We had such a great Memorial Day weekend! Lots of time spent outside in gorgeous weather with friends, food and cold beer :). It doesn't get much better than that, right? I even managed to work in some time to get a mani/pedi, which I desperately needed. While getting said luxuries, I really got to thinking about my life over the past 16 months. This Saturday, June 1, marks my one year anniversary of completing chemo. It's hard to believe it's been a year, but even harder to believe that I could ever feel as good as I do now. I wore a pink bracelet that said, "Fight Like A Girl" which has been my mantra since the beginning of this mess. I took it off after I got my most recent results. Now, my mantra is: Fighting Back Like a Girl because I refuse to be defined by cancer or it's impact on my life.
I was extremely fortunate (and lucky, let's just call a spade, a spade) that I felt so "well" during my chemo and other treatments. I mean, I really pretty much breezed through it with only feeling a bit hungover and tired. Obviously, given a choice, I would have preferred to not have gone through chemo, but it saved my life, so who am I to complain? Why did I have such an "easy" time of it? Who knows, but I know others who have had a terrible time with chemo and side effects. Even my good friend Kate felt completely lousy after each chemo round.
For all that my treatments were bearable and I refused to be sidelined by cancer, I did have some side effects. My hair falling out was an obvious one, but now it's a hot mess of thickness and semi-curls. Styling tips welcome, by the way! My eyelashes are finally coming back in and I can sort of weaar mascara. The first six months after chemo my joints ached something terrible. Glucosomine seems to have helped wipe away the aches and now I feel great. I gained weight on chemo, which was probably the biggest downer for me. Nothing like gaining weight after having a baby... But, I'm happy to say that the chemo weight is gone and I'm down almost another 20lbs. Go me! I'm hoping to continue the downward trend there ;). My toenails turned black after chemo and fell off (talk about gross) but now I'm back to "normal". I am so excited to be able to get pedicures again! My fingernails are still a complete mess, but I'm optimistic one day they'll start growing. I had silk wrap done for the meantime, to help them grow. My nails would split and peel and were so painful due to being so short. So, lots of progress being made!
Looking back to how I felt a year ago, I wasn't sure I would feel all the way human again. My oncologist told me on multiple occasions that it would take me up to a year to get the chemo drugs out of my system. She was speaking the truth! I feel better than I have in years! I swear, I will never take feeling awesome for granted again!!! Every morning I wake up and I'm so thankful to feel good enough to face the day and take on the world.
I did have a small setback yesterday (one step forward, two steps back...isn't that wha Paula Abdul said???). I met with the lymphedema specialist and I do indeed have lymphadema. While I thought it was mainly in my thumb, she determined that it's actually stemming from my shoulder. She did measurements and my right shoulder is measuring 4+cm larger than my right. Of course, I'd like to blame it on my bulging biceps (even I can't lie to myself about that one, stop laughing!!) but alas, no... So, given that I'm travelling to Ireland in 8 days (OMG!!), she's decided to put me in a glove and sleeve for the flight over and back (watch out MJ, you got nothing on my gloved look!). While my vanity is taking a huge hit and I know I'll be getting strange looks on the plane, I'm trying to make the best of it. Maybe no one will sit next to us ;) The therapist will reevaluate me upon our return and we'll go from there. Hopefully the sleeve/ glove will do the trick and I won't need therpay. Therapy involves a full cast for 3 weeks and treatment everyday. Ain't nobody got time for that in this house!!!! Can you imagine me running this circus with a cast on?!?! Go ahead and cry laughing, that's what I did. Oh, my glamorous life :)
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