Throws Like A Girl

I love my oncologist and her office.  The nurses there are amazing and the office staff is great too.  What can I say.  I’m actually going to miss seeing them every week.  Not going to miss the toxic drugs.  You get used to a routine, I think, when you have cancer, and even though it involves something that may actually make you feel sicker, there is comfort in that routine and the people who become part of it.  I have always felt that I had exactly the doctors I was supposed to have.  I have never regretted not getting a second opinion.  (I am definitely FOR getting second opinions, I just felt that, in my case, one was enough this time.)  So anyway, here’s me and Becky, one of those amazing nurses, who listened to all my calls about constipation, nosebleeds, and pain with compassion and understanding, never once making me feel like a hypochondriac.  They got me a button to add to my collection that says, “I paid my oncologist big bucks for this hairstyle.” 

Perfect. 

Thanks to Dr. Caskey, Becky, Robin, Jenny, Nancy, and everyone else over at the office for helping make a time which could have been truly miserable, not so much.  You are all very special people and very good at what you do.  A couple of names have escaped from my chemo brain.  It’ll come to me.  At 3 am.  That’s when it all comes back.  And then I fall asleep again.

Ok.  I just had to stick this in.  Cracked me up.  Found it over at current.com

Bummer.  Apparently I can’t embed it.  Here’s the link.

http://current.com/items/89113716_target_women_feeding_your_f_ing_family

I am actually still knitting, it’s just very slow.  Taxol has wreaked havoc on my hands and it hurts to knit (and type) for extended periods.  Anyway, I’m posting a little advert for my friend Ruth who has too much yarn on her hands and needs to destash.

So check out what she’s got.

I was knocked flat on my behind this weekend with some sort of virus/chemo thing.  So while I hurt, I read “The Friday Night Knitting Club”.  I’m going to password protect the post if you haven’t read it and want to.

The password is :knittingclub

I got so annoyed by that Time/CNN article I almost forgot it’s time for the Friday Feel Up!  So please, disregard that study and do yourself a favor, looking for lumps may mean false positives, but it’s definitely better than getting smacked upside the head by cancer.

CNN published an article reporting that Self Breast Exams may cause more harm than good.

I can’t say it enough.  Most of the time the ONLY way a young woman finds a lump is through a self exam.  I would rather have 20 clean “unnecessary” biopsies than one malignant one.  Wouldn’t you?

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41449

In about a month, my baby, my firstborn enters kindergarten.  I’m sure there will eventually be a heartfelt, emotional post about that.  Right now I’m staring at the supply list.  Most of it I understand because they have communal crayons and markers.  But 20 gluesticks?  From each kid?  That’s like 400 gluesticks!  Please tell me that’s a typo.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I was encouraged by more experienced cancer patients to ask about clinical trials.  As it turned out, I didn’t have to as my oncologist had already found one for me to take part in.  I have always been a fan of participating in studies when possible.  L is in the DAISY study that tracks kids from birth who have one or more gene markers for diabetes so when it was my turn, I knew I wanted to participate.  Still pretty freaked about by the whole “I have breast cancer” thing, it was important to me to know that I would still get the standard of care in case I was in the placebo group.  Once I was assured, I joined the Avastin study for Stage III cancer patients.  For the most part I think my chemo experience has been pretty on par with people who were not on Avastin.  My only side effects were increasingly lengthy nosebleeds.  So Tuesday, the study was unblinded and I did find out I was not in the placebo group and was in fact taking Avastin.  (Not a huge surprise to the doctor and nurses, though I guess there was an office pool and one nurse did lose.  My low blood pressure tricked her.)  I also found out that I’m on the arm of the study that is finished taking the drug.  I can’t tell you how relieved I am of this.  I would absolutely take part in the study if I were to do it all over, but knowing that my last Taxol in two weeks is my last chemo is wonderful.  The nosebleeds were getting scary and I’m ready to enjoy my month off before RadiationLand.