3 chemo treatments down!

Well, the chemo is catching up with me I think. After my last chemo session I felt like I had just run a marathon. I am really tired all the time. Spending half an hour on my computer is exhausting. Medical bills are rolling in. My cat has a urinary infection. It won't stop raining. So, I just haven't been able to summon the energy to post.

Two weekends ago, my mom, who has been staying with us, took a little trip to visit to grandparents in Abilene, so Luis and I went out on a date night to see the movie Coraline. Since the weather was warm, I decided to go bald! It was fun, I put on makeup (which I never do) to accent my eyes. I wanted to dress casual and subdued, but for some reason all dark tee-shirts make my look like a Neo-Nazi, so I got girled up in a nice blouse.

People stared. Especially the 13-year-old mall rat group. However, a lot of people, particularly older women, smiled, because I think that as you get older more people identify with the disease.

We then went to PF Chang's for lettuce wraps and Asian fusion food. It was delicious, and it was wonderful going to eat in a restaurant like a normal person with my husband. I almost forgot I had cancer!
So I met with a plastic surgeon yesterday to decide what kind of reconstruction options I have. Because of the extent of my cancer, I will have to have radiation to my chest wall (post-mastectomy) and likely to my neck. This means that I cannot have an implant. Since radiation changes your skin so much, implants heal horribly, and sometimes the skin pulls the breast so that it is facing the wrong way, like under your armpit. And plastic surgeons don't want to touch you for any other kinds of reconstruction options until at least a year after radiation and your skin settles.

There are some other options for me that don't include implants, like taking the skin and fat from your back and stomach and creating a breast from that. Unfortunately, I have lost too much weight for that now, but perhaps I can pork out on pizza and milkshakes for a year and they can use that fat and then give me a tummy tuck at the same time!

My main choice right now is whether or not to put in an expander, which is slipped under the muscle and inflated with fluid through a tube to create a "breast mound." If I were to have implants, this would be replaced by an implant later. However, there can be a lot of complications due to expanders, especially with a compromised immune system like a chemo patient, where I can get infections etc.

So if I don't put in the expander, I have to be completely flat on that side for at least a year and a half, maybe more.

Which initially seems okay, but psychologically it will be difficult. Bathing suits won't ever fit for a year and a half. And I will always have to wear a bra so I can have a falsie in it, which I hate. I love those tank top bra things, and stopped wearing bras as much as possible these last couple years, so that is a bigger lifestyle change than you would expect. Or I will just have to get used to more people staring at my tits trying to figure out why I only have one boob.

But I think that is what I am going to do. No expander, and just deal with the reconstruction later.

Okay, so in the noncancer part of my life (there doens't seem to be much of that anymore), did anyone see the Jon Stewart's Smackdown of Jim Cramer/CNBC last night? It was wonderful.

My mom and I have been looking into DCA as a cancer treatment. Here is some info those who don't know anything about it

A cure for cancer found, but it won't make enough money, so I'll never see it.
Please don't let Glen Beck turn you off, for once he is talking about something important.