My Beautiful Landri

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Having gone through cancer treatments this year for triple negative breast cancer makes me see life differently.  

I know how precious my family is...especially my two beautiful amazing daughters.  

This is Landri, my athlete, my first born.  She is one of the people I am most proud to know in this world. I love her and I will miss her when she goes off to college this next year.  She has done so much for me this year.  I wish I could hold her forever and never let her go.  I love you angel!

Moving On, The Pain and The Tears

It has been a while since I have posted.  I finished my last radiation on the 8th of November.  I am slowly getting some energy back although I hesitate to say that.  I am getting the desire to do things and go places.  I have been to the mall several times trying to do some advanced Christmas shopping on a tight budget.  But I am mainly wanting to just get out and walk around.  I have never been able to do any Christmas shopping until literally the week of Christmas due to owning my own business for the past several years...the season was just too busy to get anything done but work and "make hay while the sun was shining".  Now I am trying to do a little at a time, and get it done early...this will be a first for me.  Usually my kids are asking me the week before Christmas..."Mom, are we going to have any presents under the tree anytime soon?"  


What I am finding out about my health situation is I am dealing with pain on a regular basis, everyday.  I get out and go and shortly have to take pain meds to get through anything I am doing.  My bones hurt still as a side effect from the Taxol.  This pain in staying with me and it is very consistent.  It has been four months since that drug was infused into my body.  What I have noticed is that it has gotten much worse, not better.  Nothing can touch the kind of pain I experienced during those 8 weeks of getting the Taxol.  However, the residual pain is real.  It seemed to worsen during my radiation treatments and now has increased to a new level all together.  It is here everyday and now comes on at all hours of the day from early morning to late evening my bones hurt.  I could be sitting or standing doing nothing and I might have pain shooting through my fingers, my forearms, my shins, my feet, my knees, my wrists, all at the same time.  I have noticed that the colder weather is making it worse.  Before I ever was diagnosed with cancer, I dealt with swollen joints, a swollen left ankle, and weather related pain.  I thought that if I would have gone to a doctor about it, I would probably be told I had some form of arthritis. Since my treatments, I feel somewhat crippled unless I am on the pain medication.  As soon as it wears off, I am in pain again.   I don't know whether it will ever go away.  Sometimes I think things are fine and then BAM!!!...it hits me so suddenly and so strong that I have somewhat of a panic/anxiety attack and start to cry.  It sometimes catches me by surprise when I think I am doing OK.  I think sometimes the emotional pain is just as bad as the physical.  This has happened at work a couple of times and it is a cruel reminder that things may never be the same.  I will find myself mixing color about to service a client and I am crying like a baby in the back room.  This is when I feel like I have been robbed.  Robbed of my occupation, my income, my livelihood, and all I have worked hard to achieve the past 18 years of doing hair and building such a strong client base.  Right now I am going in on Fridays and Saturdays.  I work about six hours each day.  The pain from working is real and great.  It is physically very taxing.  I have less than 50% of my client base left.  Not working for about 7 months makes this happening inevitable.  My client base was made up of about 85% color clients, many who drove 45 min or more to see me.  They are professionals who always look top notch.  They have had to find stylists to replace me and prefer to try someone closer to home if they are going to make a change. After January, I will begin my reconstruction surgeries, 3 total.  By law, there is a 90-day waiting period between each one.  My hope is to have some good enough times between each surgery to service the clients I have left.  I know I will lose more, it is inevitable. I find it sad, but I know that my physical body will limit the amount I can do anyway.  I know it is probably for the best.  In the back of my mind, I keep thinking that I need to think about other occupations.  I just don't know how to do that when working so little right now hurts so bad.  I know that God is in control of this situation and he knows the plans he has for me.  I don't want to sound complaining or miserable, because I have so much to be thankful for everyday.  I do want people who are going through this to know what is happening to me, realizing that every case is different.


There is a dear girl who I met during chemo.  Her name is Kim. She often sat next to me and was always there with her fiancee.  She too, was being treated for triple negative breast cancer.  She was about a month ahead of me in her treatments.  I saw her at the cancer center a few weeks back.  Her hair had grown out about an inch and she looked great.  She was there delivering some Scentsy candles that some ladies had ordered.  We spoke, said hello, and parted.  A couple of weeks back on facebook I noticed that her profile picture was a picture of a Texas Christian University purple Scentsy.  Since I am an alumni, class of 1990, I asked her about the candle.  She had some bad news that her cancer was back and had spread.  She always has a great attitude and told me not to worry.  She was concerned about telling me and explained that just because hers was back, did not mean that I would not be OK.   She sweetly consoled me and told me I would be fine despite her new diagnosis.  Please pray for her.  She is staying busy managing apartments I believe.  She has the best attitude always!!!!

Speaking of attitudes....mine is one of hope and faith.  I am battling hormones, medication side effects, pain, and depression.  I have not exactly counted, but I am certain that I have cried everyday for at least a month.  Sometimes they are happy tears, and sometimes they are from fear, sometimes from pain, sometimes from sorrow, some are from disbelief that this is actually happening, some tears flow from the onset of the pain meds.  For many different reasons I cry everyday.  Some nights as I am laying in bed playing games on my iPhone, tears just start streaming....don't know why.  I just know that Kevin is asleep beside me and the kids are all tucked in bed...but I cry and have no apparent reason.  Sometimes its multiple times a day.  I don't what to do about it.  I am sure my family is perplexed and weary from it all.  I wish I could control it.  Overall, I think it is from having this huge life change/challenge.  You suddenly feel like your clock is ticking and you need to start living life hard.  Then you are faced with the reality that your body isn't the same...it is not ready.  It is older and frail and broken.  So how do you go on grabbing the life out of everyday, dragging your body behind you, aches and pains and all.  Sometimes its overbearing....then the tears flow.  Someone told me that it is OK to cry and it is good for the soul, and it is a natural response and should not be inhibited.  It is the source and the reason for the tears that we should work on improving in our lives.  I think that I can live with that.  It sounds much better than "I am just falling apart".  So I will go with that.  It's OK, it is the body's natural response.  I love you people, whoever you are who keep me going with all your feedback and comments.  Each and every one of them mean so much to me.  I feel like I have a team that is standing behind me, supporting me, uplifting and encouraging me.  Until next time my friends...

Burn Baby Burn!

I know I have not written in a long time.  I have been battling and fighting the fatigue that comes with radiation treatments.  I go four days a week, run an errand or two afterwards, then go home and fall into the deepest sleep you could ever imagine.  I am very burned...so much so, that the doctor gave me a week off due to the extent of my burns.  The fatigue is immediate.  It literally feels like you lay on the table, get radiation while your blood is being drained.  I find myself having close calls while driving myself home.  I can barely stay awake, and there is this sense of hotness that comes with it.  The smell of burnt flesh stays with you all the time...going in and out of you with every breath.  I really thought this would be a lot easier than it has been.  It is still not as bad as chemo, but it is not easy.  The fatigue is always there everyday.  My eyes feel so dry and crisp.  It is like everything inside your body is hard and leathery, dry as a bone.  I have debated on whether to post the picture of myself showing my burns at #15.  There is no breast to see, nothing of any sexual nature.  So I think that I will because people don't realize exactly what radiation will do to your body.  I know that people facing radiation want to know what lies ahead for them.  I will say that not everyone reacts the same way.  A client of mine told me she had 38 radiation treatments to the breast and had no problems and did not get burned.  She saw the pictures of my burns and said that she experienced nothing like that at all.  So I don't want my situation to scare anyone.  Actually the burned part of my chest really hurts very little.  You must remember I have very few nerve endings left in that area.  The burn is nothing in comparison to the fatigue that I am experiencing.  I only have about six treatments left, and I just keep thinking that every cancer cell is being fried and killed....every last one.  I have had a really tough couple of days fighting depression.  I think the fatigue causes me to be depressed.  I have so much to be thankful for everyday.  I will write again soon and post more pictures as the burn heals.  I hope this is not offensive to anyone.  That is not my intention.  I hope instead that it may help someone else, a caretaker, a survivor, or anyone else who has to deal with the side effects of radiation.  Leave me your comments.  Until next time my friends...

The Game, The Gift

I was thinking a lot today about how having cancer has changed my life....in a good way.  There are a lot of things as you go through this battle that really bite.  In the end, those that survive the battle have something special to take with them.  At least that is how I feel.  I am a survivor, whether I survive one more year or 50 more years.  There is a song that says (I will summarize)...if you knew tomorrow was your last day...how much different would you live it?  Surviving cancer gives you that perspective, and that is priceless.  I am reminded of the movie "The Game" starring Michael Douglas.  The following is a review of this movie:


 by Ásgeir Örn Nordquist  (Kópavogur, Iceland).
"Nicholas Van Orton, a successful businessman lives a good life until an unexpected birthday gift from his brother destroys it all. Nicholas has been enrolled in a game - "a profound life experience" that begins quietly but soon erupts in a rush of devastating events. Van Orton has to win this deadly game or lose control of everything in his life. And this time money and power are meaningless. This is a suspense/thriller, that does manage to hold one's attention. The film stars Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. Deborah Kara Unger (David Cronenberg's "Crash") turns in a fine supporting roll as well. Davd Fincher, director of Seven and Aliens 3, continues to set high standards for motion picture making. This lastest entree of Fincher's does not lose a beat in delivering the maximum impact of the story. This movie will get into your head. It will keep you guessing the whole time. If you don't give this movie a chance you'll never know what you missed."


Why do I think of this movie?  It is because Michael Douglas has been given a gift, but he has to fight for his life.  No money or power will help him.  In the end, he thinks he is dead, but he survives to find out it was all a game.  Why is it a gift?  Why does Michael Douglas' character end up thanking his brother for this "deadly" gift?  Because he will take with him a new value he holds on his life.  Something he would have never been able to see if he had not played "the game."  That is what surviving cancer has done for me.  Whether it is 1 more year or many more....I will no longer allow my days to  "suck the life out of me".  Instead, I will try to suck the life out of each day.  Little things that were a nuisance before, have become charming and special.  I realized this as I drove Presley up to the school for activity night.  I watched her walk away from the car, approaching a crowd of middle schoolers.  I thought to myself how special it was that I got to see this.  She is growing up fast.  Before, my thoughts might have been " I have to take you where now?".  It is easy to allow life to get the best of us.  But now I know the value of getting the best out of life...no matter how small best is.  It is a gift, this new perspective.  To truly have it, you must have your life snatched from you, as you hold on to the last little bit...scratching and fighting tooth and nail to take it back.  That is how you get the gift. 


 It has been said that having breast cancer is like being elected to a club that you never wanted to be a part of; it is truly a sisterhood.  You hate that you are in "the club", but you are glad that there are so many who share in this battle with you.  The club members are very nice, and they know what you are facing.  You get to meet new clubs members everywhere, and everyone you know, knows someone in the club.  They all have the gift, the gift of a new perspective.  They don't sweat the small stuff.  They have a "bucket list", a list of all the things they want to do before they "kick the bucket".  So as I bring this post to an end, think about what you would do differently.  How would you live your life if you knew you were to your final days?  It is my hope that everyone could live like this without going through a horrific battle with cancer.  So live each day to the fullest, the best you know how.  Take the gift, steal the gift, grab it and run.  Whatever you do, don't wait for it to come to you.  Until next time my friends...

Angels. Angels with Skin On!

Hello friends!  I hope everyone is well.  Today I have completed my 7th radiation.  I am exhausted but my spirit is not broken.  Getting radiation makes you feel like you have been in the tanning bed too long.  You know if you have ever used a tanning bed and you have plans immediately after, you can't shake the sense of smell that you have tanned.  You really want to take a shower.  This is quite the same.  However, with radiation the sensation is coming from deep within.  You cannot get rid of it.  I wonder what it will feel like after 18 more of these treatments.  Except for the extreme fatigue, radiation has not been so bad.  My biggest physical challenge right now is dealing with bone pain everyday.  It comes on in the mid afternoon to early evening.  It seems since radiation started, the pain is coming on earlier in the afternoon and lasting longer. This pain was caused by the last four chemo treatments with the drug, TAXOL.  Taxol causes nerve damage, neuropathy, bone pain, and many of these symptoms can be long term or permanent.  After going through chemotherapy, my bones have felt hollow and weak and my muscles feel atrophied. After sitting for any length of time it is difficult to get up and walk. The good news is I am getting closer to the end of these types of treatments and looking forward to reconstruction.

Now I have to tell you about some amazing people in my life.  As you might remember, my oldest daughter is a senior at Richland High School this year and will graduate in May 2011.  She has the most awesome friends.  Sometimes, like right now, I think of them and just start to cry.  They are happy tears.  There are a few of her friends that make my day great with just a word or a visit.  First of all, there is Hayley.  Hayley is an excellent soccer player and is on the drum line in the band.  She gets up at the crack of dawn and is up late often working on school work.  She and her mother have been clients of mine for a while.  I have been blessed to get to know Hayley on a more personal level.  I have often called her my third daughter.  She and Landri have hung out together since middle school.  However, they have the busiest schedules that have kept them from spending the same amount of time together that they did in the past.  They are still good friends, and Hayley follows my blog.  She just seems to always lift me up whenever she can.  Sometimes when I am on Facebook, she will chat with me...even asking me questions about homework and such.  She makes me feel special and she is such an awesome young lady.  This week she sent me a text asking me to review a college essay for her.  I said I would and she sent it to me through Facebook.  I began tearing up the minute I started to read it.  It was about the person who had made the biggest impact on her life.  It was about me and my battle with triple negative breast cancer.  Wow!  I cannot express how honored I felt.  At the end of the essay, she said that I was her "hero".  How can this be?...That battling this awful disease has gained the attention of a teenager?  As a society, in general, we think of teenagers as self-centered, crazy, irresponsible, shallow individuals caught up in their own little world of friends and fun....existing far from the reality of the real world that is about to hit them.  I am here to tell you, there are some very mature, wonderful kids out there.  These kids work hard and put God at the forefront of their lives...and it shows.  They are kind and considerate and have a great future ahead of them. Hayley is one of these people, a beautiful, smart young lady. She will excel at anything she chooses to do, and I would be proud to call her my own anytime.

Another one of Landri's friends is Brooklyn.  She is a tall beautiful, athletic blonde that will impress you on the basketball court, but at the same time, you could imagine seeing her on the cover of a beauty magazine.  She is kind and sweet and she is a person with high morals and values.  She is a light for Christ and I am glad she is part of Landri's life.  She is often spending time with Landri after basketball practice and I have been blessed to get to know her as well.  She also reads this blog.  She has walked in the Race for the Cure with Landri this year, and was at the salon garage sale ready to help out in any way.  She always seems to give my spirits a lift.  Sometimes she will leave me comments on my blog.  Once again, I am proud of the girls and friends Landri has in her life.

Of course Landri and Presley are the greatest daughters I could ever have.  I am so proud of them both.  Landri is an amazing athlete, a natural born leader, and is strong in her faith.  She has been my cheerleader this year, keeping me up and fighting.  Presley is a beautiful kind-hearted angel.  She is always thinking of others.  Since I have had cancer, she has been especially attentive to me.  She asked me questions all the time like "How was your day mommy?"..."can I do anything for you?"  Sometimes despite how I try to hide them from her, she sees my tears.  She comes up to me and puts her arms around me and holds me.  She says "it's o.k. mommy...I am sorry you are hurting"..."I love you, you are the best mommy in the whole world"...I am truly blessed. 

I believe we all have guardian angels.  I also believe in the hardest times of our lives, God sends us angels "with skin on them".  Landri, Presley, Hayley, Brooklyn, and so many others, are my angels with skin on them.  I love to read your comments so don't hesitate to leave them by clicking "comment" on the bottom of this posting.  Until next time my friends....

Radiation 101

Well I was supposed to start radiation last week.  I went in for the simulation and markings etc. and the radiation oncologists (R.O.) said my heart was positioned in a very weird way inside my chest.  This is due to the fact that I have pectus excavatum.  In other words, my ribs cave in slightly instead of having a nice curvature outwards.  My left ventricle is sticking straight up/out the chest wall instead of pointing to my side where it should be.  So no photon radiation for me as this cannot be done without radiating the heart.  The R.O. said she would use electron beam radiation because the depth can be controlled and it can be done without affecting my heart.  I really have had to try to sort this out in my head because I just did not have a good feeling about the whole thing.  I keep thinking "what is God trying to tell me about this?"  The two ladies in the radiation room who get me all set up are very personable and nice. So I started yesterday, Monday for the first treatment after questioning the doctor some more with Kevin in the room.  (In case you don't know this, our doctors don't like this very much.  We were told that we wouldn't understand because we did not go to school for twelve years to study how to give radiation.  Well, darn it!  I  found out I am not a doctor and my questions are irritating and not really that important.  It's too bad in those twelve years of schooling they don't emphasize doctor/patient communication more!)  Blah, blah, blah!  Whatever!  Kevin and I had to bite out tongues to keep from giving Miss R.O. America the "what for".   It doesn't take long at all to get the radiation, but I am already feeling some sting from it.  I am still dealing with some pretty severe fatigue.  I could literally sleep for 10-18 hours at a time.  Then I will have a burst of energy and I am down again. 


 Today I slept until it was time to get up and get ready to leave for radiation.  When I got home, I put my IPhone on the speaker mount and I began cleaning.  Years ago I taught all kinds of aerobics and exercise classes.  Now I can turn house cleaning into a workout, especially now that it is so easy to get winded.  So I have done laundry all day and vacuumed.  Then I mopped the floor with my feet and a towel and a bottle of cleaner.  All done with grace and style, I might add...to some really good music.  Ok, now if you are believing the "grace and style" part, well we've got to talk.  It was a good one hour heart-pumping work out.  The steroids have left my body thankfully, and I feel like I have a chance to start slimming down...if my energy decides to lend me a visit every now and then that is.  I will tell you one of my side effects of the radiation.  Many of you remember the early days of the tanning bed's popularity.  Well, I was working in health clubs during those early days and I would tan for literally an hour or more at a time (there were not the restrictions like there are now).  Of course I would never let anyone in the general public do this, but we employees used to lay in the beds after hours WAY past the suggested maximum time limits.  It was then that I discovered the term "prickly heat".  This is when you feel something like needles poking you after overexposure to the sun or tanning beds.  Well, I felt that the first day after radiation and today too!  The weird thing is, I did not feel it in the area that they radiated.  I felt it in my lower right leg, my left leg, and a few other places.  Very strange.  I also noticed that I have an appearance of lines across both sides of my chest even though the left side is the only one being radiated.  The lines almost look like sheet marks...or whelps.  They were there after both radiation sessions, but gone by morning. Anyways, I lay on the table in position and I stare at this opening in the acoustical ceiling tile.  Someone has deliberately carved out an opening so that a laser beam of some sort can pass through the tiles to line up with the machine.  There is some sort of mechanism up inside the ceiling and I can see the red beam shining out of the opening.  So I stare, and I focus, and I pray.  The opening is the shape of a cross.  I just keep my focus on that and I pray for God's protection and healing.  I pray that I made the right decision.  Leave me a comment on my blog if you like.  I took the filter off so there should not be a problem.  If you leave me a comment through my postings on facebook, then all who are led to this blog are missing out on your comments.  I have had some excellent advice and so much encouragement.  I know there are other triple negative survivors that are reading this that need your words of support too!  Click on "comment(s)"  below the blog in tiny print and leave me a word.  Until next time my friends...

Getting Past The Shadows In Your Head

Well, I have not been blogging lately.  I am still waiting to start radiation.  It is Friday night and I am waiting on Kevin to get home.  The girls are with their dad.  Monday I will go in for a "test drive" session of radiation.  I have received the "tattoos" already this past week.  These are just three little dots that are permanently inked on either side of your chest under the arms and one dead center in the just below the chest.  These are reference points for measurements and markings that the physicists will use to plan out the angles of attack with the radiation.  I have secretly been debating on having radiation at all.  I just have not felt sure about it.  I kind of broke down in the radiation oncologists office and she asked me if I was having second thoughts.  I told her that I just wanted to get it over if she really thought that I needed it.  I also told her that I needed to get back to work at least on Fridays and Saturdays and I did not want the stress of all this and the possibility that I might get burned.  She said to me "well how about we just do this Monday through Thursday, 25 sessions?"  I said it was a deal.  I thought it was good that at least I don't have to work and get radiated on the same days, and I will have 3 days to heal and try to keep the skin healthy for reconstruction.  


I had my first set of scans done and they said they were all clear.  I know that is good news.  Somehow though, I wasn't jumping for joy.  I guess I just have an uneasy feeling about the way that these doctors do things.  I have never been offered a PET scan.  When we asked, they said that "they weren't really as good .....(for this, that, etc)".  I know there have been many cases where women were given clear scans one week and literally 3 weeks later were stage 4 with mets in the liver, bones, etc.  I know that many women feel that they have this cloud that hangs over them for the first five years.  Another thing I don't really like is the fact that my oncologist is now saying that I am going to get scans done every 6 months.  At first they said every 3 months, unless I am crazy (which could be true:).  I just remember how fast these tumors grew.  They were growing about 1/2cm every two weeks.  A average breast cancer tumor has a Ki 67 score of about 15-20%.  This is how fast and how many cells are replicating so to speak.  My Ki 67 was 90%.  These little boogers were moving!!  So the idea that some of these nasty cells are floating out there and looking for someplace to land and I am only going to get scanned every six months doesn't really sit well with me.  I am trying to stay positive, and I hate sounding negative. 


 So the radiation oncologist explained to me why I needed radiation.  I asked her if the chemo kills the cancer cells then why radiate the chest.  Her answer made sense.  She told me that due to the fact that I had a mastectomy prior to chemo, many of the tiny blood vessels had been cut/damaged.  Because of this, the chemo drugs don't circulate well into the chest area.  I can see where this is true because I have little feeling in the chest area, under the arms, and into my back.  I know the nerves have been severed, so one can assume that the blood vessels have been damaged too.  So Monday is the practice session, and the real deal happens Tuesday.


I guess every cancer patient who finishes treatments has anxiety over their cancer spreading, coming back, and just being missed.  That is the challenge...getting past the shadows lurking in your head.  It is tough to shove them down and keep them out of the way.  Getting back to your life, a new and hopefully better life is the goal.  Please leave me a comment.  I love reading them.  Until next time my friends...