BCCTWB

Welcome to the new update arena!! I feel pretty confident about the URL, but we’ll see how this whole operation goes over time. TBD!

Anyways, I’m super behind on updating the world, so apologies to those who have felt out of touch. The last ~2 months have just been nutty. Having barely survived the insanity of December, my adrenaline rush finally started to chill the F out at the start of January, which was just in time for next steps.

The first week in January featured my first post-treatment MRI. If you haven’t had an MRI before, they’re quite entertaining. You’re shoved into a tube of sorts, provided some ear plugs that provide zero entertainment, and this whacky combination of bangs/slams/buzzes invades your brain-space. 

Once the fun is over and images are reviewed, the findings aren’t necessarily “final picture” material, but they provide my oncology team with information about how things look post treatment. Long story short, my oncologist used the word “fantastic” in our review discussion – no additional glowing or contrast, no evidence of change in size – and even though that seems brief, that’s about all that matters and quickly summarizes what I was told.

As the recipient of this news, I clearly felt good, and like I was ready for the next step – CHEMO! Given that I’d already done chemo during my six-week radiation treatment, I thought that I knew what to expect with the solo-chemo mission. This was accurate in some ways, but in others I was effing surprised and quite annoyed. 

My chemo treatment goes in cycles of 28 days with 5 days on and 23 days off (birth control in reverse anyone???). I also do weekly labs, monthly doc visits, bi-monthly MRIs, etc. etc. Given the craziness of my normal life, the time suck here is annoying, but as the neurotic, type-A human that I am, it brings me some peace to be so active in being the badass B handling the BT. ALSO – and this is a seriously genuine feeling of mine – ultimately I’d say it’s a “lucky” form of treatment as compared to those warriors who are stuck to an IV for their chemo. I have to give a BIG shout out to the boob warriors reading this because unfortunately there are too many of you bad asses, and I feel quite strongly that you should become regular **borrowers** of the BCCTWB slogan since Brain and Breast start with the same letter… just sayin’!

** = that acronym is still mine, FYI 😘

Back to the update, in starting the solo chemo, the dosage of my chemo pills was increased, so my symptoms hit a bit quicker and harder than they had the last go around. Going back to the BC reference above, and hitting on more joys of being a woman, I’d describe my during chemo days as bizarre reminders of what it feels like to be pregnant. This is not the “OMG I’m pregnant with a baby sister for our daughter – this is going to be such an amazing addition to our family!!” pregnancy stuff. It’s the ultra common really, really annoying stuff:

• my fatigue matches that uncontrollable first trimester exhaustion
• I am constantly referring to my stomach issues as morning sickness
• my appetite is all sorts of fuckocked with weird cravings and even weirder food intolerances (let’s be honest, the craving parts are cool, pregnant or not)  

Fun. Times. But really, as I’ve said before, it could be worse. I don’t have a port, I don’t lose hours sitting at a facility, I don’t (or at least shouldn’t) lose more hair. It. Could. Be. Worse. And, to be honest, having finished round 2 this morning, it really wasn’t so bad. I was an anxious mess dealing with toddler stomach bugS in our house the days leading up to round 2. Because with my luck I’d catch it right before I really, really couldn’t afford throwing up because of the chemo pills.

Having survived the stomach bugs (so far so good!), the only real downside to this round was that while I finished it this morning, I was supposed to finish it last night. My mental capacity failures intercepted my “TAKE YOUR PILLS” alarm intent and my physical failures resulted in a pass out time before I felt like it was time to take it (because you know, my hypothetical, non-existent alarm was going to remind me). Lesson learned – there will be two iPhones with alarm schedules during chemo week going forward – love you, Ry!

All that said, I think I’ll wrap it up with that. Sending loads of hugs, high-fives, smooches and awkward waves for those who don’t appreciate the aforementioned affection types. Whoever you are, however you know me and my family, you’re a wonderful human being for taking the time to read all this. (And even more wonderful if you check out the donation sites on this site!)

Until next time.

#BCCTWB