If has been awhile since I posted. I have been so busy, it is hard to take time off from my to-do list to write. How have I been? Well, I have been getting better each day although I still struggle with my chemo legs. I have a lot of stiffness in my legs, and I still don’t have my strength back. But I am working on it.
What is new is my hair! It is growing very, very slowly but as it is growing out it definitely has chemo curls! The picture above is not me, but it illustrates how chemo curls come in. My hair is not as long as the picture, and I am not brave enough to show my own hair online, but it is similar as it is wavy, unruly and has a serious cow-lick in the back. But… …
I had my second visit with the community health care nurses on Thursday. The nurse that was looking after me carefully took off my dressing and she found an odd looking thing protruding out of my incision. She tried to clean it off thinking it might be a soft piece of tissue, but it was not. It wouldn’t budge, so she called in her supervisor to have a look. The supervising nurse said it was a bleb. …
The chest wall tear that I experienced has continued to cause me trouble. I have suffered with a build up of fluid after the tear and the swelling and the fluid put a lot of pressure on the already stretched skin. Eventually the pressure became too much for the incision to handle and it opened up enough to let the fluid start to drain out. I guess this is a blessing in disguise, although I don’t know what this will do to the incision line once it is all healed again. Tomorrow we are going to visit the community nurses to see if they can give us help with dressings for the draining liquid and to check to make sure that I do not have an infection in the incision. I am extra tired as my body is still going through the healing process, but I am looking forward to getting back to normal in the days and weeks ahead.
I didn’t know it could happen, but I experienced a major tear of all of the skin on my chest that had been stuck to my chest wall. It happened about 4 am Thursday morning. Since my surgery, the skin had been stuck to my chest wall, and it was supposed to eventually release gradually perhaps months down the line. The skin cannot stay attached to the muscle and chest wall for the long haul. When it releases gradually there isn’t as much of a problem, but when my skin tore away, it brought bright red inflammation, swelling and instant pain. …
This post is a long time coming and it is my desire that it will encourage someone who is suffering in silence. It will also help people to see that the strength that has come out in my posts is a true gift of God that has grown in the midst of darkness and betrayal. …
I have meant to create this updated post for a couple of weeks, but I was in the midst of a heavy deadline in getting our latest magazine completed, so everything else was set aside. I praise God that I am gaining strength daily and am able to get into a work schedule again even though it is a modified one. I no longer have a need to nap during the day unless I don’t sleep well at night. If is so wonderful to feel strength coming back. Richard is taking me for walks up the mountain and even though I feel like I am going to die, pressing myself on to complete a goal has been very good for getting some muscle back. I still have nerve damage in my legs, so walking to gain muscle back is very important.
Healing Process
My brain still has a ways to go to get out from the fog leftover from chemotherapy. The lingering fog could last as along as a year, or sometimes longer, but I trust that my short term memory loss and my inability to remember words in conversation will continue to come back. One major change that I have noticed is that I can multi-task again which is something that was pretty much impossible during my six months of treatments. My hair is starting to grow back and I am pleased that I am getting some added warmth back to my head! My hair hasn’t grown very much yet, but it is getting thick as more hairs are coming in daily. I am not totally sure what colour it will be when it is grown out, and for now it is mostly light brown. Where did the red go that is my question! I do know that often hair can change drastically after chemo and the colour, texture or curl can be a big change when it grows back. I am waiting to see what colour it will finally be when I have a few inches of growth back.
My finger nails are growing back quite nicely after they all fell out from the chemo. It might not be too long before I can pick small things up or scratch myself. I never knew how much I would miss my finger nails! The toe nails are another matter. All ten of them also fell out but they are really slow at coming back. I am so thankful that I have no pain as I heard that losing one’s toe nails could be very painful.
The best news
I knew that this whole cancer journey was a roller coaster ride, but the last corner and last loop of this ride surprised and really blessed me. We are going for the cure again! Here is what happened…
It has been some time since I have given an update on my health, and since I just received the pathology report from my surgery, this is a good time to post. …
I had my surgery yesterday, February 11, 2014, and by God’s grace I had no pain! My anesthesiologist offered me a needle on the side of my spine that was designed to block the nerves on my chest and give me pain relief for a minimum of 12 hours. I declined as I didn’t want my spine touched or my nerves affected. I was also offered morphine in the recovery room, but one a scale of 0-10, my pain was only a 2 so I received 3 regular Tylenol and that is all I needed for pain. Since then I have been completely pain free! Praise the Lord for the prayer that has gone up on my behalf. It was a major surgery and to have no pain is amazing. I am feeling tiredness, but that is to be expected.
Today I met with my doctor and received the results of the bone scan that was taken yesterday. There was good and bad news and the doctor didn’t mince words. …
On January 24th my surgeon requested that I get a CT scan. He really did not want to take out my lymph nodes so he thought that if my lymph nodes showed up as the exact same size as they were in the original CT scan last August, he could do the mastectomy and not put me through the nerve pain and possible arm swelling. So I got a CT scan that was otherwise would not have been scheduled. Today I saw my doctor for a follow up and the CT scan could be a game changer. It showed two things. …
