I've never met anyone like you!

So, on wednesday I had to go to the psych ward (!) to get some medicine changed before I start taking my tamoxifen in August.  First was an appointment with a therapist, then an appointment with a doctor.  I had to fill out all kinds of paperwork asking me all kinds of questions ranging from head injuries to alcohol abuse.  The therapist called my name and we walked to her office. We talked for a minute and then she asked about my diagnosis. Of course, I launch into the whole story.  After, she looked at me and said, "I have never met anyone like you who has been your age with breast cancer and who had such a positive attitude, and laughed as much as you! That is remarkable."  Well, duh!  :-) 

Wham bam, thank you ma'am!

These are pics from right after my last shot tonight, july 13th!!! What exactly does that mean, you ask?  It means that I am 100% through with chemo! I did a happy dance after my last shot! Then we opened some champagne! Yipee!!!!!

The first pic is me pointing at my last band-aid covering my shot puncture wound!  The other two are celebratory pics!!!

I am a survivor...

I am not 100% sure when I can consider myself a breast cancer survivor, but for right now, I am a chemo survivor!!!! Woot, woot!

I had my final chemo treatment last Thursday, the day after 4th of July! I have thought a lot about how I feel about the end of this chapter of my journey. Obviously, it is great to be done with chemo. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, even my worst enemy. It sucked. Not much more I can say about it than that. But, it is also weird that it is all over.

My journey began just over six months ago and all I can say is, where has the time gone. It is hard to believe that in the past 6 months I have had the pleasure of enduring the following:

20 shots
18 doctors visits
14 pokes to find a vein for IV's
7 blood draws
4 chemo treatments
4 tissue expander fill-ups
3 ultrasounds
2 mammograms
1 MRI
1 Biopsy
1 surgery

 And a partridge in a pear tree.... :0) And chemo brain that makes me wonder how I even remember my own name! All kidding aside, its been a long journey so far. With chemo finished, I now move on to the next chapter in this journey - hormone therapy. Since my cancer was estrogen positive, I have to cut off all estrogen in my body. For the next five years, I will receive a monthly shot to suppress my ovaries and a daily dose of tamoxifen. My oncologist thinks this is the best route to go even though there aren't many studies regarding this treatment, or any other treatment, in women under the age of 35. Why, you ask?  Because people like me are few and far between. Breast cancer in my age group isn't common so the studies on treatment options just aren't out there...yet. Tamoxifen is the standard treatment in women who haven't reached menopause.  Adding the shot to the tamoxifen is to make sure my ovaries shut down and don't produce estrogen.   From what I hear, the shot and tamoxifen will put me into menopause.  Awesome.  I am sure I will have many blog posts on how awesome this is going to be! 

On a more positive note, in August, I will start my weekly trip to the plastic surgeon for tissue expander fill ups!  Hello boobies!!!!

Beyond words...

This past Friday my Aunt Jan (she is married to my dad's brother) sent me the email below. She has found a very inspiring way to join me in my journey. I am continually amazed at the outpouring of love and support from my friends and family, but I have to say, what my Aunt Jan has done is beyond words! I wanted to share with you her words of joy, sorrow, and encouragement because she has gone through the exact emotions I have in losing my hair and puts it into words much better I can. She is a beautiful person inside and out. And I have to say, she rocks the short hair! Enjoy!

 

 

Dear Sweet Melissa, I must tell you I have felt totally and miserably helpless and useless in your cancer treatment.  I am halfway across the country, I work 10 hrs a day, I can barely check my email at home every few days and seldom write anyone.  I read your blog and feel so many emotions about you and for you (and I always think you are entitled to have pity parties).  I try to imagine what it must be like to have such an assault upon one's body and womanhood.  I am an empathic person by nature I think, and I had childhood surgeries on my face that left me feeling mutilated and like I was gradually being cut away.  In that sense I kind of "get it", but really no one can truly know what it feels like to have breasts cut off, to suffer from chemo injected into one's body, and to face so many losses of significant proportion unless they have been there. 

 

 I have wanted very much to relate to your experience in some real way.  I wracked my brain, and the only thing I could come up with was "hair".  I know it was very hard for you to lose your hair, and I think you were so brave and fierce to take the razor to it before it fell out and to make something good of it for breast cancer charity.  As you may or may not know, I thought you have never looked more beautiful than in the picture you sent of yourself with buzzed hair and no makeup.  You looked pure and clean and like a woman warrior.  I then thought to myself I think she looks beautiful but how would I feel with very little hair?  That is when I started my experiment.  My hair was about chin length, roughly all one length.  I started going every few weeks to get it cut shorter each time to see if I would feel beautiful or if I would feel somehow less womanly, less attractive, more vulnerable.  What an interesting experiment it has turned out to be!  I found I have had all kinds of feelings, most of them uncomfortable, some of them freeing.  Each time I got it shorter, there was this pattern I'd go through of first feeling almost panicked, like I hate this, it's ugly, what will Tom think, what will my friends and co-workers think; I'd run home and wash it again and work with it trying to get it to look good; I'd finally give up, go to bed, arrive at work self-conscious the next day, and mainly deal with people looking but saying nothing, which to me, of course, meant they hated it.  I was amazed that I could feel so insecure at the age of 63.  Then I'd gradually get used to it, think about it less, and begin to accept it.  I did notice though that I was much more aware of trying to be feminine in other ways, like wearing more jewelry, buying ruffled shirts, etc.  The same sequence has happened with each haircut, although I have increasingly felt less tied to my looks and to hair in general.  It is freeing, because it is so easy to style and feels very light in the wind. I'm also getting a little more confident, like screw 'em if they don't like it.  I am sending you pictures from my last haircut which I had this afternoon after work.  My hair is now about 1 and a half to 2 inches long all over my head.  I'd like to say I feel pixie-ish and cute like an old Michelle Williams but the feeling is more Jamie Lee Curtis.  I have had some of that same initial thing tonight of it's ugly, I'm ugly, etc. but I am also beginning to feel a little like I saw you in your picture, stripped clean, nothing to hide, just who I am at the age I am, without flourish.  I will probably not go shorter, as the next level would be a buzz, and I'm not sure I could promise to hold it at that length until you catch up.  If nothing else, in addition to my own struggle, my patients might struggle.  They have already been saying what are you doing to your hair, have you done something ELSE to your hair?!  At any rate, here I am in these pictures with no make-up and less hair than I 've ever had.  You get to see it from towel to wet to "styled".   I haven't had your journey with losing hair, but I've had a journey with losing hair and have experienced all kinds of strange discomfort and weird emotions that I couldn't have predicted, so I think I "get it" a little better now.  I do know that even if someone says to me "I really like your hair" as only one person has done, I feel happy but somehow uncomforted and still left with the court of my own opinion, and that decision is mixed.  Here I will stay, working at redefining a sense of my beauty or lack of until your hair is as long as mine.  This probably means that after chemo, and after hair begins to sprout, it will take you about 3-4 mos to match me.  I am waiting on you, girl. I love you, and you are amazing.  Aunt Jan

My beautiful Aunt Jan sharing in my short hair journey!