"pic" & choose, but ya can't have it all.

My hair is growing back! Three weeks ago I was almost bald. I had a rapidly thinning brush-cut that was quickly starting to look more "chemo patient" and less "GI Jane" by the day. No sooner had I resolved myself to the fact that I was going to have to bic my lid, it started to grow again. Prior to cutting/ shaving off my hair, it was long, straight and red... with a great deal of silver on the sides of my head. Although I had no idea just how much silver was there, (thanks to Clairol) until my head was shaved exposing the roots; the sides of my head looked bald due to the lack of hair pigment!

Anyways the hair growing back is already much darker all over my head, and brown. The nurses advise me it will likely fall out again over the final three months of my treatment, and speculate that this crop of hair is due to the last chemo round(s) not happening to take effect during my heads hair growth cycle. Whatever, I’m enjoying it while I got it! And really looking forward to my new hair after chemo as I hear it could come back another colour and curly… “Oh to be curly! Please god after all this I deserve rich curly locks, devoid of grey!”

Four weeks ago I got a pic line put in my left arm – fant-“ass”-tic! Four weeks later, still not impressed. The merits of a pic line are: They save your veins from over use and damage resulting from over use and chemo. They are also a non-surgical procedure, and easier to get that a portacath. I was too chicken shit to get either a pic or port in the beginning and waited until my veins were collapsing, and the burning up and down my arms (from chemo) kept me up at night… and on a steady dose of pain killers before I conceded to sign up. By then the waiting list was too long for a port so I got a pic line within two weeks of requisite. Lesson for ya: Don’t be an ass, listen to your nurses and get a port or a pic when you start this process to avoid the above.

The downside to the pic line is: it’s a bulky tool kit on your arm for everyone to see. The bandages itch all the time. Local bloodwork clinics can not use pic lines, so you still get a needle unless you go to the hospital. It’s a bitch to get comfortable at night if you’re an “arm under head sleeper” and my favorite… it has to be flushed with saline every week. The later is the worst for me because after 4 months of treatment I can now taste the saline when I get my lines flushed (it has to be flushed after every chemo, blood work and cleaning) and it makes me nauseous. In the beginning I couldn’t taste it, nor would it have affected me if I could, but the body is smart! After awhile it learns that everytime we taste this shit bad things happen and we feel sick, so let’s just cut to the chase and feel sick anyways. Patterned responses, hard to control, hard to overcome. So in the end, every chance I get to not use the line, I opt for a needle (collapsed veins = 2-3 try’s) just to avoid a flush… why do I have this pic line again?

Let's Wig Out!

Well I made it this far; I'm halfway through my treatment with great progress, and I feel like celebrating!

These days I'm getting pretty sick being bald and am dying to get out there with some fun new hair, but I don't want to do it alone. (I'm sure you can all relate, because being bald is just like having a bad hair day... except it doesn't go away the next day - imagine everyday all day... ahhh!)

So Id like to propose we pull out our party wigs and go out for cocktails to celebrate... trust me you don't want to dance in a wig - too hot!

Being the types of girls you are... I know you crazy bitches so well... most of you already have wigs in your tickle trunks. For those of you that don't, well it was just a matter of time before someone like you (wild & crazy) ended up with one! lol

Let's get together Friday August 5th at 8pm at The Collection in the Byward Market. I hope you can all make it, I really need a girls night out and miss your company. Please reply asap below and remember to come incognito!

Sobbing with Joy!

A tear started rolling down my cheeks as I walked out of the hospital this afternoon, and by the time I hit the hwy I was sobbing with joy. I had a check up with my hematologist to see how I had progressed halfway through my treatments, and the news was great. After four months of chemo, the mass in my chest is almost gone.

At first I found it odd to be sobbing over the news, since I barely cried when I found out I had cancer. I mean I cried a little (or allot at specific periods) but it was more about upsetting my family, never the cancer. I always accepted the cancer like a moment I knew was coming had finally arrived.

Why does it mean so much to me to know that it’s almost gone? I think I figured it out… I didn’t know I had so much to be afraid of when I began treatments. Ignorance is bliss, and that bliss got me through about the first three months of treatments. Knowledge, experience and fear has started to wear me down over the last month.

Thank god there is nothing to compare just how horrible chemotherapy can make you feel. If I had known… I can’t even finish this sentence; I have no answer for it. I don’t know what would have happened if I had even just a taste of how four months into the future might feel. It’s that knowledge of how awful it does feel that had shaken my resolve over the past month when anticipating future treatments.

Everyone was really enthusiastic about me reaching my halfway point in treatment, but I couldn’t get into it the same way this news has affected me. To them the worst was almost done; to me the worst was still coming. Chemo doesn’t get any easier; it’s cumulative and gets worse everytime! I hate to articulate that to anyone who’s just started. I feel like I’ve told you a bully’s about to kick your ass around the next corner, rather than let you take at least the first half the surprise beating in shock.

Anyways this news has given me back something that I didn’t realize was missing until it popped back in my head tonight, “you can do this, you’re strong”. I run an inner monolog constantly, I mean constantly! (I keep myself up at night because I wont shut up.) I tell myself that I am a strong person all the time! It is a constant phrase in my mind during tough times, because… well cancer isn’t the first pile a shit I’ve dug through. And I just realized it hasn’t been in my inner monolog for the past few weeks, I was really starting to succumb mentally to the physical beating of chemo.

Well I still have to do four more months of treatments, but I start my second half with the same resolve to stay strong that I had when I began my treatments. Now that’s something to sob with joy over!