Hair Progression

I have tons rattling around in my head that I need to post.  My mind is blown by the fact that I was diagnosed with cancer this month a year ago.  It's hard to believe and it's been a little difficult to comprehend all I've been through.  I'll save these thoughts for some big mega post in a week or two.  In the meantime, I'll show you what I do when I'm on conference calls that won't end!  I photograph my hair!





In early June I thought it would NEVER grow.

A few weeks showed quite a bit of growth!

At this point I was only wearing the wig about half the time.  It was July and HOT.

Here I felt like the little squirrely best friend from Fright Night.  Seriously bad hair in August.

Getting better in September, but still not enough to really style.

November - It has more curl than it did before!  I wish the front were as nice as the back.

November - Sad sad bangs...

Gratitude

Four months ago I was barely breathing.

The cancer had literally shoved my trachea out of the way. This picture shows my initial PET scan. Sorry for the clarity, this photo was taken of the Doctor’s computer screen with my cell phone. The picture is as if you are looking from the top of my head down into my body. Right in the center is my neck. The part glowing bright yellow in the middle is the cancer. The little black dot in the left of all the bright yellow is my trachea. It was supposed to be in the middle.

I am so lucky that I couldn’t breathe. So often, cancer quietly spreads with no symptoms – making it hard to discover. Way too often it’s too late. My cancer was sort of like me – it wanted to be the center of attention. It was shouting “Here I am! Here I am! I’m going to take your breathe away!” Thank you cancer, for being such a show off.

Today, I take deep breathes often. Some are sighs of relief that I am approaching my last chemotherapy session. Some of the deep breaths are just sighs of frustration that this takes so long. But mostly, I take deep breathes because I can and I’m grateful for it.

Today is a good day. Robbie and I have been married for 15 years today. Without chemotherapy, we may not have made it to this day. So thank you for this Anniversary, chemotherapy. Today I also meet with the oncologist. We will make plans for the future. Today we will talk post-chemo scans and tests. And then begins the waiting for results. Those results determine what my next few months will look like. And the waiting will suck. But as they say, good things come to those who wait.

For so long I was just trying to get through the day. Thinking too far ahead was terrifying. And I finally got to the point where I was trying to get through each chemo cycle. And after I reached about the halfway point I was focused on getting to the end of chemotherapy. Thank you, chemotherapy, for being a good distraction from the big picture. You really know how to be all-consuming. You can go now though, I’m ready to look up from the rabbit hole.

No More Tears

Oh how I am happy when my prednisone days end. Today was the dreaded day five. And for once, and this is a first, I did not weep! I am not sure if it was something I did that kept it at bay, or if I was just lucky.

One approach I took today was to not be amazing. I was a chemotherapy patient today. I went to bed at 8 PM last night and didn’t rise until 8 AM. This morning when I did get up, I was very lazy about it. I did not get a shower and get into “work from home” mode. I stayed in my PJs, drank a cup of coffee, and ate some cereal. For those keeping track of my cereal obsession – this go-around it is whole grain cheerios.

I did have a few “must do” items on my calendar, and I did those. But that was it. I didn’t frustrate myself by trying to do a lot. Part of my issue with the prednisone is that I have no concentration whatsoever. And then I get frustrated at myself for feeling like an idiot, which brings on the weeping and starts the “crazy” cycle.

Because I wasn’t so “crazy” the dogs weren’t all amped up. They slept most of the day. Of course that could be of course because they spent lots of time with their “Grandma” this weekend and were just exhausted. Maybe my Mom being here was good for us all. Maybe I was just tired enough today to not get the prednisone lunacy.

Hopefully I can keep the good mojo going through the rest of the day.

Tired.

Round number four of chemotherapy hasn’t been too bad after those first few days. In fact, I’ve been feeling pretty good this week. But I am currently so tired that I want to just fall over. The only reason I am still up this evening is that we just arrived home and the dogs need “unwind” time before we go to bed.

I’ve been working full days this week. It’s actually been a good week at work. In fact, I haven’t felt this good about a week of work since early fall before the diagnosis. In addition to work this week, I’ve had things to do each evening. But one more day and the weekend is here. And I will sleep like Rip Van Winkle.

On Tuesday night of this week we went by the Hickory Wine Shoppe. Downtown businesses in Hickory have been donating 10% of a day’s proceeds to a charity of their choice. The wine shop selected the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. It warmed my heart that they chose that as their charity. We had to go by to support them. Plus I needed to show Alan the new wig – he gave it two thumbs up!

Tonight was a wonderful evening. We were interviewing a candidate for a position at work and we went out for dinner after the interview. The food was amazing as was the company. Once I got in the car to come home, I immediately pulled off the wig. After 14 hours of having it on, I needed to get it off! My head needed to breathe desperately. Thank goodness it was dark.

Tomorrow morning I have to go in for my weekly blood work and then have a day filled with conference calls and meetings. This week’s shout-out goes to my co-worker Holly who has taken on a massive amount of work and work-related travel to make sure things at work are getting covered. I am glad she has a vacation coming up soon – she totally deserves some R&R.

I cannot say this with enough emphasis: TGIF (almost!)