YEEE HAWWWWWW!!!!!!

I got it! I got it!!!!

I'm just stunned and excited and crazed and happy and nervous all in one swoop. There is a breast cancer conference next month for young women diagnosed before age 45. I didn't think I would even have a sliver of a chance of going, so I tossed the brochure aside when it came in the mail. Jason didn't. He found it and got online and found out more information. It's in Washington, D.C. and will be from Feb 23-25th. They had scholarships so those that didn't have the financial means could go. Jason filled out most of the info and then woke me up and told me all about the trip. I finished filling it out and sent it in getting more and more excited about the chance to go to the east coast and sightsee and be with other young women that are in my position with cancer. After nearly 8 nerve-wreaking days, I got an email notification that I received a full scholarship to go to the conference. I'm so happy and excited I can hardly stand it. I got the email last night and immediately made my hotel reservation. This morning I called and got my flight scheduled and registered online for the conference and signed up for my classes. I checked the YSC website and immediately found someone looking for a roomie. For those on scholarships, they are asking that you share a room to cut on expenses. It turns out the woman I contacted grew up in Vancouver also and graduated from Mt. View 2 years before I did. So we grew up in the same town and graduated at nearly the same time. It just seems meant to be.

Thank goodness our tax refund is coming this week because I have to buy everything first and then after the conference, I will be reimbursed for everything. They will cover the cost of the registration, the hotel stay, and my plane ticket. I will be responsible for any meals not covered by the conference, souvenirs, and other extra stuff. I'm going to one of my favorite cities of all time. There is so much history there that I'm going to be in heaven. I wish I had two extra days just to go see everything. I wish I had time to go to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington one, Jefferson, Smithsonian, Library of Congress, WWII memorial, Vietnam memorial, Arlington Cemetary, White House(yeah, right), the Capitol, etc. EVERYTHING!!!! lol

Hard time on my YSC bb

Breast cancer sucks. I'm a part of a board for young breast cancer survivors over on YSC or Young Survivor Coalition. I started going there when I was finishing up my chemo and have gotten a lot of good answers and met some wonderful women there. It's like being part of this exclusive club with breast cancer being the initiation into it. It's been a realy struggle lately. You get so close because you are all fighting this beast and you band together and it makes you feel invincible.

But things aren't going so well over there. I was going through the posts and found a topic saying Goodbye. I thought they were leaving the board and taking a break. It happens at times and then the person comes back later. Well, this lady was saying goodbye forever. She was entering the hospital the next day and she knew that she would never be coming out. She was dying and telling us all goodbye. It was heartbreaking and you wanted to believe that it would get better and she would be fine. There was an email about two weeks later saying that she did die and that her dh and her kids were around her when she passed away. There's another lady that survived one round of breast cancer to discover that she has mets and it doesn't look good. She is a sweet kind lady that everyone calls Mama Cathy. Then there's another lady that survived it but started down a talispin and is slowly self destructing. She went binging on drugs, alchohol, tried to kill herself, etc.

It's been so difficult to keep a happy face on when you feel like you're losing your grasp on things. I've just been so depressed lately and I've been bawling all night.

Nothing like a potential fire to get your heart racing

The joys of being an apartment manager. We come home from my parent's house and as we are getting out of the car, Jason says something and races towards one of the buildings. I turn around and see smoke billowing out of a townhome. I immediately call 911 and get the fire department on their way. Doesn't take long since they are maybe 4-5 blocks down the road.

Anyways, it turns out that someone was cooking dinner. They had a roast they were browning and went to another apartment. In between the time they were in another apartment, the roast started to burn and smoke was pouring out of the apartment. No fire, just smoke thank goodness. Anyways, we had two police cars, a fire chief, and at least 3 fire trucks show up. They blocked off the major road so the firetrucks could have access.

I'm so angry. Lindsey was so scared because she thought there really was fire and that her daddy was in it. She kept whimpering the whole time. The entire complex showed up in the parking lot to watch. The stupid idiot had ripped off one smoke alarm and it wasn't working, the other one upstairs was constantly going off, and the other one didn't have a battery in it. Besides, what idiot leaves food on the stove to cook and leaves the stinking apartment? Jason stunk of smoke when he came back after fixing two of the smoke detectors. The girls even had the smell in their hair from being outside in the parking lot. The guy in the apartment has changed his story. He said he was only gone 10 minutes when I talked to him. When Jason was fixing the detectors, the guy was getting angry with Jason, and told him he was only gone 5 minutes. He was eating the roast with Jason there!!! He doesn't even live there, he was visiting his daughter who lives there.

They are so going to be fined or given notice or something!!!! Messing with the smoke detectors, leaving the apartment while you have food cooking like that? INSANE!!!!

Watching grass grow Pt 2

It's the end of October and I'm two months with being done with chemo

Ugh. It's January and I'm 4.5 months past chemo. I really suck at taking my own picture.

Watching grass grow

This is me in May, just before I had my hair chopped off. I'd had my surgery about a month ago.

This was the weekend before my second chemo treatment. I wanted it short so I could get used to it before it was all gone.

This was two days after my second chemo treatment and I'm in the midst of having it shaved off. The sides were done and then she was going to do the top. I felt as miserable as I looked.

My dad and mom came to visit in July and I had to get a picture of the both of us being bald together.

My hair 4 months after chemo

Here I am 4.5 months after chemo. I'm not a brunette anymore, I spike my hair so it looks longer, and I had hat hair today. At least I'm not bald anymore.

I'm glad I'm going to the eye doctor soon

I am having trouble with my eyes. I used to be really near sighted and I've had glasses since I was in the 4th grade. I always had trouble seeing far away. But since I've had chemo, my vision has changed. Not only do I have trouble seeing far away, but if I want to see up close like if I wanted to do cross stitch, I have to take my glasses off and get two inches away. Sometimes things on the computer screen don't show enough detail so I have to get up close or just try not to let it bother me. I go on Monday and I'm glad. I know I'll need a new prescription for my glasses and I'm not looking forward to it. I knew around my last two or three chemo treatments that it started going haywire but I thought it would go back to the way it used to be. Well, it's January and nothing has changed for the better, it's only gotten worse.

Welcome back AF...maybe

I was so sure I was going through menopause. I had the nasty hotflashes, I hadn't had my period since 3 days after my mastectomy, and I was gonna throw out all my feminine supplies. It was wonderful this year not having to worry about it. No cramps, no granny undies, etc. I still had the nasty mood swings at that time of the month, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't a witch at some point during the month. lol I have all the symptoms showing up, but no actual ...visitor yet.


*Original post on January 11th, edited on January 17th.

MRI results

They came back clear. I hadn't heard anything by Monday, so I called the nurse and left a message. She got back to me and let me know everything was normal and no signs of mets or anything to worry about. It probably was just a migraine. I also have a feeling that I wasn't eating so well over the holidays and that with a lack of liquids caused me to become dehydrated and suffer for it. The nurse said I could contact Cancer Care Resources and talk to the nutrionist/dietician for help if I want. I may call her tomorrow. I want to be better about my health and would love to get a specialized plan for me for my health. I'm not great with exercise, but I'm so shy and embarrassed, that I am holding back from asking a couple of the YW in our ward for help. They are so lovely and slim and put together and I would feel incredibly awkward asking for help for my fat flabby misshapen body.

Chloe and I have the same hair color now

Yep, we do. Almost the exact same hair color. Here's a picture of Chloe to give you an idea. Oh and by the way, having your hair colored on a tender scalp with brand new hair will result in sores on top of your head and scab over later. And it hurts like hell while the stuff is being applied.

My MRI and my You're-so-lucky-nothing-happened award story

So I had headaches last weekend with weird vision problems. I finally called my oncologist and left a message. Diane, Dr. Brouns's nurse, called me back and I chatted with her and told her what was going on. She said she gets migraines and it sounds exactly like that. But she would talk to the doctor and see what he wanted to do. I got a call the next morning from her and Dr. Brouns thought it was probably migraines but wanted to do an MRI just to be on the safe side and they want to do it that day. I've never had one before and was a little nervous. Doing research and being very prepared helps me feel better and so I searched on the internet about what to expect. I asked people if they had had one and asked what it was like.

Dad met me at Vancouver Radiology and we sat there for 45 minutes before they called me back. It was so annoying. Why have me get there at 12:30pm when they wouldn't have me get started till after 1pm? Grrrr. Anyways, I changed into my lovely hunter green scrubs and took my wedding ring off and went back to the room. They had to give me an IV because I have a history of cancer. That's their reasoning anyways. They ended up giving me something in the IV at the end so they could takes some images with reverse something or other. The stuff in the IV made the films appear in a different light. I don't know the proper words for it.

So I lay down on this table. By now I've figured out that it's a closed MRI tube. Great, I know I'm not claustraphobic, but still, I'm not thrilled by it either. I lay down with my head fitting in this space so that my head doesn't move around a lot. Almost exactly like I did for radiation. They put wedges under my knees and under my arms to keep them propped up. They gave me a nice blanket and then stuck ear plugs in my ears. When I entered the room, they took my glasses off and my hair scarf. So I'm blind as a bat, but I'm very comfortable on this table. Then they put a cloth over my eyes so it will help "relax" me they say. Then I hear a click and I peek out from under my cloth and they put a contraption over my face to keep my head in place. It's not actually touching me, but if I had my glasses on, I could have seen that it was about an inch or so from touching my face. They slid me in the tube and they had a speakerphone where they spoke to me and told me what was going to happen.

I would hear some clicking noises and then almost like a loud honk of a semi truck. A few blasts of those and then it sounded like what it would be like if you were stuck in the middle of a washing machine while tennis shoes were thumped and spun around you. I'm glad I had the headphones on, because I still got a slight headache from the noise. I really was very comfortable and eventually got used to the noise. It would run from 2-4 minutes, each set of films or images they had to take. This happened for about 30 minutes or so.

After I got out, Dad and I drove up through the parking lot to Los Jalepenos for a late lunch. We parked directly in front of the place, it was in a strip mall. I was talking on the phone when Dad pulled up and so I got out and went inside and had a fabulous lunch at one of my new favorite places to eat. It was a great lunch and then we had to leave. I checked my coat for my keys and couldn't find them anywhere. Then I had a horrible feeling that I looked them in the car. So I go over and peek in and they are still hanging from the car ignition. I was freaked out about what Jason would do when I had to call him from work and ask him to come and get me unlocked from the car. I tried the car door just out of habit and found it was unlocked! HOLY COW!!! What incredibly good luck!!! For a real dingbat!! lol I've never done that before in my life. Ever. I was so lucky nothing happened. The fact that we were parked almost right in front of it helped a lot, but I'm still a little shaky at how stupid I was.

Back to the MRI. The doctor was going to get the results in 24-48 hours and then he would call me. I was really hoping that he would call me before the weekend. But seeing that it's 11:47pm on a Friday night, I don't see that happening. Oh well, something to look forward to on Monday. Hopefully we'll hear good news!!!

Paranoia again - headaches and backaches

For about a month, I've had bad back pain. It hurt to do a lot of things and it was driving me nuts. My firs thought in everything, is will this be cancer? Is this something to be scared of? So after hurting for so long, I finally made a doctor's appointment with my own regular doctor. I got to see her before she went on vacation for a month. I love Dr. Susan the most out of all of them. She's like a mom and I can tell her just about anything and she'll take care of me. She's the one I measure all other doctors up against. I went to see her and she checked me out, got excited about my not scarf hairdo and had to touch it, and she made sure she asked me questions about how my treatment was doing. I told her about my back, why I think it was hurting, and so on. I told her where it was and she showed me an exercise or way to stretch the muscle out so it wouldn't hurt. She suggested I start walking and moving more in hopes of making it feel better. To put my mind at ease, she made me go over and get xrays at the radiologist. I think there were about 10 taken at least. The tech called my doctor immediately and my doctor over the phone reassured me that my back was just a muscle strain and that I somehow tweaked it. Not mets or anything bad at all. BIG relief there.

Then this weekend I went shopping at the grocery store and my vision in my right eye started to go weird. I could see straight ahead and to the left side, but not out of the right. It would get fuzzy around the edges and then the problem switched to my left eye and then after it was that way for a while, it was like I got tunnel vision and couldn't see out of the corner of either eye. Then I got a horrible headache. It lasted the rest of the night. I thought I might be dehydrated, but it happened again in the morning at church. I knew it was starting up again, so Jason took me home. The vision thing didn't last as long, but the headache sure stayed awhile. My mom freaked out and wanted me to go to the ER. I promised if it happened again, that I would. It hasn't so I haven't gone. But I called my oncologist and left a message. The nurse called me back and through talking to her, she said it sounded like migraines. I've never had them before and I didn't know if they could pop up like that out of the blue. She's going to call me back in the morning after talking with the oncologist.

She did say that I could go get my eyes checked. Ever since I had the last batches of chemo, my vision has changed. They said that chemo could change it and to wait because it should go back after it was over. Well, it's January and it hasn't changed back. So I go in next week for an eye exam and possible new lenses. Totally sucks, but I can't see anything close up unless I take my glasses off.

So the good news is that it appears that my aches and pains are totally normal and not cancer related at all. Oh well, I'd rather be overcautious now than not pay attention to my body.

Going private

To protect myself in case of foot in mouth disease, I'm making my blog private. If you are interested in reading my blog inspite of me and my always sticking my foot in my mouth, email me and I'll send you a link. I'll make this private in a couple of days.