Hey Y’all!
I hope everyone had a Good New Year (some of us had as good as we could.)
Been kinda quiet ‘round here.
Jane? How’s the chemo? Is it smacking you down some?
I start Taxorete (sp) in a few days and I’m just a wee bit freaked out. Don’t like the common side effects I’m reading about. I’d like to keep my fingernails, please. But then again A/C was suppose to really mess me up, too, and it’s been like cookies n milk-so.... maybe I’ll get lucky again.
My darling kids got me Sarah’s new book for Christmas! Woo Hoo!
Hey Jilly:
Don’t worry about Taxotere. I took it for 5 months with Carboplatin and Herceptin and I didn’t get nauseous and nails were ok, but I did get heartburn. Be careful what you eat if you get that reaction. Keep your foods bland, puddings, applesauce, mild soups, soft bread is ok, watch the spicy foods and heavy rich sauces. You will see your reactions to various foods as you eat them and gauge what you should avoid for a while. You will get sleepy after the chemo but that’s natural.
I’m completely done with chemo (!!) and now in the breast reconstruction. I’ve had 2 injections of saline into my “tissue expander” since the operation to install it on December 16th. For those entering that phase I would advise you to take your time - 50 cc’s of saline is enough to inject into the tissue expander for each time (you get an injection once a week) - 100 cc’s was too much for me.
Ibuprofen is all I needed for the smaller amount of saline to combat the pain and doc advised me to do the walk the wall with your fingers exercise that people do after their mastectomy. I hate that exercise and it hurts but you want to reduce the stress on your ribs and surrounding tissue as you expand.
I think of myself right now as a flat Micheline tire that is being slowly pumped up (”choo-choo-choo”!). Eventually in March or April I will get the operation to insert the permanent implant.
Then after some rest we start working on the right breast to match everything up.
As I said, I had the expander installed on Dec. 16th so
Christmas was mostly pain, antibiotics and pain killers. I found some of the happy happy Christmas sing-a-long shows depressing cause I wasn’t feeling too cheerful, so I revelled in the troubles of “The Real Housewives of Wherever” repeats. These are plastic surgery poster gals with their rich lifestyles and lots of time for shopping and lunch. But I lived vicariously through them - a pleasure kind of like eating an entire box of chocolates while watching a 1940’s romantic movie!
I spend quite a bit of time with my hubby who has been wonderful and I have all you special friends here and on Facebook.
Keep your spirits up everyone!
Bunches