my Breast Cancer blog

2004, age 34 — this is my story

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Raw October — Day 20 (Radiation Round-Up)

Raw October: raising breast cancer awareness — one fact, figure, feeling, and photograph at a time.

Another year, another radiation follow-up appointment. Yesterday’s check-up went well, and my doctor sent me home with a clean bill of health.
She and I didn’t even discuss breast health too much, actually — our discussion was mostly focused on my tummy troubles, which still have not been fully diagnosed (maybe my November 8 colonoscopy will deliver some answers). Our chat was a good one, and I walked away once again thinking that perhaps chemo is to blame for my aches, pains, bloating, tightness, and pressure. My GI specialist suggested this months back, a colorectal doc disagreed, and now, my radiation oncologist says I should not underestimate the power of chemo to do damage. No underestimating here; I truly believe anything strong enough to kill cancer while simultaneously stealing my hair and wiping out my white blood cell count can surely muck up my insides, even 8 years post-cancer. The question is: Is chemo the definite culprit, or is it something else? I’m not sure I’ll ever know. Something tells me I may need to be OK with that.

Radiation Follow-Up Coming Up

Four times a year, I report for some sort of cancer follow-up. Tomorrow, my radiation oncologist weighs in. (I had planned to post a photo of what radiation did to my skin, but I can’t do it. It’s too gross, and it sorta makes me cry.)

Toxic Risk: Cancer and Environmental Toxins

Reader Krista wrote today’s thought-provoking post. She raises the concern that toxic junk surrounds us, and that it might just be causing our cancers. Aware of the recent cell phone/cancer conversation? That’s the sorta stuff Krista is talking about. Read on, and you’ll see. (And thank you, Krista, for sharing your words!)

In many cases, some people believe the bridge between environmental toxins and health issues like cancer to be somewhat overstated. Unfortunately, this could not be more false. In everyday life, there are nearly 100,000 different chemicals being used all over the world. Of that 100,000, only a few hundred have actually been tested for their ability to cause cancer. In just the small amount of testing of those few hundred, there have been numerous ties to cancer-causing chemicals.

The effect of chemicals and toxic materials on cancer cases can also be tied to the high amount of cases in elderly people. As people age, the body’s ability to metabolize and remove chemicals is reduced. These chemicals can stay around in an older body and cause more problems and health risks. Even though awareness should always be high for environmental toxins, the elderly should have an extra eye on the dangers.

In 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel (an advisory group on cancer) called for more research on environmentally related cancer and toxins. They claimed that while there is some evidence of long-term effects, without research, the true burden of environmentally related cancer will be extremely underestimated.

The panel pointed towards some ways to cut down on the risk of these toxins in the near future. This includes filtering tap water and not using plastic plates, as well as eating food without pesticides or fertilizers and processed meat. They claimed that cutting down cell phone use, reducing radiation exposure, and checking home radon levels as other important recommendations to reduce these health risks.

The actual types of cancer are not to be taken lightly, and one of the most vulnerable places can be inside or around the house. Houses have been key spots for exposure to radon, asbestos, and as a result, mesothelioma. Radon can rise up from the ground, while asbestos material is a common fiber found in many older insulation and homes. These risks are not to be disregarded as there is no mesothelioma cure, making asbestos exposure highly dangerous.

Some may come away from these reports and believe that they overstate or scare people about cancer. It’s not intended to do that, but it simply shows the importance of being aware and taking steps to help prevent any of these risks in the future. Emphasis on the panel’s recommendations will not only have a positive effect in cutting down environmental cancer risk, but also in improving health in general.

Feel-Good Finds: Skin Cream / Giveaway

Welcome to Feel-Good Finds, a series of posts featuring items and products that can cheer you up, calm your mind, and soothe your soul. Whether you’re muddling through cancer treatment or just braving the occasional bad day, pick-me-ups are key. Here, I review all things happy and hopeful. (And sometimes when I’m blessed with extra goodies, I’ll even give them away!)

dermagenics.com

If youthful, healthy, wrinkle-free skin makes you feel good, then DERMAGENICS might be the magic bullet for beating your blues.

My mom (she’s my go-to product tester girl) really likes the Collagen Recovery Cream, and she thinks you might, too.

Here’s why:

It’s soft, smooth, and not greasy at all; it has a pleasant fragrance; it feels light on the skin; and it features a slight tingle that is refreshingly nice.

According to the DERMAGENICS website, Collagen Recovery Cream hydrates, improves, and repairs skin texture, health, and appearance. Ingredients are natural and do not include alcohol, formaldehyde, fragrance, dyes, phthalates, alpha hydroxys, or glycolic acid.

Bonus: it effectively heals radiation and chemotherapy damaged skin.

This isn’t the only DERMAGENICS product, though. There is also an option for women seeking an anti-aging potion, and one for men, too!

Maybe you don’t want to jump right into a purchase, but you still want to give DERMAGENCIS a try. Well, that’s what giveaways are for, and two of you can win a 30-day supply just by entering the contest below.

  • Leave a comment and tell us what you’d like to win: the women’s anti-aging moisturizer, the collagen recovery cream, or the men’s anti-aging cream.
  • Leave your comment no later than 5PM ET on Saturday, December 4, 2010.
  • You may enter only once.
  • Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, who are 18 and older.
  • Two winners will be selected in a random drawing via random.org.
  • Two winners will receive one jar of DERMAGENICS cream (value, $85).
  • Winners will be notified by email, so make sure to check next week to find out if you’ve won!

This Room

examroom-400jd092310

This is the room.

Five and a half years ago, I sat in this exam room, after being shuttled over from the hospital room in which I’d been living for five days with chemo complications. The radiation folks deemed it necessary to prep me for my next therapy, which takes a lot of planning and precision, so they borrowed me from the oncology floor, and put me here.

Then they transported me to a special table, where they taught me to recline against several different molded pillow-like things, tattooed me (little dots mark my radiation area), and schooled me on how to breathe with a special tube (to move my heart out of the way of radiation beams).

In this room, back in 2005, I was in a wheelchair, sick, bald, and feeling quite blah.

Today, I sat in this room again. Not sick, not bald, and feeling quite spunky. Today, I walked out of this room thinking about what my doctor had just told me:

“You are just fine.”

Ahhhh. I love this room.

Radiation-Ready

Radiation-ready!

Post-chemo, pre-radiation!

I know this pre-radiation photo is revealing, and I’m sorry if it offends you in any way. I am a pretty modest person overall, really (no bikinis for me!), but I don’t spare any details when it comes to breast cancer. I figure it can only help to be totally open and honest about the realities of a very frightening disease. I mean, if just one woman sees this pic and feels better prepared for her breast cancer journey, then I know baring my breasts was a wise move.

And so here they are, the boobies I saved with a lumpectomy, the boobies I’ll remove if cancer comes back, the boobies that will be evaluated during a follow-up tomorrow by the oncologist who five years ago delivered 30+ doses of external beam radiation to my left side over a six-week timeframe. As a result of this time-consuming and fatigue-causing treatment, I have a bunch of tiny blue tattoos, a possibly-affected heart, a weak rib cage, a fair amount of armpit numbness, and limited range of motion in my arm.

Yea, bummer.

But I also have my life, and so, I will bounce right in to see my doctor in the morning, thankful she scorched and burned me all those years ago, and hoping like mad that she finds nothing suspicious or scary lurking under that skin that was once marked up all pretty by black by red Sharpie pens.

Grateful, Plus the Curse of Cancer Treatment

Photo: LaserGuided, Flickr

Photo: LaserGuided, Flickr

I’m a grateful girl. Really, I am. In fact, I can’t even put into clear and concise words how very thankful I am for the breast cancer treatments that have kept me alive for five years. If I even try to put my thoughts into words, I promise you tears will stream down my cheeks. I’m about to turn 40 on Sunday, and WOW, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to that age, what with birthday No. 34 followed by such fear and uncertainty.

Just so we’re clear: I am so. very. happy. to be alive and writing this. I’m simply amazed by what medicine has done for me.

I’m amazed by what medicine is doing to me, too. Five years later, and it finds a way to make me a little bit miserable. Right now, actually, a lot miserable.

I’m covered in red, itchy, drive-me-crazy bumps on my shoulders, chest, back, and areas around my armpits. It happens every year, and it’s called something like UV Recall. Years after treatment, the sun reacts with my skin and the poisonous drugs, and the remnants of radiation, and sunscreen (I’m not sure about what order this all follows or if it’s one or several of these factors), and my skin pays the ultimate price. You’d think I’d have figured it out after all this time, but I haven’t, because sometimes (like last year at the beach), nothing bad happens. I find a sunscreen for sensitive skin, lather it from head to toe, and I’m just fine, maybe even a tiny bit tan, which is a treat for a fair-skinned gal like me. Other times (like this year at the beach), I find a sunscreen for sensitive skin, and, well, the bumps begin — just a few here and there, then some more, until they’ve climbed all over my body, making me more and more wacky by the day.

“Are you not so happy?” Danny asked me today.

Gosh, how I’m trying to be happy, plodding along through these summer days like everything is fine. But it’s not. I’m itchy and scratchy, showers hurt my skin, clothing bothers it, too, the Florida heat (it’s been like 100 degrees here lately) agitates every inch of me, and well, no, Danny, I am not so happy. (Add head cold to the equation, and you might imagine how poorly I really feel.)

The end is near, I know. The bumps will dry up and slowly disappear, and I will do what I always do — slink into the shadows at the pool, sit under an umbrella at the ocean, hide under the bimini of a boat. It’s no fun to be the mom always seeking shade and avoiding fun in the sun. I guess that’s why, year after year, I keep trying to jump waves, and find sea shells along the seashore, and splash in the pool — because I want to think cancer treatment won’t keep plaguing me. But it does, and it probably always will. And that’s just how it is. The very thing allowing me the pleasure of birthdays is torturing me, too.

OK, I’m getting a grip here. This skin ordeal is short-lived. It will consume about a week of my life (couple more days to go), and then I’ll move on. Maybe I’ll even be free and clear by Sunday, when I blow out 40 candles and celebrate another year of life.

See, I’m grateful. Really, I am.

Note: If you caught this post just as it published, you got a glimpse of what I look like. But the photo I put up at first has been taken down. It’s just too icky, and while it’s definitely educational, I decided to shield you from the yuck. And me, too. Looking at the mess in the mirror is enough. Online is just too much. And so I give you: flowers, pretty flowers.

Surviving Cancer — and Its Side Effects

Oncology: a branch of medicine that deals with tumors (cancer).

Oncology: a branch of medicine that deals with tumors (cancer).

I went for another cancer check-up this morning, the first since my 5-year cancerversary. Mostly, everything is A-OK — so well, in fact, that I now get to see my favorite doctor once a year instead of every six months.

But with the happy hooplah of surviving cancer for a good amount of time comes the fact that I need to start thinking about surviving the side effects of cancer for a good amount of time. There are certain issues that come with life after cancer. For me, it’s mostly heart stuff.

Three things that might affect my heart: the chemo drug Adriamycin (I had four doses), radiation (it was delivered right on top of my heart) and Herceptin (the wonder drug I received for one year). All three of these life-savers can compromise heart function over time. “You should be so lucky to get heart disease in 20 years,” someone once told me, “because it means you will have survived cancer for 20 years.” Yea, that doesn’t make me feel so relieved. In fact, it’s apparently cause for a consultation.

Someone is going to contact me soon to discuss survivorship issues, says my doc, and this person will notify my primary physician of potential concerns, too, so he can monitor me appropriately. I’m not overly concerned about this, really. I’m basically just thankful to be alive, with a heart that today is very strong. For now, that’s just enough.

Jeans Cream Soothes Radiation Skin: Giveaway

jeanscream.com

jeanscream.com

My skin did pretty well during radiation. For weeks, nothing at all happened, and then at the very end of my 30+ days of treatment, a mild burn showed up. No blistering, though, or peeling, or anything else that made me horribly uncomfortable.

You (or those you know who are getting zapped) might not fare so well. Lucky you (actually two of you!), because right here, right now, you can enter to win a free tube of Jeans Cream. It’s a natural and revolutionary product that soothes and protects skin with high-potency vitamins and botanical extracts. And it’s not made by just anyone — creator and founder Jean is a two-time breast cancer survivor, and so she knows first-hand that this stuff really works.

Jeans Cream is good for more than just radiation-affected skin, it can effectively treat eczema, sunburn, diabetes-related skin issues, contact dermatitis, wound care, and you can even use it for daily moisturizing.

What are you waiting for? Leave a comment, and you just might score this valuable gift!

  • Leave a comment and share why you need this cream!
  • Leave your comment no later than 5PM ET on Wednesday, February 10, 2010.
  • You may enter only once.
  • Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, who are 18 and older.
  • One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
  • Two winners will receive one 7-ounce tube each of Jeans Cream (valued at $45 per tube).
  • Winners will be notified by email, so make sure to check next week to find out if you’ve won!

Flashback: December 24, 2004

Side effect of radiation: limited range of motion in my left arm

Side effect of cancer treatment: limited range of motion in my left arm

I do have my breast. And I have a fairly good prognosis. My lump was removed and measured 1.1 cm, which is small. My lymph nodes were negative for cancer, although four were removed for biopsy purposes. My margins were clear, and there was no apparent spread of cancer. My cancer is considered stage 1. And that is good. I have two incisions, one in my armpit where lymph nodes were taken and one underneath it, on the side of my breast. They are both about 3.5 inches long. Besides a bad skin reaction to the tape I was bandaged with, everything went well. There are minor inconveniences right now. As my incisions heal and my skin tightens, it’s harder to lift my arm. So I have exercises I must do each day. Because of the missing lymph nodes, I may have trouble with swelling in my arm so I have to watch for that. I have not been able to shave my armpit since my surgery on December 3.

And now I await the next step in this battle. I will begin receiving chemotherapy in mid-January. This will last for three months. I will go for treatment four times, once every three weeks and will have a combination of drugs sent through my body via IV. The purpose of chemo is to kill rapidly growing cells, and cancer cells are rapidly growing. Unfortunately, all rapidly growing cells are killed, like hair cells and bone marrow cells. The chemo should kill any cancer cells that floated away from my breast, if any did. I don’t know how I will react to this process, as each person responds differently. At the very least, I hear I will be tired at times during each three-week time frame. I may also be tired from the radiation. This will begin three weeks after chemo ends.
NOTE: It didn’t happen exactly like that: Instead of receiving chemo every three weeks, I had it every two weeks — it’s called dose-dense chemo, and if the patient can tolerate it, it’s thought to be more effective. Did I tolerate it? Well, I survived, but I was hospitalized twice because it was so hard on my body.

I will receive radiation every day for 6 weeks. The purpose of radiation is to zap the actual area where the cancer was found to prevent it from recurring. Many women take a drug after chemo and radiation to prevent recurrences. The drug (usually tamoxifen) is taken for five years. My body will not respond to this type of drug due to negative estrogen receptors (if they are positive, the drug can be taken) so chemo and radiation will be my only two real treatments.
NOTE: Radiation went just fine. It was a breeze compared to chemo, and my skin didn’t burn too badly. The biggest hassle was the drive to and from the appointments. And while it’s not such a big deal, my left arm has limited range of motion due to the combo of surgery, scar tissue and radiation. See photo above — my right arm touches the ground, but my left arm won’t.

For now, I am trying to keep life simple. Joey and Danny help me do that. Joey knows I am frequently going to the doctor for a “boo-boo” I had in my “booby” and he has been very attentive. One day after a doctor appointment, he said, “Mommy, you need to go home and rest. I’ll bring you a banana.” He is almost four years old. Danny, at 19 months, does not seem to know anything is going on and it’s my hope that he never has any recollection of this path our lives are taking. I will never forget it, though, and that’s OK. I will take this experience and make it matter. A friend sent me a breast cancer bracelet inscribed with trust your journey. I do. I trust that I will be fine in the end. And I trust that I was given this fight so I can help others. That is why I have written this. I hope everyone who reads about my journey is affected in some way. Perhaps it will increase the amount of women who do self-exams. Maybe it will arm others with information to help loved ones who are affected by this common disease (about 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer at some time in their lives). Maybe it will spread hope. At the very least, writing helps me. And for now, that is enough.
NOTE: Writing still helps, five years later.

Flashback: November 24, 2004

 alanclarkdesign, Flickr

alanclarkdesign, Flickr

My phone rang at 10:00 a.m., and the doctor who did the biopsy said the pathology report was back already. He said that unfortunately, cancer cells were found. He said I would need a lumpectomy (surgery to remove the lump), radiation, and possibly chemotherapy. He told me to buy a book called Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. I got the book that day.

Somehow, I made it though the Thanksgiving weekend, with my thoughts jumping from the hope that this would turn out OK to the fear that I would not see my boys grow up. My mind wandered and worried about surgery and what treatments I would have. I wondered if I could have more kids and whether or not I would lose my hair. I cried and lost sleep and was hopeful, too.

I learned a lot from reading my new book. I learned that many women do go on to have kids after cancer, but I also learned that chemotherapy in young women could cause early menopause. I learned that I have an 85 percent survival rate, and also that I will get tiny little tattoos surrounding my breast to aid in the proper delivery of radiation. These permanent tattoos will also alert any future doctors that my breast has had radiation because I can never have it again in that same area. The book helped me feel positive about this journey, but it also helped me face reality.

Note: My survival rate turned out to be more like 93 percent for five years. And here I am — at five years.