HAIR

I am SOOOO EXCITED!!!! Today I found a few short eyelashes growing and tiny dark dots (hair follicles) -- and can feel miniscule beginnings of eyebrows. I felt compelled to look up the lyrics to the "Hair" song in the same-named musical - Here's an excerpt - I found especially amusing the lines with "Give a home to the fleas in my hair" and the last verse ending with "Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!" Who knew I would be so happy about having hair!!!!?????? : )


Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my...

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

C'est fini

It's the time of the day when I usually have to leave for radiation, and I'M SOOOO HAPPY I DON'T HAVE TO GO TODAY BECAUSE I'M DONE!!!!!!! What a relief!!! I started working half days today, but that's OK, because working sure beats cancer treatment any day of the week. I'll have to remember that when I'm back at work and perhaps (probably?) not having a lot of "fun".

I'm trying to get used to getting up earlier, and Li'l Kitty helped in that department by deciding to be a pain just before 6 a.m. I also woke up at 6 am yesterday (Sunday) for no apparent reason...so I'm feeling the lack of sleep, but I guess I'm getting back to a work schedule "cold turkey" - no easing into it for me : )

I am so very grateful for the love and encouragement of my family and friends which has gotten me through these difficult months. I hope and pray for better health and to get back some physical strength in the days to come! Hooray for endings, and Yahoo for beginnings!!!

Feels like retirement

So far, my activities (or lack of them) today must be what I imagine it feels like to be retired, or like what a wealthy non-working person might do! I slept late and had a cup of tea on the deck. Afterwards, I registered for the Fun Pass for the upcoming cruise and checked out the shore excursions.

Then I went for walk on the Meadowmont walking trails - The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and people were walking their dogs -- an absolutely gorgeous day full of Carolina blue skies. It's so warm today that it feels like summer already, and I had to be careful to cover up the radiation burns on my right side. Then I put my feet up and and read the paper while sitting outside eating a spinach and shrimp salad at La Russa's. Boy, I sure could get used to days like this!!!

I'll be gradually easing back into working after the 14th, but I'm savoring the last few days of "freedom" - of not having to sit at a computer inside in a cubicle all day long. Ugh, I don't even want to think about it! So I won't until I have to! : )

Extra crispy!...and "Roseanne Roseannadanna"

Yesterday as I was being "radiated", I started giggling. From out of nowhere, the words, "extra-crispy" entered my mind. Probably because on the right side of my chest, I have lots of really dark freckles and I'm about five shades more tanned and burned than the left side of my chest. I'm also sore and itchy, and so I slather on pure aloe gel, hydrocortisone cream and Eucerin cream at night and in the morning. I'm not supposed to put on any kind of cream or lotion or deoderant within 4 hours of radiation because they will act like oil on the skin which then gets "cooked". Lovely. Actually, it really doesn't bother me much...it's just kind of different.

For the last 8 days I get something called a "Boost" (no, that's not the drink that you might have with your extra crispy dark meat Kentucky fried chicken...hmmm, why am I relating things to food??? ; ) What that means is that only a smaller area around the lumpectomy incision gets the radiation, for super-duper killing power for any cancer cells that might be lurking around the original site of the cancer. Hopefully there are none, but if there are, they get super-zapped.

I finished reading a couple of books this week. One was, "The Idiot's Guide to Breast Cancer" and the other was Gilda Radner's autobiography, "It's Always Something". Gilda died in 1989 within a couple of years of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The critiques that were written on the outside and inside covers of this book said it was filled with her humor and spirit. There was some humor and joy in her story, but for the most part, it struck me as a pretty darn SAD story of someone who went through a lot of hellish experiences and recurrences and then died too young. Of course, cancer treatment back then was not nearly as sophisticated as it is now.

I'm not sure how I would react if I were told in the next few years that my cancer had recurred. Right now I would say that there's no way in hell I'd go through chemo again, but one never really knows until faced with something what you'd actually do. The will to live is really strong, but that also has to be weighed against the quality of life.

I'm trying to put these morbid thoughts out of my mind, and apparently it is very normal to think these kinds of thoughts when your treatment is completing or completed. Even if your prognosis is good, you still can't go merrily along your way pretending that everything is ginger-peachy and nothing has happened, because with cancer things are still not that definitive. But you have to put it out of your mind as much as possible so you can live for today. I'm told that these fears ease as the years go by, as you go to checkups and find, hopefully, that you are cancer free.

When this all started, I told myself I would not let this disease define me, and I still don't plan on that happening. I'm going to do my best to recover and get on with my life, thankful for every day that I have. I'm going to live the rest of my life as fully as possible, regardless of how long it is.

Get Real & Heel

No, "Heel" in the title is not supposed to be spelled "Heal". It's a cutesy title for a program/research trial at UNC for breast cancer patients that I'm probably going to join. "REAL" is an acronym for "Recreation", "Exercise" "Active" and "Living", and of course "HEEL" is relating to the UNC Tarheels. I'm really excited about this because I've been wanting to get back in shape, but seem to either overdo or "under-do" (is that a word??? : ) when it comes to exercise. So it will be great to have a supervised, consistent program (3 days/wk) to which I am committed. Otherwise, I think my efforts to get in shape will be sporadic and maybe not as effective (I usually can get in shape aerobically, but don't do any or enough strength training).

The other part I really like is that there is also a Recreation component to the program which includes biofeedback, creative arts and expressive dance. It sounds perfect, and I thought it was neat that I found out about it at just the right time. I know that I needed some kind of focus because the other day I got really anxious and upset and had a couple of crying spells that day, possibly out of proportion to what was happening (although the stress of having cancer and a very sick cat may well be reason enough to cry). However, this also happened right after a gloomy weekend where I had been inactive (and had the lovely job of trying to pill and feed a sick cat and seeing her vomit repeatedly, which is what kept happening prior to our other cat's death). I've decided that a guaranteed recipe for me to get anxious or depressed is 1)lack of sunshine, 2)lack of activity/exercise and 3)added stress...a trio I definitely need to be aware of and to avoid. I can't prevent gloomy days and stress, but I can certainly do something about activity and exercise - even when I don't feel like it.