milkmanslady

[milkmanslady]

Here we are, five weeks post-op. I can’t believe the change in the dimensions of my face, the difference in my belly, and (strangely enough) my feet! I have already had to take my wedding ring and a few others to the jeweler to have the resized from an 8 to a 6.75. I am almost certain I will have to do it again, but I need it to fit me now. Good thing that my hubby thought enough to get the extended service plan so that every time it has to go in for any reason, it’s free! I have, what jewelers call, a “Cinderella Finger”. That means, that any ring in the store will fit my finger. Every ring. 

I am also excited that I can get back to a regular food diet. No more soup ad pureed food. I mean. . . I don’t eat a LOT by anyone’s standards, but actual food is good. Eating out is interesting. They always give you enough food for two meals, unless you have had bariatric surgery, then it’s more like 6 meals. Thankfully, most places don’t mind if you order off the kids menu. I have found the protein powder in shake form makes me want to punch little old ladies in the twat, and finding time to get to the gym 5 times a week is a challenge since I won’t go in the morning, (the regulars at my gym are clicky as fuck) and the hubby and I work different shifts so it is just me and the boy in the evenings. I have an hour over lunch and there is a gym across the parking lot I could go to, but lately I have had a million things to do so I don’t get there. I hope that will change soon. I do go whenever the older kids are home on Thursday, Friday afternoon before I pick the boy up from school, and Saturday and Sunday when the hubby is home. I would like to work in a few more days to those for, at least one, if not two. Some day.

Here’s to 40# down!

[milkmanslady]

TT

Here we are, 5 days post-op. The pain in my shoulder is real, not sure if it is gas or just from the hiatal hernia repair, but I really wish it would leave. I have been going to work half days this week, (I know, stop freaking out...) simply because I cannot sit around the house all day with nobody else around. I just can’t. And I have a desk job so it’s not like I am on my feet all day. Please, calm your tits. I have a ridiculously high pain tolerance. 

I got to work this morning, had my two ounce portion of yogurt for breakfast and then I took off my ring to put on some lotion. I was shocked at how easily it came off. There was little resistance. Ummm... I think I better start paying better attention or I could lose it sometime.

The phlebotomist at the hospital for blood draws needs to sharpen her skills. I have so many bruises. I even warned them that I was a hard stick. But, it happens. Whichever nurse it was who started my IV did a wonderful job. There’s barely a mark there, but that poor girl who kept drawing my blood, I am sure she feels bad, but I told her not to worry about it. It is apparently my job to be difficult.

I am wondering about when the emotional/aggrivational part will start. I am fairly confident in, that knowing it will happen, I will be able to recognize what is going on and relax a little. There are a lot of hormones in your belly and mine were just cut out. This should be an interesting transition. Wish me luck!

[milkmanslady]

Today starts full liquids. I need to review in my book just exactly the things I can and cannot have. Two days. I can do two days. I'm so glad that my husband gets it now. A year ago when I started talking about this he wasn't on board. Now, he is fully on board. He understands that my weight issue isn't something I can control on my own given my last five years' medical history.

We can do this.

[milkmanslady]

I *may* have had about 4 margaritas too many last night. It was cheat day and man, did I cheat hard. I had a fabulous steak dinner with onions and mushrooms with a side of small potatoes. It was so good I could have licked the plate.

I get one more day of food, then it's liquids for two days before surgery. I can do this.

[milkmanslady]

Day 9

Six more days until my sleeve gastrectomy. Four days left of the 1200 calorie diet, then two of a liquid diet. 12 pounds down. Wednesday night when I was talking to my mom about it, she said, "12 pounds? See?! You don't need this surgery!" That’s the funny thing. If I could guarantee that the old junk food and eating too much and not exercising habits that I am working on leaving behind were honestly not going to creep back into my life because I *can be* lazy I would not worry about it. But I know me. I know that if there is an option to have cake for dinner and not have to worry about getting all the nutrients in today that my body needs to live, I would. But I can’t. I can’t have the option to just have the cake. Just having the cake leads to so many other bad decisions. So many. Exercising is hard when you don’t have the energy to do it, your feet hurt so bad that you can’t walk right for a while afterwards, and you don’t see the results. I need to do this for me. I need to do this because breast cancer occurs more frequently when you are obese. I need to do this because this is going to be good for my self, my family, and I need to do this to show others that it is a catalyst in preparing for the future. 

Peace.

[milkmanslady]

Today was day 1 of the pre-surgical diet. I thought I would be starving all day, but it wasn't terrible. I survived. Sure, I was a little hungry, but nothing I couldn't handle. I followed the diet to the best of my ability with the food that I have at home. Good thing I was semi-prepared. Day 2 tomorrow.

[milkmanslady]

I am starting a new venture in my life. I am waiting for a date for a gastric sleeve surgery because I cannot be this heavy anymore. I have tried diet and exercise, health plans, weight watchers, keto, everything. The truth is, after a life threatening illness like breast cancer that was fueled by estrogen, I now have to take an estrogen blocker for another 17 years. That’s 17 years of hot flashes, 17 years of gaining weight, and 17 years of feeling like complete crap - unless I do something to fix it. The milk man is finally on board, now we wait for surgery.

 What I don’t understand is, why when you tell your story to someone about getting the surgery done, their reaction is, “Really?! You are beautiful!”

 Hi.

I didn’t say I was ugly.

I said I was fat.

We need to do more as a culture to not link beauty to what the scale says.

[milkmanslady]

Summertime

I’m not going to lie, staying home for the Summer while taking chemotherapy drugs was not too bad of a deal. There was enough time to rest when I needed to, but mostly because I got to hang with my kid all day, every day. We went to play at the park, we had picnics, we went to the Science Center, we did ALL of the fun stuff! I am not sure who liked it more, the boy, or myself. It was a glorious time. Now, I say that knowing full well that there were days when I  needed to adult interactions in my life. That is why I went to work one day a week for a previous employer. It was nice seeing familiar faces in the restaurant. A lot of them would gasp when they saw my bald head; they had no idea what I was doing now that they didn’t see me every week. I would wear a hat there because for people who I didn’t know, seeing my bald head made them uncomfortable. I could have walked around all day without something covering the skin on my head, but I could tell that others would get a little freaked out about it so, a hat it was. 

The hot flashes started shortly after I began staying home. This chemo medicine that I was taking was RUINING my ovaries. I was ok with that, I mean... I was totally done using them, anyway. The nicest thing about it was that I stopped having my monthly reminder that I could still have children. Again, YES PLEASE! They warned you about stuff like that. You know, the BIG stuff that was happening as a side effect from the chemo. But then, there was the stuff that they didn’t warn you about. Like, I am sure that it is routine for them, but it’s the little side effects that they don’t think to tell you about. For instance, when they tell you you are going to lose all of you hair, you think, bald head, no shave; stuff like that. BUT! When they say you will lose all of your hair, they mean you will lose ALL of you hair - like, your eyebrows, your eyelashes, and the hair inside of your nostrils. Did you realize that those little hairs inside of your nostrils have a job to do? Huh! Neither did I. But, I can now tell you that they do, in FACT, serve a purpose. Their job is not only to act as a guard for your sinuses in the form of keeping out harmful things in the air, but they actually help slow down the mucus (snot) as it exits your nose, and form those salty, dirty boogers that toddlers love to find. Yep! You heard me, I said boogers. Guess what happens when you don’t have the little hairs in there to help with all of that. . . you get a runny nose ALL THE TIME! Literally, like, always. I should have taken stock in Puffs that Summer.

Peace.

#bcwarrior2015

[milkmanslady]

Wait. . . WHAT?!

So, we were adjusted to the new stuff that was happening in my body. The bi-weekly poison that would kill any of the remaining cancer cells that could have escaped, the balding head, the chemo induced menopause, all of it. We had earned out CMS certification at work and were learning the basics of how to do the billing. Up until we begin that process, all of our services were free. It was Monday, May 18, 2015. P and I had our coffee and breakfast getting ready for the weekly meeting, the nurses had arrived, and then P’s boss walked through the front door un-announced. That’s weird. 

She greeted us with a smile and the usual greeting, and as she walked past us into the office, casually asked P to go with her. I guess our Monday patient reviews will have to wait a little bit. I was confused, the nurses were confused, so we began our patient updates in the charting room. It was about 10 minutes before P and her boss emerged from our meeting room in the back. I had moved out into the front office when I saw P and her boss walking out. P had her purse and her stethoscope. Weird. I wondered if there was a patient emergency. The nurses and I had already started chatting when N, P’s boss, asked me to follow her. Uh... ok?

So, I followed her into the meeting room and the Owner of the company was there. He motioned for me to have a seat, N sat down as well, and he began to talk about What a great job I was doing. He complimented me on how I was a key person it obtaining certification. Then he started talking about how the company was going in a different direction and how things were being re-structured, and the next think I knew, he was telling me about severance and unemployment. He was firing me. He was firing me, with no hair, currently being treated for breast cancer. Who the hell is going to hire someone with no hair because they are in the middle of chemotherapy treatments? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!! Then, it dawned on me. . . I WAS BEING LET GO! Seriously? When I asked if I had done something wrong, he simply stated that they were “restructuring”. (Whatever the fuck that means.)

I was escorted out to my car and told to set up a time to retrieve my personal belongings. I called the hubby and told him that I was going on, explained to him that I was allowed three months of pay, and I could file for unemployment, (which I did IMMEDIATELY once I got home), then we hung up so that I could call P. No answer. I was entering the interstate and my phone rang, it was M, P’s husband. The first thing out of his mouth was, “What’s going on? Did you hear what happened to P?” I said, not, but I was just let go.” He said, “Are you kidding me?! That’s what happened to her!” Ummm. . . what?

So, we were both “restructured”. When I finally talked to P, she kept apologizing for getting me into the mess that we were both in. I told her over and over that It was fine. We were both getting paid still, in fact, I was getting paid for the Summer to take my kid to the pool and the park, and the library. Full amount of pay without the 45 minute drive every day to work, then another 45 to get back again. I will take it. I called my old boss and asked him if he needed any help a few days a week, just so that I had something to do. I was working one day a week for him. Turns out, even that was exhausting as my treatments continued. One day was enough.

We entered into the weekly chemo treatments shortly after that, and that’s when the hot flashes started. Before the medicine, they would give me a serious does of antihistamines, then I got some steroids. Boy, that sure did make for a sleepless night for 12 weeks. Sadly, I was working Saturday’s and I had to be there by 5am. Those were fun weeks. That’s all for now. 

bcwarrior2015

[milkmanslady]

So much more I want to get done today, but the chair is so comfy. #weekends

[milkmanslady]

Week two of chemo was easier

After realizing that I was going to be okay, heading to chemo wasn’t so scary. My second chemo was May 8, 2015. For the last two weeks, I had anxiously waited for my hair to begin falling out; I even would try to pull tufts of hair out, but so far, my hair was holding tight! As usual, we had to meet with my oncologist before to see how I was doing and to review my blood work. Initially, we thought we would try to change doctors and go with someone closer to home, but in hind sight, I couldn’t be happier that we stayed with her. 

Tami, the nurse, called me out from the waiting room, and we headed to the exam room. She took my blood pressure, monitored my pulse  and respirations, and then began with the standard questions: Any dizziness? Nausea or vomiting? Shortness of breath? Numbness or tingling in your hands or feet? On and on, until she came to the hair loss question. I proudly proclaimed, “Nope! Not yet!” She gave me the “oh really” look and said, “I bet you are! Take a pull.” So, as I was reaching up to tug against my scalp, I said, “Well, I tested it out last night and didn’t get anyth...” and right then and there, I pulled about 25 hairs out in one big clump! “Oh,” I said, “I guess it just happens like that, doesn’t it? Huh. Ok.”

We went upstairs to the chemo clinic, waited for my name to be called, and went into our suite. There was no apprehension, no scary feelings, and my nurse this week was really fun! I mentioned that my hair was coming out in chunks now and she said, “Yeah. . . That’s our fault,” and gave me a wink. I was pleasantly surprised to find that since I was not taking the Compazine® I was hungry. So, after we finished at the clinic, we went to have lunch. This became a standard for us. The hubby went with me to every single appointment I had. He didn’t miss one! And every week, after chemo, we went to lunch. Have I mentioned that I have the best husband in the entire world?

So, We had chemo on Fridays. After the second round, the next morning when I took a shower, washed my hair, and when I stepped out of the shower, I noticed that there was A LOT of hair down by the drain. I chuckled a little bit at how fast it seemed to happen, and called the hubby in to see it before I cleaned it out. He was just as amazed as I was! so, after talking about it, we decided that when my hair was dry, we were going to shave it off. So, we sat in the kitchen and did just that. I wanted to make sure that the little boy was going to be able to watch it happen so that the fact that I had no hair wasn’t going to be shocking for him; so that he could see me when it was done, and I wouldn’t look like a stranger to him. 

Peace

Video below.

https://www.facebook.com/marykaydeva75/videos/10153851677245719/

[milkmanslady]

Zofran® - Compazine® - Repeat.

So, here we are at home. It has now been about four hours after they gave me the IV meds for anti-nausea with instructions to take the Zofran® every eight hours, with a Compazine® side kick in the between-fourth hour. Essentially, I was to take a pill every four hours. My bestie had so lovingly advised me to set an alarm for every four hours so that I didn’t miss a dose; I was to stay on top of it to avoid being miserable. So, that’s what I did - for the next three days. 

What I didn’t realize was the the four hour medication was going to make me “sleepy”. Sleepy? More like, “Not be able to keep your eyes open for much longer than 20 minutes at a time; just long enough to nibble on something because you have to eat to keep your strength up, pee, and go back to the chair to sleep more,” (but that’s kind of too long to put on a bottle). I can remember two times on that first afternoon/evening when I thought I was going to throw up. I think out of sheer determination, I willed it away. Slow, deep breathing, (yes, kind of like having a baby) concentrating on that was my saving grace. The first time, I remember the hubby cracking the door open as I sat on the toilet bowl with the trash can on my lap, to check on me. He asked me if I was okay and all I could muster was a slight nod. He shut the door and within a minute or two, the feeling had passed. So, apparently, I DO remember what it feels like when you are going to be sick. PHEW!! No more worries of spontaneous vomiting. 

I recall E coming on Saturday to give me my shot; we chatted for a bit then she had to get back to the ball field where her family was. I slept downstairs Friday night, close to the bathroom just in case, but by Saturday night, I wanted to lay in my bed, so I did. By Sunday afternoon, I had not had anymore vomit scares so I decided to not take the four hour meds and see how that went. After 6 hours and no issues, I decided that I was done taking the Compazine®. All of a sudden, I noticed that I was hungry. Actually hungry. We went to my mom’s later that day because I desperately needed to get out of the house. I am pretty sure that we had sub sandwiches. Anyway, I started to feel pretty normal after that. I woke up Monday morning, milled around the house for a bit, then decided that I was going to work - unannounced to my boss/best friend. So, when I showed up around 10, everyone stared at me like I had three heads. But, they were glad to see that I was feeling good and ready to work.  I needed my life to be as normal as possible, so I made it that way.

Peace.

[milkmanslady]

April 24, 2015: First Round of Chemotherapy

The (scary) day was here. I woke up that morning not knowing how I would feel by the end of the day. Not knowing if I was going to begin to throw up for days on end as the poison (yes, I said poison; that’s what it is) worked it’s way through my body. I really didn’t know how to throw up. I was 40 years old and the last time I vomited… I was 12. I have never had the stomach flu, that I remember, never vomited from food poisoning with the exception of when I was about 4, never had so much to drink that my stomach rejected it. The only reason I was sick at 12 was encephalitis; before that, it was one time when I was 6 and I got the chicken pox. I was terrified that I was going to throw up. Would I know it was going to happen before I did it, or was I just going to be sitting in the chair and throw up on myself? (Weird, right?) Well, as someone who hadn’t thrown up in 28 years, these were valid concerns. Anyway, it was time to go.

We took the boy to his grandparent’s house about 15 miles from the oncology clinic. When we told them about the diagnosis, they told us that they would watch him for every appointment that we had. Thank goodness for that, especially this first day. I couldn’t have done it alone. So, first we have to do a little blood work before seeing the doctor. She needed to check the levels of all the important stuff. 

When we arrived at the hospital, I went to meet with my oncologist. She really is a fabulous human being; not because she is a doctor and works on healing patients with life-threatening illness, I mean in general. At first, after my diagnosis, we thought about going to the oncology center closer to home; my doctor was pregnant and I would have to switch to see someone else in the office half way through my chemo rotation. In hindsight, I am glad that we stuck with the clinic that my best friend recommended. I am sure that any other clinic would have been just as good, but I have a personal relationship with with my oncologist. I am pretty sure that we spend at least 20 minutes of my office visits catching up on kids and parents and what-not.

So, after we met with the doctor she sent us out of the office into the hospital, up to the fifth floor at John Stoddard Cancer Center. We checked in at the desk, and went to sit down in the lobby until my name was called. There was a fish tank to look at, the TV was on, I’m pretty sure that it was playing “The Price Is Right”, and we waited. My nerves tensed up a little bit every time the door opened and I would hold my breath until someone was called. Finally, they called my name; I had to force myself to exhale and put on my award winning smile. Batter, UP!

I can’t imagine being a nurse, let alone one who induces poison into people on a daily basis. They are so used to what they do, that they don’t even really think about it. She was chatty, talking about how long she’d been doing this and what I was to expect. She explained that before any medicine, she was going to give me a combination of anti-nausea and steroids to boost the anti-nausea meds. She hooked me up to the drip, placed the settings, and left the room; like this was no big deal. As she started to leave, I had a sudden realization that this was my life, I was hooked up to a pole that was going to administer something into my body to kill what was potentially killing me. I turned my head away from the door, covered my eyes, and cried a silent cry as the tears streamed down my face onto the pillow. I heard my hubby begin to cry because I was. I can't imagine how scared he was.

As soon as the anti nausea meds were completed, here came the nurse again holding three vials of bright red liquid, dressed in full protective gear, with a plastic glass of ice chips. She asked me if I was ready. Well… No? Can anyone really ever be ready for something like this? All I had heard for the last few months was about how horribly sick this was going to make me, how I would lose my hair, lose a bunch of weight, (ok, I WAS ready for that. LOL), and what a terrible thing it was going to be. Sure. Sign me up. Duh. (Not my picture below.)

So, she explains that the reason she is dressed like this was because Cytoxan is a harsh medicine and if it is accidentally ingested, it could ruin her ovaries and she wasn’t done having children. Oh. Good. I’d like a double dose. That makes it sound really scary. Good thing I was done having children.  The ice chips were because this medicine has the potential (and the probability) to cause terrible blisters in my mouth. Again… sign me up for a double because that sounds fun! This medicine cannot be in an IV bag because it would break down the materials of the bag, so it came in syringes; hard, plastic syringes. Once she was done with that she left to get the bag of Adriamycin. Two medicines for four weeks - I wondered what that cost. (Found that out, holy crap!) Anyway, since the nurses just pushed copious amounts of liquid into my system, I know had to use the restroom. I had forgotten that she told me that my urine would be a different color so it was kind of shocking to see dark orange when I flushed. Anyway, back to the bed for more poison I went. 

When it was all said and done, the nurse came by with a “to-go shot” of Neulasta®.  This was to boost my body to make more white blood cells. Good, those are pretty necessary if I am going to stay “healthy”. So, my diabetic husband, who doesn’t like needles, was supposed to give me a shot? Pshhhh, yeah right. Good thing a lot of my friends are nurses! I called E and she was more than happy to come do it the next day. We also had two different kinds of anti-nausea medication. One was a four hour, the other an eight hour. I was instructed to take them continuously for the next few days. So I did. More on that later.

Peace

[milkmanslady]

The day before my first chemo I had to have a small operation to place the port. This device is placed in your body with a direct line to your artery, which will speed up the absorption of the chemotherapy drugs. It was a simple, outpatient procedure, quick, and relatively painless, except for when you bumped it, or had to use it for the first few weeks. Mine was the second from the left, placed about four inches below the collar bone on my right side. This is also the place where they collect all of your blood for any kind of blood work. IT sure did make things easier, but that first use was a bitch! Talk about tender!! 

Peace.

[milkmanslady]

So. . . now what?

After my surgery I was pronounced “cancer free”. We met with my oncologist a few weeks after my mastectomy. She was going to tell us if we were going to do chemotherapy, radiation, or both. I have always been one to look at things in a different light than others. She told us that my estrogen receptors were positive. That meant that my cancer was fueled by estrogen. One of the very things that made me a woman had been making the cancerous cell growth go into overdrive. Crap. So, that meant that we would have to do chemo. Taking the harsh chemotherapy drugs was going to be an extra kick on the chance that they missed something. Preventative maintenance, it is. 

OK.

She explained to us that the first four rounds of chemo that I was to take were hard. Hard on my body; hard on my immune system; hard on my stomach. My first four rounds of chemo would be two weeks apart since the medicine was so harsh. It was a two-medicine event. The first one being Cytoxan, a.k.a. “Red Devil”, (because that put my mind at ease. . .), the second was Adriamycin. Two weeks after that was completed, I had to come every week for 12 weeks. She said that medicine was called Taxol, and it would be a cake walk in comparison. 

OK.

Something to look forward to, I guess. As we were leaving the appointment that day, the hubby was kind of bummed. He was bummed that I had to do chemo at all. That’s when I stopped him in the hall way. I stopped in the middle of the hall and looked him dead in the eyes and said, “ Yeah, that’s not the news we wanted, but she said that this will reduce my recurrence rate immensely, and I only have to do the nasty hard one four times. That’s better than what other people hear. We can do this.” He agreed, and decided that he was going to look at it the way that I was; now, it wasn’t as horrible as he once thought. So, we moved forward, and waited for the first chemotherapy session.

Peace.

[milkmanslady]

This new body.

I spent the next two days in the hospital, making friends with the nursing staff. We talked about my Mary Kay business, my kids, who would visit every few hours, and life in general. If someone in my family wasn’t there, someone from my best friends’ family was. I was waiting around for the inevitable  bowel system to start working on it’s own so that I could go home. I had noticed that I was not in a considerable amount of pain by Wednesday evening, but I really didn’t think very much of it. They just kept coming in to give me my rounds of pain medication and take my vitals. They always give you the good stuff in the hospital.

They taught me how to take care of my drains; man that is kind of gross. But, they were mine, attached to the inner parts of my chest wall, and I couldn’t expect anyone else to do it for me. The output had to be measured with each time I drained it. The good thing? Once I got down to less than 50 mL a day, they could take the drains out and I could go back to work. I went home Thursday evening, March 5, 2015, to sit around and heal. I realized that by Friday morning, I wasn’t having the pain they said I would be having, so I stopped taking the narcotics they sent home with me. Again, I didn’t think much of it.

By that day, I was DONE sitting around and had decided that I needed to get out of the house. I had grabbed one of my favorite shirts and a pair of leggings that went well with it. I put my leggings on, then I put on the shirt and went back downstairs to brush my teeth and get ready to go. That’s when I noticed it, looking in the mirror. I saw how differently my shirt was hanging. Before my mastectomy, I was a 42DDD; now. . . there was nothing holding my shirt away from my body. IT just hung there. Flat against my body. Lifeless. It was incredibly shocking. So much that when I left the bathroom, I sat down in the recliner and just stared at the television. The hubby could tell something was wrong so he asked me. I got up, left the living room, and went into the kitchen hoping to avoid him as I told him “nothing”. But he followed me, he knew better. He stopped my in the middle of the kitchen and asked again, able to see the tears in my eyes. All I could get out was, “My shirt looks funny,” and I fell into his arms. He hugged me and we both cried a little bit, but then he lifted my head and told me I didn’t look funny, I looked alive.

That weekend, we went to the farm where my best friend lived and I shot a gun for the first time. It’s funny how you want to learn new things when you have a life altering event. Turns out, I’m a pretty good shot. Now, what I had forgotten from what the nursing staff had told me was that, the more I moved my arms around, the more fluid would be draining. So, after that weekend, I had resigned myself to the chair with minimal use of my arms. I was going back to work, dammit! The hubby went back to work the following week and I was home with the boy. We arranged for someone to be with me all the time because I had to rest more in order to get the tubes out. Most of the time it was the kids, but there were a few times when we had to call someone in to sit in and play with Carson so that I could rest. Again, there was no pain, so sitting around was exponentially more difficult. That Thursday, I had my check up at the plastic surgeon’s office. He removed the tubes, and I went to work the very next day. WOOT!

Never underestimate the power of a woman with an agenda.

Peace.

[milkmanslady]

This #mugshotmonday brought to you by color currant.