reflections

I recently had my heart checked by having an echocardiogram. Both Herceptin and Perjeta are known to cause heart failure so I have to have my heart checked every 3 months or so. So far, my heart is doing great. A few weeks ago I had a medication interaction between two of my medications which caused me to have an irregular heart rhythm. Very scary. I went to my primary doctor but no one could figure out what was wrong. I basically figured it out on my own and stopped taking the least important medication and now I feel fine. It’s a nerve wracking situation because you never know which medications are bad for you until you try them. I long for the simpler days. The days where I didn’t have to worry about medications, toxicity, heart failure, doctor’s appointments and death. I’m still young. I should be enjoying my 30’s without having to think about these things at all. I have to say that it’s not always doom and gloom either. There are many times when I don’t even think about cance...

Hair is very important for a girl and not having hair can be traumatic. It was for me and to this day I still struggle with my hair loss. I feel like my hair is growing so slowly that I get frustrated at times. During chemo treatment I wore a lot of scarves because I wasn’t comfortable wearing wigs. I like wigs but not every day. Plus, scarves just worked better at work. You do a lot of moving around as a nurse and I felt like the wig just got in the way. One of my co-workers decided to show me how to put on a scarf the way they do it in her country of Kenya. I loved it so much that I wore the scarf this way throughout most of my chemo treatment and after. So, now I’ve decided to show you how tie a scarf on your head and still look beautiful. First you will need a long scarf (about 62inches length x 21 inches width). I usually like to get them at Old Navy, Gap or Target. They seem to be the most affordable especially when they’re on sale and they have a variety of color...

Recently I’ve learned a lot of things about people in my life and I am trying to make an effort to keep away from negativity. Negativity stresses me out and stress is the last thing I need. Someone recently tried to say that karma is the reason I have cancer which left me kind of in shock. I’ll admit I’m not perfect but I definitely don’t think I or anyone deserves cancer. If that’s the way karma worked then why do so many great people get sick and die young, while many evil ones get to live well into old age? The comment made me very upset at the time but now I realize that I have to make an effort not to let negativity like that get me down. Life is too short to worry about what other people think. Maybe they didn’t mean for it to sound the way it did or at least that’s what I’m hoping, but the lesson here is to really think about your words before they come out of your mouth. Another example is talking about how you know someone that died of cancer to someone that has cancer. Altho...

About a year ago on September 12, 2012 I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism (PE) which is a blood clot in the lung. I had absolutely none of the classic symptoms of a PE. Instead my blood clot was found during one of my routine PET-CT scans to check on the progress of my cancer. For some reason people with cancer have a tendency to develop blood clots and I just happened to be one of the lucky ones that got one. I remember getting off the shuttle at the UCSF Parnassus campus and starting to walk to my sister’s flat when I noticed I had a voicemail. It was my nurse practitioner asking me to call her back because “it was kind of an emergency, but kind of not”. At this point I was really nervous thinking that maybe the cancer had spread instead of getting smaller so I called her back. She then told me that I had to go to the Emergency Room to start a regimen of blood thinners because I had a PE. My Lovenox Syringe So, I went to the ER where they gave me my first shot of Lo...

So, my breast is officially tanned from the radiation. It’s slightly pink under my arm but so far my skin doesn’t look too bad. I’ll just keep putting on the Aquaphor and hope for the best. I am starting to feel a little fatigue but not too bad. Yesterday I went to my infusion of Perjeta and Herceptin at UCSF and I pretty much slept off and on afterwards. I’m still tired this morning though because ever since my cancer diagnosis I have insomnia. I never sleep longer than 3 hours without waking up. Not fun. With cancer comes a fear of going to sleep which I will talk about in a future post. For now, I’ll just continue to take care of my skin as much as I can to prevent it from peeling. 14 down, 16 more to go!

7 radiation treatments down, 23 more to go. So far I’m not having any side effects but I was told to expect side effects after about 2 weeks. I have been feeling pain in my liver though which scares me. Occasionally my liver hurts and the doctors are not sure why since all my scans have come back NED since last November. Maybe it’s just damage from chemo or it could be the cancer coming back which is my biggest fear. Maybe it’s all the stress from the past month and a half. Who knows. I’m trying not to let my fears take over but at night it’s really difficult not to let my mind wander to those thoughts. During the day I’m distracted so I don’t think about it as much. My most beautiful distraction is my son. I love being home from work and spending all this time with him. Walking him to and from school, taking him to the park, helping him with his homework, and being able to go to ALL of his soccer games is the best. Of course, he still has his moments of moodiness but I still love...