian and seafood diet the risk of developing breast cancer is substantially lower. But in America we thrive on convenience and financial gain all at the expense of women’s health and lives. It’s time that something changes for women in America. It won’t start with our government or our drug companies. They have too much to lose. It starts with women. Women who have had breast cancer and know more than they ever wanted to know and educating other women so that they don’t have to walk in our shoes. We have already lost so much – and we have nothing else to lose! And so I just keep swimming and getting the word out there along my way. I hope that others will spread the word too.
This week I went to see my oncologist about the extreme fatigue and weight loss I have been experiencing for the last 4 months. My weight has been dropping about a pound per week and I am not even trying! My appetite is just w-a-y down from what it use to be. I didn’t have a net gain OR loss during chemo, but now it seems my body is just wiped out from everything. I wanted to make sure no stone was going unturned in my cancer battle.
The doctor ran tests for thyroid (though normally a sluggish thyroid means weight GAIN), and he tested for anemia, which I am slightly , but not enough to treat it clinically with infusions. He is waiting on some other tests to come back next week for various other things that could be contributing. He said that it can take over a year for chemo patiets to recover from therapy and that even the Herceptin infusions I am still getting for another 5 months could be a factor. He also said it could be related to the hormone blocking drug I am on, which throws a woman into menopause but generally these women expereince weight gain as well. SO in short, he doesn’t know why I feel this way but there was no “smoking gun”, as he put it. We will monitor things for now.
I joined the local gym and started exercising in hopes of building back some muscle tone and working my heart to build it’s strength up too. The first day I was nervous about going, since I am and never have been a gym rat! I didn’t know the first thing about the machines or equipment, but my friend Brenda was there and it was her first day too! Together we did the eliptical machines and chatted for about 30 minutes. It sure was nice to know somebody there. My second visit I ran into two other friends who go there regularly and agreed to help me try a class or learn the weights. Thanks Maggie and Jaime! So my new activity is going to the gym at least three times a week, and maybe even getting the body I’ve always wanted! There are certain things about my post cancer body that I can’t change now, but this is something I CAN do and achieve. At the very least it should help give me more stamina during my days and help me feel more energized.
Tim and I enjoyed 3 days away at the beach in North Carolina last weekend. A much needed get away for just the two of us! But even while completely relaxed, I felt very tired. Summer is winding to a close now and the kids will go back to school in
the next few weeks. It was one year ago that I got that fateful letter saying to return for further views on my mammogram. What a year! Thank you for your continued prayers!
This video was created by Jane and A.J. Ali on their cross country road trip celebrating the survival of cancer! Listen to this song’s inspirational words and message by clicking the arrow in the box below. Jane and A.J. are educating and inspiring women and men all across America with their message, bringing awareness to all who they come in contact with. You can find me celebrating my own survivorship at their web page http://survivorcelebration.com and search “motherspreciousgems” in the search box in the upper right hand corner.
I was back to the hospital this week with another skin abscess…suspected MRSA infection. This is about the 11th one, the last one being the worst one and the one that landed me in the ER! The surgeon was ready to “clean it out” but I declined and asked that we TRY oral anti biotics first. So that is what we are doing. I just couldn’t bare the thought of a needle going into that thing since it was terribly painful the last time.
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.
Okay, so I knew that title would get your attention! This is me at my first social function in 8 1/2 months without a wig, a hat or a scarf! Last weekend I went to a friend’s birthday party “as is” with my fuzzy head of hair. I have to gel it a bit or else I look like I have bed-head, but there are worse things, right?
Next week at my church ladies Bible study I will be giving my “story”, and telling how God has brought me and our family through the most difficult year of our lives. If I can get through those 12 minutes without melting in tears it will be a miracle!
This week I had a MUGA scan of my heart. This is a nuclear scan of the heart. Muga stands for Multiple-Gated Acquisition, a 40 minute test where the radioactive tracer injected into my bloodstream is tracked and followed by a gamma camera as I lay on a table with electrodes stuck to me and a machine records all of the activity. I began getting muga scans before starting my chemo therapy in December. Things looked fantastic then, as I scored a 69 and was told that 55 would be optimal. Then I had another scan in March showing slight decrease in heart function at a scoring result of 65. In July that number had gone down to 62. That’s when I began to worry that the remaining 5 months of therapy were going to do more damage, and I’d better to something to get my heart back into shape if I could. That’s when I joined the gym and for the last 6 weeks have been exercising rigorously 3 – 4 times a week. Tuesday’s scan showed a slight improvement and came in at 64, the ejection fraction which is an indicator of heart function. It is no wonder! I feel great and I feel strong and am not tired all the time like I was earlier in the summer. I will have another scan when chemo finishes after Christmas. What will a full 3 months of spin classes and treadmill do for me!? I can’t wait to find out!
I loved what a new friend had recorded on her home answering machine the other day. After the usual message of “leave a message at the sound of the beep”, she reminded me of this:
I want to share a wonderful song called Courage To Fly, by a group called Dichroic Glass. They are two couples making music together and recording 
)and wanted to share the words of this song with you. Click on the video below to listen (click on the arrow) If that doesn’t work click 
Well this past weekend Tim and I were kayaking out on The Occoquan again (this is practically an every week outing for us). The season is drawing to a close and we are hoping to purchase our own kayaks soon as the marina where we normally rent them is closing the end of this month. Once we have our own boats we can put in on any river at any point and will have much more exploring ahead of us! 
Women know. It’s the single most identifying feature of us all….our hair. Straight, curly, permed, highlighted, low lighted, we have done it all. Women pay big bucks to have the looks they desire for their hair, and they do it often and without remorse. They feel entitled. It comes with the territory of femininity and fashion. It’s just what we DO. We also cry about our hair, call our girlfriends about our hair and here’s a new one, BLOG about our hair! Ha ha!
I just love the Disney movie Finding Nemo, don’t you? And my favorite quote from the movie is “Just keep swimming…just keep swimming…” as Dori tries to encourage Nemo to not give up. Can’t you hear her singing it now?
This week I went to see my oncologist about the extreme fatigue and weight loss I have been experiencing for the last 4 months. My weight has been dropping about a pound per week and I am not even trying! My appetite is just w-a-y down from what it use to be. I didn’t have a net gain OR loss during chemo, but now it seems my body is just wiped out from everything. I wanted to make sure no stone was going unturned in my cancer battle. 
