I Am Cancer Free!

Seriously.

No residual cancer in my chest, abdomen or pelvis. Also, no new cancer in my chest, abdomen or pelvis.

It's all good, kids.

To paraphrase Dr. Academic, I'm as close to cured as I'm going to get.

Thanks for all of your support, my devoted Cake Eater readers. You're a bunch of rock stars.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go and get stinkin' drunk.

Posted by: Kathy at 05:49 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Later on today, I will travel to Dr. Academic's office and find out the results of my Pet Scan.

Holy crap, am I ever tweaked about this.

Gah. I know I'm flipping out over nothing. I know I am, but, God help me, I can't quite keep myself from doing so. This is such a bad move. I know it, but, again, I can't help myself.

I woke up at five this morning, which I think we all know, my devoted Cake Eater readers, doesn't happen even when I want to wake up at five. I'm not a morning person. At all. Yet, this morning, I woke up while it was still dark and, better yet, was completely awake, instead of being groggy and crabby at being disturbed. This never happens. Just ask the husband. I got up, went to the little girls' room, had a drink of water, and then went back to bed. It was only through repeated rubbing of my back that the husband was able to lull me back to sleep. Sigh. He's such a good egg. I honestly don't know what I'd do without him.

Sigh.

I know this appointment is probably going to take less than fifteen minutes.

I know that this appointment won't start any where near the scheduled time. Dr. Academic will be running late, as always. And he will be in a hurry to give me the results, and when that's done, will do his absolute best to whoosh out of the exam room, because he's got his reputation as the human tornado to uphold.

I know it will probably be all good and that everything is fine, but...

...what if it isn't?

That's all I can think about. I can think positively as much as I'd like to, but thinking positively about this stuff has not gotten me very far in this whole fiasco. I've learned the hard way that thinking positively, and hoping for the best, will only lead me to rack and ruin. But keeping the negative stuff from being too negative, if you get what I'm saying, my devoted Cake Eater readers, is even harder, it seems. I'm having all sorts of visions of more cancer, more surgery, and more chemo. And it's all scaring the shit out of me, because I don't want ANY of those things to happen. Even though it's highly unlikely that they will, in the first place.

Sigh.

Like a drunk driver completing a sobriety test, I'm searching for the fine line in the middle, kids, and I'm having a hard time slapping my big fat feet down on it.

Keep your fingers crossed, my devoted Cake Eater readers, eh? Not just for everything to be fine, but so that I don't lose what's left of my already-addled mind between now and two.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:13 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Well, after two months of insurance related hell (Fight the power that be! WOOT! Idiots. Every single last one of them.), I have finally been approved and scheduled to have the Pet/CT Scan which should prove, once and for all, that I'm cancer-free.

Dr. Academic wanted me to have this done in the middle of September, a month after finishing chemo. Because of the aforementioned insurance related hell, I'm just getting around to having it now, almost three months after finishing chemo.

And I'm suddenly nervous as all get out.

I know why this is. I think most rational people could figure it out and it's, obviously, that I'm afraid the cancer is still there, despite the results of somewhere around ten different CA-125 tests that show precisely the opposite. I'm lucky. CA-125 works for me. It doesn't work for 20% of women, who could, quite literally, have a cancerous cyst on their ovary that's roughly the size of a football and the test would still show a number in the normal range. God only knows what size of a hissy fit I would have worked myself up to by now if I couldn't rely on the CA-125 results. But, since my appointment is in a couple of hours, well, I'm just starting to work myself up now.

I don't know what to think about this. It should confirm what Dr. Academic has been telling me all along: That they got all of the cancer in the surgery and that I'm cancer-free. We may not know the how or why I came to be an ovarian cancer patient in the first place, but that, I've found doesn't really matter. Particularly when there's the now to be dealt with. Where am I now? Is the cancer gone? Like I've been told repeatedly. Or is it back? Has it been there all along? Did the chemo work as promised? Or has it, perhaps, gone someplace else? What, precisely, will this scan show? Will it pick it up at all if it's back? It's scary shit, my devoted Cake Eater readers. And I won't know the results for another week and a half, because that's the earliest I could get an appointment to see Dr. Academic.

There are all these variables running around in my head. Telling me not to think about it is about as futile as telling a hamster to get off the wheel. It's just not going to happen. I know I shouldn't be worrying about it. That everything is as Dr. Academic has told me repeatedly. That I'm just, per usual, making a mountain out of a molehill. Sigh. It's just that they said it wasn't anything the first time around. And it was something. A very serious something. It's a fine line to walk. I want to believe them, but a part of me is sounding the alarm bells, telling me not to until all the evidence is in. That I'll just be setting myself up for further heartbreak if I do believe their positive prognosis, and the results come in stating the opposite.

There is one thing I shall be paying a great deal of attention to today, however, is the reaction of the people working there. You see, when I was in the ER, and they gave me a CAT scan and an ultrasound, well, the behavior of the people running the scans changed dramatically over the course of the scans. They'd be friendly one minute, then the next, when the size of the problem was apparent, they'd clam up. The CAT scan people weren't too bad, but you could definitely sense an attitude adjustment in the air. The lady who did the ultrasound, however, was as chatty as could be and then she completely shut up. Not a peep left her mouth. She didn't even want to tell me I was done. She simply covered me up and arranged for transport. The ER nurse, too, kept shooting me meaningful glances, like she was trying to tip me off to just how serious this was, despite what the doctors had told me. I, of course, noted all of this at the time, but refused to pay any attention to it because it went against my general world view that everything was going to be just fine. I'm determined not to make the same mistake again. I will be watching them like a hawk. And if, for instance, they're having a bad day and just aren't feeling particularly chatty in the first place, well, I'll undoubtedly make a lot of it.

Sigh.

But, right now, all I want to do is eat lunch. You can't have food four hours before the scan, so despite having a large bowl of oatmeal (with raisins!) for breakfast, I'm now very, very hungry. It's time to get this crap over with.

Mainly because I want to eat something.

The Post-Scan Update

Well, all things considered, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon. Like sitting in a recliner, hooked up to an IV at the oncologist's office.

Here's where the scan was done. If you've got some time to blow take a virtual tour of the office. This was, by leaps and bounds and the occasional skip-to-my-lou, the swankiest office I've been in since this whole thing started. The oncologist's office is, well, serviceable. That's the nicest way to decribe it. My OB-GYN is in the same building as the Pet Scan place and I thought their office was nice. It's nothing compared to the Pet Scan place. It's like the difference between the furniture outlet and the Henredon showroom. Suddenly, it makes an awful lot of sense why these things are $1700 a pop.

The process was fairly routine. I was quickly ushered into a plush waiting room, with a leather recliner (take that, you cheap oncologists! Vinyl. PAH!) where the nurse quizzed me about all the drugs I was on, had taken in the past couple of months, and about the chemo, etc. She then started an IV, but there wasn't a drip involved, thankfully; she simply brought out this two-inch-wide, five-inch-long, steel encased syringe and shot the radioactive sugar solution (FDG) into it. After that, she handed me a glass of what looked like Milk of Magnesia (berry flavored!) and a small bottle of water for a chaser and told me to drink up. This was the contrast. Between the two of them, they would light my innards up like a pinball machine visible from space.

I had to sit around for forty-five minutes, to allow these two things to start flowing through my body, and then it was time for the scan. The PET scan machine looked exactly like House's MRI of Doom, only bigger and with a longer table. I laid down, put my arms up around my ears and they ran me in and out of the donut portion for the better part of a half-hour. I almost fell asleep. It was so very quiet. No thunking. No bells. No whistles. Nothing. Just a light mechanical purr. With this they can see if there's any cancer left, because the cancer cells will feast on the FDG, which is partially a simple sugar solution, and it'll show. They apparently can stage cancer with this puppy by watching just how fast the sugar is metabolized by the cancer cells. Which, is pretty cool, particularly when they usually have to figure that out via surgery. It can even differentiate between malignant and benign tumors, and it'll pick up any cancer recurrence more quickly than a blood test.

When it was over with, I, of course, paid particular attention to how the nurse was acting. She was the same after as she'd been before. I said, "I almost hate to ask, but how did it look?" She replied, "I have no idea. The computer is still processing the images. "

Duh.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:47 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hey, Fattie McFatFat, put down the Pringles, the steak and that third beer or you'll get cancer.

Scientists with the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund in Britain have analyzed thousands of recent studies and produced 10 recommendations to help people lower their risk.

Men should consume no more than two alcoholic beverages daily, and women, only one, the report says. Several studies have associated alcohol consumption with elevated breast cancer risk.

Other recommendations include avoiding cigarettes, red and processed meats, consuming a diet rich in vegetables, and exercising 30 minutes a day.

“There is a major and very important conclusion,” said Walter Willet, one of the report’s authors, “and that is: Overweight and obesity can contribute to an individual’s cancer risk — abdominal circumference, especially.”

We think people should be as lean as possible without being underweight,” said Willet, an epidemiologist and physician at Harvard University’s School of Public Health.

Fat, especially in the midsection, can increase the production of hormones that drive development and growth of cancer cells, he said.

{...}Experts evaluated more than 7,000 studies over five years to compile the report. Panelists found “convincing evidence” that carrying extra weight, particularly around the waist, may lead to cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, colon, kidney and uterus, as well as post-menopausal breast cancer.{...}

If you have massive amounts of time to blow, you can read the entire report here. All five hundred and thirty seven pages of it.

See, this is not how research dollars should be spent, in my humble opinion. Trolling through old studies, looking for evidence to back up pre-determined conclusions that just happen to coincide with major public health initiatives is not great in the overall scheme of things.

Color me skeptical about this report. Deep purply shades of skeptical, bordering on black.

I don't particularly like studies like this, where researchers compile data from numerous and varying studies and purport to draw previously unseen conclusions from said data. Correlation does not equal causation. It does not appear to me, not having read the study, that they actually did anything to prove that having some extra weight around the midsection actually increases your risk of cancer; it's that they looked over old studies and drew that conclusion. It may be true, but damnit, I want proof. Particularly when it appears that they're trying to link this finding to the overarching push against obesity. Again, correlation does not equal causation. It's just that simple. Never mind that it appears they looked very little at other factors, like genetics, that are equally if not more important in preventing cancer.

I'm tired of this shit.

Look, I can't tell you how many freakin' statistics I've had thrown at me since I was diagnosed. They're everywhere you look. The doctors and nurses shoot them at you, with increasing regularity and without a second thought, because these statistics are the only proof they can give you regarding your treatment, and, ultimately, your outcome. These statistics come from research done in the field, obviously, and health care providers would be lax in their duties if they didn't keep up with them. As such, they will tell you that you have a 25% increased chance of this, or a 25% decreased chance of that, and a 90% chance of the other. You, as a cancer patient, quite literally, have to make life or death choices based on statistics. You need those statistics to be good. You need good math to plan out how you're going to fight this disease. So, when someone trolls through a bunch of studies and tells me that, in their humble opinion, I'd better keep the fat off because there's an increased chance of my cancer returning if I have one extra hamburger per week, they'd better have good math, and ultimately a good study, to back up their conclusions. My life has been altered enough, thank you ever so bloody much. I'm not going to alter it more based on what I consider to be shoddy work.

It's one thing to educate yourself when you're looking at cancer. That's important and I'm not going to knock anyone who wants to do the research. What I will say, however, is that if you don't have an understanding into how a simple statistical poll is conducted, you'd better learn, and you'd better learn fast. If you don't understand how the study was conducted and what kind of math they used, you can't judge the veracity of it, let alone the efficacy. How many people will take the highlights of this study as the God's honest truth and will alter their lives because of it? Even though it's highly specious? Well meaning doctors will throw this one at overweight patients as added incentive, even if the link hasn't been conclusively proven, because fighting obesity is seen to be fighting for the greater good. Legislators will then get involved because there's a risk of cancer from being obese, they will predict health care costs will go up and all sorts of shit will start being banned for our own good. You can see it, can't you? It has the potential to spiral out of control. Individual choice will be then limited because of a specious study that doesn't actually prove anything.

Never mind that this is not how I want research dollars spent, thank you ever so bloody much. That's apparently not all that important in the scheme of things. But if you can link cancer to being overweight, because it so nicely dovetails with other public health goals, it's apparently all right to go for it. Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Which ultimately means that you're screwing over the people who actually do have cancer, and would like a cure or an effective treatment, thanks ever so bloody much, because it's deemed more important to spend money researching how to prevent it in the first place. Just speaking as an ovarian cancer survivor, this pisses me off. We don't have an early screening test for ovarian cancer, along the lines of a Pap Smear for cervical cancer. You, generally, find out when you're on the table, if you're lucky enough to get to the table at all because the symptoms are so freakin' vague to begin with. For most women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, this means that they catch it late, when the chances of survival are low. I'm lucky they caught it when they did, but Dr. Academic admitted flat out that they don't know much about my stage of ovarian cancer; they know a hell of a lot more about the later stages simply because that's when more women are diagnosed. Currently, in the United States, we spend $600 per death on ovarian cancer research. With breast and prostate cancer it's $3000 per death. Yet, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of death in women. Around 22,000 women this year alone will be diagnosed; of that number, roughly 15,000 will die because of the disease. That's almost two-thirds, which is just an unacceptable statistic, if you ask me, but they're not asking me where I'd like research dollars spent to lower that number. Nooo. They're more interested in spending research dollars on specious studies that don't prove anything when it comes to preventing cancer, but that do dovetail nicely with what they consider to be the greater good.

Just never mind all those dead cancer patients along the way.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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We have fuzz.

(the photo is after the jump. Best viewed by hitting the permalink option, so you have full page glory) more...

Posted by: Kathy at 10:45 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I feel like I should rise from my hard, utilitarian, church basement resident folding chair and say to the circle of haggard, exhausted people around me, "Hi, I'm Kathy. I'm a cancer survivor. I've been off chemo for almost two weeks."

At which point my fellow baldies would reply, "Hi Kathy," in an unexcited, battle weary, morale flagging monotone.

I can't blame them for not being excited. It's hard for me to work up the enthusiasm one would think would come part and parcel with such an announcement. Which, I have to say, I find weird. I was sure that by the time I got to this stage, finally being done with the extended mass murder of millions of my cells, healthy and not so healthy, that I would be jumping up and down for joy, thrilled that the extended hell of chemotherapy was done. But I'm not. I'm too tired to party, it seems. I can't even work up the enthusiasm to get one of those little doohickeys that you blow into at New Year's Eve parties, where your breath expands and unrolls a paper funnel and it a emits a cheerful little sound. I just can't be bothered. I'm finally off the roller coaster, for which I'm grateful, don't get me wrong, but I'm too discombobulated to be truly thrilled the ride is finally over with.

But at least it's over with. Because, for a while there, the car of the roller coaster stopped five feet short of the platform, and I was unable to get off the stupid thing because of idiotic safety regulations.

If you're interested in the entire, windy, tale, take the jump. If not, feel free to skip. You have my blessing.

more...

Posted by: Kathy at 02:11 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Ooooh, lookie. Mike Rowe's painting the Mackinac Bridge a pretty shade of green.

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with all due apologies to Jeff G. for stealing his schtick. Again. For, like, the fortieth time. Because, seriously, I got bupkiss right now. Let alone gray matter.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 70 words, total size 1 kb.

So, I'm flipping around the boob tube this evening and I came across an ad for this documentary, which is airing on The Learning Channel later this month. The name of the documentary is Crazy Sexy Cancer.

Crazy Sexy Cancer is an irreverent and uplifting documentary about a young woman looking for a cure and finding her life.

In 2003, 31-year-old actress/photographer Kris Carr was diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. Weeks later she began filming her story. Taking a seemingly tragic situation and turning it into a creative expression, Kris shares her inspirational story of survival with courage, strength, and lots of humor.

With experimental treatment as her only option, Kris became determined to find answers where there were none. She traveled throughout the country interviewing experts in alternative medicine as she tenaciously dove head first into a fascinating and often hilarious holistic world. Along the way, she met other vivacious young women determined to become survivors. Their stories are as poignant and exciting as the women who tell them. As Kris's amazing journey unfolds, she realizes that healing is about truly living rather than fighting.

Crazy Sexy Cancer is more than a film, it's an attitude! It's about rising to the challenge of life, and no matter what, refusing to give up who you are at your core. This story is as funny as it is frightening, as joyous as it is outrageous. Ultimately, Crazy Sexy Cancer is a thought provoking film about, friendship, love and growing up.

Now, I don't want to get down on anyone telling their tale of survival over this beast of a disease. If I'm allowed, so are they. What I am going to go postal on, however, is the name of this documentary. Crazy Sexy Cancer?

What the fuck?

If you look at the title, and, just for fun, decided to diagram it, "cancer" would be your noun and "sexy" and "crazy" your adjectives. Adjectives, as any first grader could tell you, are meant to "enhance" your noun. Adjectives are meant to make a simple noun, like, say, "cancer," more descriptive. As far as our two adjectives here, "Crazy" is simple enough. It doesn't describe cancer in a technical way, but it does describe it, nonetheless. What I don't get, and won't ever get is how you could possibly describe cancer as "sexy." I ask you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, what could possibly be sexy about cancer? Cancer is, by definition, abnormal cell growth. Tumors. Stuff that shouldn't be there. Can tumors be sexy? Is there such a thing as MRI pr0n? Step right up, get your Pet Scan jollies right over here?

I think we all know what they're going for, and it isn't to highlight how sexy tumors are. It's rather about empowerment. It's about taking control of your disease, if you happen to be afflicted with this particular malady. It is, in essence, about highlighting all that Girl Power crap the Spice Girls foisted on us ten years ago. That's all well and good, but the inclusion of the word "sexy" in the title of this film, well, it just freakin' offends me. I can't tell you how much it makes my blood boil to hear cancer described as "sexy," let alone to receive the message that I, as a cancer patient, can be "sexy." Well whoop-de-freakin'-do. Thank you ever so bloody much. As if being "sexy" was the most important thing right now; as if sexiness is the only thing my soon-to-be renewed existence was meant to revolve around.

Cancer ain't sexy.

Being a cancer patient ain't sexy.

There is absolutely nothing sexy about the entire experience.

Is it sexy when you're recovering from having a tumor the size of a baseball cut out of you and you can barely wipe your own ass effectively because you're so weak and the IV tubing keeps getting in the way? Is that sexy? Is it sexy when you vomit bile and are unable to eat? Is it sexy when you can't walk four blocks to the grocery store for an entire month? Is it sexy when you're stuck for five hours at a time in a recliner at the oncologist's office, receiving the most toxic drugs a body can handle without dying (and even then some people do) intravenously? Are anemia and neutropenia---my two current maladies due to the chemo---sexy? Are blood disorders hot nowadays?

What the fuck?

None of these things are sexy. Nor do they have a flaming thing to do with sex appeal. It's cancer for chrissakes. IT'S NOT A SEXY EXPERIENCE. It's not meant to be. For God's sake, not everything that happens to you during this lifetime is meant to revolve around what makes someone happy in the pants. Furthermore, to try and sell it as a 'sexy' experience, or rather one wherein you, the victim of this disease, can still, reportedly, feel sexy is to cheapen the entire process. Because, as I've come to appreciate, you get cancer for a reason. That reason may be, in strict scientific terms, that you can't fight off tumors because of one genetic defect or another. Or it could be more metaphysical. It might just be that you got cancer because God thought you could handle it. That He decided there were lessons in this life that you were meant to learn and you could only do so by enduring this experience. I don't know, but if the only lesson I was meant to learn during this whole ordeal was that I could still be sexy while I'm as bald as a goddamn egg and sick as a dog, well, I'm going to be pissed off.

Cancer is not something Madison Avenue needs to sell. It's already being sold to one in three people around this world, and it's selling like hotcakes, I tell ya. Every damn day of every damn year. No one needs to hire an ad agency to sell cancer. The sales figures are doing just fine, thank you ever so much.

I wish the filmmaker well. I really do. I don't want to shit on her experience or what she learned during her experience with cancer. I'll tune in when the film airs. But she could have come up with a better title.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:04 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 1057 words, total size 6 kb.

Here's what it looks like when you receive chemo.

Comfy recliner notwithstanding, as you might guess, I've had a pretty shitty week so far.

You should really try and make me feel better by helping James out with a donation to his Walk to Cure Diabetes team.

If your donation is $50 or greater, you'll get a free Gooey Cake out of the deal, too.

AND IT'S TAX DEDUCTIBLE, MY DEVOTED CAKE EATER READERS!

{Ed. Oh, don't look at me like that. I warned you that a guilt sledge was probably coming your way. Don't be surprised that I actually wielded it.}

Posted by: Kathy at 09:26 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

1 You are looking HAWT girlfriend, especially with those hot little legs of yours. ;-) That room looks a whole lot like the room I go to for my iron infusions. Thanks for the picture.

Posted by: c.a. Marks at August 07, 2007 10:09 AM (T7eG4)

2 "hot little legs" Snort! They could only be hot if cellulite is your thing.

Posted by: Kathy at August 07, 2007 11:42 AM (ufifB)

3 Thanks for the picture. I think you're looking pretty f'n good, myself.

Posted by: Margi at August 07, 2007 01:32 PM (DwLKz)

4 Somehow I just can't get the words "chemo pron" out of my head.

Posted by: Robbo the Llama Butcher at August 07, 2007 02:12 PM (0JsTF)

5 "chemo pr0n?" Oh, good lord, Robbo! ;P

Posted by: Kathy at August 07, 2007 08:35 PM (ufifB)

6 c.a. is right. Hawt, girl.

Posted by: Chris Muir at August 07, 2007 08:40 PM (+CRDT)

7 That's my bride.

Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at August 08, 2007 10:18 PM (ufifB)

8 Yup,all the good ones are taken, MRN! Hope everything's doing well, my sister's doing her chemo right now. The nice thing is, research/attention is finally starting to focus on cancer.

Posted by: Chris Muir at August 09, 2007 07:35 AM (+CRDT)

9 Good Luck to your sister, Chris. I hope she's getting through it in style. I wish you both nothing but the best. Take care!

Posted by: Kathy at August 09, 2007 03:14 PM (ufifB)

10 Thanks-everyone's in this together,1 in 3 people ...! Time to make the big C a little c. Best wishes,you! C

Posted by: Chris Muir at August 09, 2007 10:05 PM (+CRDT)

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So, since I had my reproductive bits and bobs removed back in February,
I've been experiencing the joy and wonder that is menopause. At age thirty-six. Which is about, oh, fifteen years earlier than I should be experiencing said joy and wonder.

As you might imagine, ever since, I've been banging on with my doctors about getting on HRT, or Hormone Replacement Therapy. They haven't wanted me to go on it because, and I quote, "the estrogen could make your endometriosis flare." In some cases, like mine, estrogen acts as poison. It would make sense that they would want to limit the potential damage by very carefully reintroducing the same chemical that gave me cancer. But they held out hope: the minute I got off chemo, I could go on it because it was unlikely the endometriosis would survive the chemo. I've been waiting and waiting. It's been the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. No more hot flashes. No more sleep troubles. No more weeping and wailing. I could get through the ungodliness of chemo just to get to the good stuff.

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to wait that long. When Dr. Academic and I chatted last week, before my last treatment, he brought the subject up and asked if I wanted HRT, saying that he would be highly surprised if the endometriosis would be able to survive four treatments of chemotherapy. Dumbstruck, completely caught off-guard, I emphatically nodded yes. He said, "Ok, we'll get you going."

What did he put me on, my devoted Cake Eater readers? Would it be the bioidentical hormones I'd been reading so much about? Would it be some non-equine hormone variant of premarin? Oooh, ooh, Mistah Kottah? Don't keep me in suspense!

Well, the next question out of his mouth threw me for a loop. "Did Orthotricyclen have a low-dose when you were on it?"

Did Orthotricyclen have a low-dose? Orthotricyclen is the pill, ain't it? He's not actually suggesting.... "Uh, no. Just the regular dose. "

"Did you like it?"

"Well, not really. It was too much, if you get what I'm saying. I broke out all the time and gained weight. A lot of weight. That sort of thing."

He nodded. "Ok, well, that's good to know. This'll keep your skin clear and you shouldn't have the weight issues. Lots of women just take it because they won't break out." He bent down, pulled a pen and his prescription pad out of his pocket and scribbled off a prescription in his quick and highly illegible writing.

The absurdity of it hit me and I had to laugh. "I don't have a reproductive system any more and YOU'RE PUTTING ME ON BIRTH CONTROL?"

He simply grinned. "Low-dose birth control," he clarified, "but, yeah, birth control. Funny how it works out sometimes, eh?"

Heh.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ovarian cancer sucks.

Ovarian cancer treatment sucks.

But, to be clear, it ain't all bad.

And why isn't it all bad, you ask?

Well, because there's percocet in the world.

That makes up for an awful lot in my book.

The most blessed of molecules.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:34 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.

While I still have eyebrows.

Even though the flash kind of washes them out and you can't really see them, well, I know they're there.

Pretty bitchin' tan/hair line, no? I can't get the top of my pate tanned for love or money. It just won't do what I tell it to do.

It's acting very much like the hair that used to occupy that space. Go figure.

Sigh.

I can't wait for my hair to grow back.

*Spot the quote and you'll receive a bonus prize. Well, no, you won't, but you can bask in the admiration of your fellow commenters who got it wrong or didn't know it. Which, my devoted Cake Eater readers, is really all the recognition you'll need in a lifetime, no?

Posted by: Kathy at 09:00 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Yesterday, I met with a medical oncologist in Dr. Academic's practice to discuss the results of the genetic testing I mentioned in the middle of this very screedy post. Apparently, she's the one who deals with all the genetic testing in the practice, hence I met with her instead of Dr. Academic.

After showing up late for the appointment (Seriously, can these doctors EVER run on time? Would that be too much to ask? I've got things to do with my day and YOU'RE WASTING MY TIME WHEN YOU'RE LATE FOR MY APPOINTMENT!), she told me I came back negative for the BRCA mutation. She looked somewhat disappointed when I didn't drop to my knees and start kissing the carpet in an effort to show profound thanks to the Cancer Gods, but since I'd already cheered this discovery three weeks ago, when I chatted with Dr. Academic before my last treatment and he told me about the results, it wasn't like that was going to happen anyway.

While this is a good thing, and I'm happy for what it means in terms of not having increased surveillance for breast cancer, and for my siblings, too, who would have been run around the bend and beyond getting their own genetic testing and increased surveillance done, I'm not really sure how I feel about the fact we're still clueless as to how I came to be an ovarian cancer patient in the first place.

What's better in this situation? To finally know how something happened, or to be told that this incredibly painful and challenging experience that has taken up almost six months of my life is, and I quote, "a fluke"?

What's better? To know the cause of something, even though you probably couldn't have prevented said something in the first place, or to have to surrender your health for the better part of a year to the whims of chaos theory?

I don't know.

And that bothers me.

It's like having an unbearable itch that you can't scratch because Fate and the God of That-Which-We-Do-Not Know-Yet have your arms tied behind your back with a zip tie.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:08 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I vote for "better to know the cause." Because it would just bug me not to know. Unless the cause would make me feel guilty. Then I'd go with "better not to know." Of course you wouldn't know if it would make you feel guilty unless you knew what it was. Maybe better not to know so as not to take the risk. Of course that would also prevent you from knowing even if it would be the good kind of knowing. Hope this helped.

Posted by: Doug Williams at June 20, 2007 01:23 PM (IDBCo)

2

Posted by: Kathy at June 20, 2007 04:42 PM (4zpeM)

3 If it helps, even if you HAD the mutation, you still wouldn't know it was the cause - it'd just be very likely.

Posted by: Sigivald at June 21, 2007 04:27 PM (4JnZM)

4 According to my doctor, I'm a fluke breast cancer patient. My genetic testing came back negative, too. Yeah, I've been asking myself the same questions. If this isn't my genetics, then what on Earth is it? Did my boobs get mad because I called them small? *Looks down at chest* I was only kidding, you know. *Shrugs* I'm just hoping that whatever happened, it never happens again. I so don't want to do this again.

Posted by: Amy at June 25, 2007 05:07 PM (jI8YL)

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Quickly, because I've got a life to lead while I'm feeling well enough to lead it...

• I've come up with a new slot to peg another group of gogglers listed out in this post and it is the Who Let the Sick Person Out? Jesus, Really, My Latte Has 95% Less Sugar-Free Vanilla Now That A Bald, Sick Person Was Allowed to Enter My Orbit People.

  Curiously enough, they never say anything; when they lay their eyes on me, they simply look like someone abruptly shoved a lemon into their mouth and forced them to suck on it.

  According to these people, I'm, evidently, committing an etiquette faux pas when I'm out and about. It seems as if you look sick, you should be keeping your bald self at home, where you don't ruin this particular group's day by reminding them cancer exists.

• I was at the grocery store yesterday, picking up some things I needed for supper. Since it was a holiday, there were only a few cashiers working, and, as there were only a few people milling about the cash registers, it seemed as if the management had scheduled appropriately to maximize the employee-customer ratio for the benefit of all involved.

  I had five items in my hands, and because I wanted to get in and get out, like most normal human beings, I entered the lane with no people in line to pay. This should be standard operating procedure, no?

  Well, that's where you'd be wrong, my devoted Cake Eater readers.

  Two lanes over, an older, mustachioed gentleman, dressed up for the holiday in a sports coat, slacks, a polo shirt and loafers, was chatting with some friends he'd spotted. This is a normal occurrence in the local Cake Eater grocery store. It's a pretty tight-knit community and it's rare to go to the store and not run across fellow customers having a chat with friends they've run into. It's nothing out of the ordinary. Yesterday, however, was the exception that proved the rule.

  I entered said empty lane, thinking nothing of it. While I was waiting for the cashier to finish up with the person in front of me, I look over and I see the gentleman wrapping up his conversation and moving toward my lane. When he was halfway there---and keep in mind, we're talking about a single check-out lane's worth of distance----he said something, loudly, to his friends that implied someone had taken his spot in line. I don't remember exactly what he said, but the meaning was clear: someone had hoarked what was rightly his and he felt he needed to make a point about it. He followed it up with, "But I should probably let her go first anyway, don't you think?" It didn't take a rocket scientist to suss out that he was referring to me.

  While I was standing there, stunned, I wondered how he could have possibly thought I'd stolen his place in a line he was patently not occupying. Before I got too far into my mental meanderings, however, he then laughed in manner that I'm sure he thought would proclaim to the world that he was a wit, because not only had he managed to school me, he'd managed to come off as a good, properly sympathetic human being for being generous to a cancer patient.

  Bastard.

  If the jerk thought I'd taken his place---which I don't possibly see how ANY REASONABLE PERSON could deduce since he wasn't, ahem, in line, but was TWO, count 'em, two lines over---then he should have said so. Don't give me a freakin' pass because you think I'm on the verge of death. Spare me your fucking benevolence, pal. I've got people who are paid cash money to give me a hard time---and, believe you me, they don't care that I'm a cancer patient; I don't need to take your garbage for free.

  Yet, if you insist on dishing it out, that's just fine. I can take it.

  But you'd better be prepared for me to give it right back to you.

  Unfortunately, however, I didn't get the chance to unload both barrels at the guy because the bastard didn't even get into his precious line! He went to the cashier next to me. Can you believe this shit? The guy didn't even give me a chance to rip him a new one. The gall of it!

While the overwhelming majority of people whom I've come across since I've gone bald have been very, very kind, it's people like this who remind you that, well, perhaps we haven't evolved as much as we'd like to think we have. These people are unbelievably self-centered. They think the world revolves around them and their wishes, and if they're nice to me, well, it's still all about them. Don't get me wrong: I'm not looking for any favors or special treatment; I just want to be treated like I would be if I had hair.
Most people go out of their way to make sure this is the end result of their efforts. I've been behind the counter before---I know how hard it is to ignore what's right in front of you to make sure you offer an unusual customer the same customer service experience everyone else gets. My former employers actually trained us to do this. This training, when it became patently clear it was the correct way to go, bled into everyday life. I assumed most people knew this. I was wrong, I guess, to make that assumption. That my wrapped up, chemo'ed head can and does bring out the worst in some people, is something quite interesting, eh, my devoted Cake Eater readers?

There's insight to be had everywhere you look. You just need to observe to find it.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:46 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I had my second treatment on Friday.

Bleh.

I was required to check in at the oncologist's office at 9:20 a.m. Before I left at, roughly, three p.m. I endured a doctor's visit, one blood draw for labs (which all turned out pretty damn good, considering), and three separate attempts to hook me up to an IV, which would deliver the chemo. First try went bad after an hour, when the needle started banging up against a nerve, which in turn made my left hand and wrist hurt. They tried to back it out, to see if they could pull it away from the nerve but it didn't work. So the nurse then tried to stick me again, on the underside of my left forearm and that didn't work either---and I now have a big bruise to prove it. Finally, she called it quits (standard operating procedure meant to ensure the least amount of embarrassment and feelings of failure on both sides of the needle) and had another nurse come over and install an IV in my right hand instead. Which, of course, hurt as much as the first one, but I wasn't going to complain, simply because I wanted to get the hell out of there. The treatment room is fine and comfortable; my chemo buddies are fun to hang out with and we have nice chats, but there are other things I'd prefer to do with my day, if you get my meaning.

What I find interesting about all of this is that it takes a few days for the worst of the side effects to show up. You'd expect, considering all the toxic drugs that they're pumping into your system via a vein, you'd be sick immediately. Nope. While you don't necessarily feel great for the first two days, you can still function. The real joy shows up on day three and four. Which is where we're at now. Bone pain is my main wonder and worry right now. In my fibia, tibia, femur, hips, pubic bone, wrists---and wonder of wonders---the bottom rib on my right hand side. It's not as bad this time around as it was last because of a wonder drug named---ahem---Claritin. Go freakin' figure how this over the counter antihistamine works better than all the advil in the world, but it does. The only problem with it is that, well, you have to take twice as much as the box recommends you take (which is only intended for allergy use, mind you) to get the relief. Dr. Academic suggested this treatment when I met with him on Friday and I about bopped him on his pointy little academic head for not mentioning it sooner, particularly when he KNEW I was having problems with it last time. He is SUCH an academic, in fact, that on the white board in the examining room, he pulled up a diagram to get to the board, cleared off the board with an eraser and then wrote out the name "Claritin" in red dry erase marker, to emphasize the point. (What can I say? The man's got a flair for the dramatic, teachable moment.) What killed me, however, is that he spelled it wrong. Sigh. Alas, he's a busy man, and can't be expected to keep up with the least little bit of pain experienced by all of his patients going through chemo. Because, as I've learned from chatting with a few of them in the treatment room, he's got a lot of patients going through chemo (he's only in the office two days a week and he schedules them for when he can be there to oversee things, so a goodly portion of the treatment room is filled with his patients) and most of them are A LOT worse off than me. Stage II and Stage III women, who will be battling this disease with everything they've got----and, given the statistics, will most likely lose---while I'm just receiving a "prevention" round. I feel guilty calling the nurse every time I've got questions, lest I be distracting from someone who really needs the time and information the woman can part with. It's sad, but I really think that, partly, Dr. Academic enjoys being able to treat me because he thinks he can cure me. We get along, and he's not afraid to chat with me for extended periods of time and to have a laugh. I'm not so sure he's the same with his other patients.

Alas, I'm just being whiny. I survived it last time. I'll survive it this time around, too. Dr. Academic said I was taking it very, very well and that I should just keep doing what I'm doing to cope. I'll be over the worst of it by Wednesday, when all of the chemicals will have flushed out from my system, and then I'll spend the rest of the week recovering from it. By next Monday I should be as good as new, but it sucks having to wait that long. On the other hand, it's like being able to schedule having the flu. Quite odd.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to list off some interesting, and perhaps amusing, facts that I've garnered over the past few weeks.

• If you ever have to go to an oncologist's office, where they actually treat people with chemo, and you have to go to the bathroom, realize that when you flushed the toilet, you didn't break it simply because it ran for a very long period of time. They have to have toilets that flush loads of water simply because of all the chemicals people expel---otherwise the bowls would be eaten up.
• Every time I have a treatment, I am consistently the youngest person in the room. I sometimes have trouble with the way people look at me, because the majority of people are elderly, and they shake their heads in dismay at me. The general consensus, I've learned, is that I'm too young to be there and they feel sorry for me.

  The only consolation I can take from this is that because they're elderly, they avoid the swank recliners that my friend JoAnn and I snag each time, because they can't get out of them. We're younger and we can, however. So, we get the really sweet, plush and comfortable recliners in which we receive our treatments, while the elders stick to the recliners they can maneuver out of with ease. Honestly, our recliners are better than Laz-e-Boys because they have trays on each side on which you can keep within easy reach all the crap you've brought with you to keep yourself busy for the five hours you'll be there.

  If they weren't coated in vinyl, they'd be even better.

• Don't ever sit around and wait for an oncology nurse to call you back. Go on with your day and let it hit voice mail if you have to. Otherwise you could be spending all of what would be a normal, and potentially wonderful, day waiting for them to call.

  In a relatively funny aside, I had a question for the nurse this morning, so I called and left a message and was told that so-and-so would be calling me back because Dr. Academic's designated nurse is on vacation this week. The first words out of his mouth were, "Wow, working for Dr. Academic is a life-altering experience." Honestly, I'm glad for you, buddy, but I was more concerned about the amount of claritin I was taking to deal with the bone pain. Can we try and stay on point here, eh?

• Dr. Academic is turning out to be something of a fascination to me. He's an interesting guy and I find the whole process of how I came to be in his care, as one of the top gynecologic oncologists in the country, interesting. Pure luck of the draw. He is, undoubtedly, something of a hotshot. If you google him, well, loads of very important stuff comes up. Lots of publications. Lots of press releases---that sort of thing. He's a pretty accomplished guy. He's constantly on the lists the local magazines put out that say he's the guy you want if you need this particular kind of doctor. In an odd coincidence, one of my former employees from the Bou now works at his office, albeit for another oncologist, and she's a breast cancer survivor. She told me offhand one day that I couldn't have a better doctor, because hers defers to him. Hers is at Mayo.

  And treated King Hussein of Jordan when he was fighting his cancer.

  Take from that what you will.

  Also, according to the hippie RN neighbor, who knows of him from her hospital, when he was single, Dr. Academic apparently "got around," too.

  Heh. I totally believe it, too.

• I think all the Benadryl they push into me to prevent an allergic reaction while I'm receiving my treatments is actually helping me beat the husband at travel scrabble. Don't ask me why, but because the drugs make me woozy, I don't think I'm concentrating enough and I seem to do better that way. Go figure. Alas, he'll have his advantage back by next time, because they're cutting the amount they give me by half at that point.
• I had "genetic counseling" this past week.

  The trouble with all this ovarian cancer stuff is my age. It's rare for someone my age to have ovarian cancer. It's generally reserved for women over the age of fifty. So, the doctors have generally puzzled about how I might have gotten it and they haven't a clue. They seem to think that I might be positive for a genetic mutation of the BRCA 1 or BRCA2 chromosomes. According to Wikipedia:

  {...}These mutations can be changes in one or a small number of DNA base pairs (the building blocks of DNA). In some cases, large segments of DNA are rearranged. A mutated BRCA1 gene usually makes a protein that does not function properly because it is abnormally short. Researchers believe that the defective BRCA1 protein is unable to help fix mutations that occur in other genes. These defects accumulate and may allow cells to grow and divide uncontrollably to form a tumor.{...}

  So, I had to undergo genetic counseling, which is where a nurse sits you down, takes your family history, explains all of this to you, sets you up for a blood draw and then takes a big sample of blood to ship off to a DNA testing facility that is solely dedicated to testing people for this genetic mutation. If it turns out I'm positive for it, well, that's where the ovarian cancer came from, and that answers that question---because, as of right now, they have NO idea how I got it. Also, this means because there is a breast-ovarian cancer link, I will have a fifty-fifty shot of having breast cancer by the time I'm fifty.

  Good times, no?

  It gets better. If it turns out that I'm positive, well, then all my siblings have to get tested for it, because there's a fifteen percent chance that my sisters will contract ovarian cancer simply because I've had it and all my brothers have to get tested, too, because there's an increased risk of prostate cancer for them, as well as male breast cancer.

  Are you finally getting the idea of the numbers game we're playing here? Nothing's for sure, but there's an increased risk of this that or the other every time you turn around. And they always have a percentage attached to it. Not like it matters, though, because you get the feeling that if there's any chance of more cancer, no matter how unlikely in reality, they'll jump RIGHT on it.

  The nurse, after hearing what little I knew of my family history, didn't think I'd come back positive for it. We're not Ashkenazi Jews---at least not in the past two generations, we're not, beyond that I have no idea--and that's the group in the general population in which it's most common. She lumped me in the 9% risk group. Dr. Academic, however, laughed when I told him this and then snorted. He seems to think I'll come back positive for it.

  Don't quite know what to think about all of this. For me, right now, it simply means increased surveillance, which is a good thing. Every six months I'll switch off between mammograms and MRI's to see if anything's developed and with the increased screening, if anything arises, they'll be able to catch it quickly. For my siblings, however, I don't know that they'll be too pleased with me. It's one thing for your baby sister to get cancer; it's another thing entirely to find out you might be in a risky group as a result, and that she's the one who tipped you off.

  I hate being the messenger.

• Mr. H was in San Francisco last week. He generally does a lot of shopping when he's out there and he decided to visit one of my favorite stores when he was there. In case you were wondering, well, it's Louis Vuitton on Union Square. They have a huge flagship there and it's just a lot of fun to look at the windows, loaded with every leather good they have available on display. He told me in an email that he'd goggled there for a while, but I didn't think anything of it until yesterday, when we met up for our usual cup of coffee and he got out of the car with a big brown bag attached to his arm. After declaring he wanted to see my big, bad, bald self, I obliged him and then he handed me the bag.

  He bought me a scarf at Louis Vuitton. An honest to God Louis Vuitton scarf is wrapped around my head right now and even though I'm not feeling very glam, it helps having designer head gear on. I know I'm not a slob now, despite the fact I'm wearing an old tee shirt and a pair of shorts. I have at least one piece of designer gear on---and that makes me, ahem, eclectic.

  Heh.

  And it's even the perfect consistency of cotton. Not too thick, it's on the light side of things, it's breathable, with a bit of elastcity in the cotton. It wraps around my head perfectly and it doesn't slip. Fab-u! Love it, love it, love it.

  Anyone else who would like to contribute to the cause of keeping Kathy's head covered, can email me and I'll direct you to the other ones I'd like to have.

  Heh. Like that's going to happen.

  A girl can dream, though, can't she?

• And speaking of headgear, I needed a big straw hat to keep my skin covered while I'm going through the chemo. It makes you very sensitive to the sun, and so while you run around with 45 SPF on, a hat is necessary, too, because if you get sunburned while you're on chemo, it'll take you about four days to heal up from it, because your compromised immune system can't handle it. That's what happened to me, anyways, so the husband went out and bought me a big, floppy, light straw cowboy hat, with shells and assorted beads threaded onto leather strings acting as a hatband. It's very pretty and I get lots of compliments on it.

  The only problem with the hat is that I have to wear a scarf underneath it to keep from looking like I'm a little kid who's put on their Dad's hat. With the scarf, I can keep it in place, but it's floppy. It's not made out of the same stuff of which they make Stetsons, so it has a tendency to flip flop around in the wind. I don't really care about that, it's just that, well, with my bald head and the set of glasses I wear, well---sigh---when I wear the hat, I bear a slight resemblance to Kenny Chesney. The fact that he also wears bandanas to cover up his bald head, under his hat, doesn't help matters any, either.

  Sigh.

Ok, that should be enough for now. Go on and enjoy your day. I'm going to go nap after I switch out loads of laundry.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Thinking of you. . . {{{ hugs }}} Love, M

Posted by: Margi at May 15, 2007 10:16 AM (E6wcJ)

2 The Claritin thing is a hot tip! I'm going to talk to my resident alchemists and see if they've ever heard of it! And, hey, I don't know how many treatments you've got to go, or if you'd think it worthwhile, but you might want to think about a Portacath if your IV's keep blowing -- my first treatment blew out 3 veins in my hand, thankfully before they started the Adrimycin. I worked one day til noon, went down to surgery and had it put in with very light anesthesia and was back at work the following morning. Worked like a charm, no more hand sticks, and I was even a bridesmaid in a lowcut dress while wearing it. =] Was really a Godsend! Highly recommend it.

Posted by: Marianne at May 19, 2007 03:54 AM (1b3wj)

3 Thinking of you, sweetie [HUGS]

Posted by: Ith at May 21, 2007 01:21 PM (T2ixI)

4 Hi! A friend on my Livejournal list, Ithirial, told me about your blog and sent me over. It feels so good to read about another person's experience with this disease. I'm fighting breast cancer, and the chemo is driving me nuts. Makes me so sick. Ugh. I, too, am usually the youngest person in the chemo room (at 29), and I get the same headshakes. But that's okay. I hope you don't mind me peeking in. It just feels better to see someone else going through this, too.

Posted by: Dragonsinger at May 29, 2007 06:50 AM (jI8YL)

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So, it's been Side-Effect City at the Cake Eater Pad lately.

Since my first chemo treatment, almost three weeks ago, I've experienced everything from joint pain and swelling to bone and muscle pain to nausea to fatigue to a complete and utter five-day loss of appetite. It's been an adventure---and I use that as a euphemism, in case you weren't familiar with my particular brand of sarcasm---waking up every morning and wondering what it's going to be today. Because it will be something new and usual. You're assured of it. Fortunately, however, the side-effects are temporary, and most of the ickiness is over with by the fifth day, when most of the drugs are out of your system. Then you have to deal with recovering from the chemo, because it demands you take a few days off to recover from it. It's sort of like when you know you're done with the flu, but you're weak and ineffectual as a human being because your body needs time to recover. That lasted for four days in my case. Then I felt fine. My energy surged to pre-chemo levels this past Monday and I've felt like a rock star ever since. Last week I did all of the laundry by myself for the first time since my surgery, at the end of February. I managed to get the house cleaned up, except for the vacuuming, which the husband graciously agreed to do, because I'm still afraid I'll rip my innards to shreds if I push the floor sucker around the Cake Eater pad. I'm thinking about my spring planting and am starting to plan that out. I even manged to rip George Tenet a new one. I'm feeling pretty good right about now, and I really like it. I want it to stay that way, too. I like feeling good, because when you spend, literally, months not feeling good, or even normal, well, you treasure the time you feel well. It's cliched beyond all belief, but it's the truth. Everything feels better now. It really does. Food smells and tastes better. My evening glass of wine is a joy to imbibe. Spring is springing and I'm enjoying it even more this year than in years past. It's a rebirth not only for Mother Nature, but for myself as well. Life feels pretty damn good right now. Because I'm feeling good. Yet, my attitude might change by the end of the week. Barring any complications in the meantime, I have my next treatment scheduled for this Friday.

But that's in the future.

There's just one thing, though. Just one side-effect of the chemo that's still happening. Think you can guess what it is, my devoted Cake Eater readers? You can? Ok, good. Give it your best shot! YES. That's right. It's {insert drumroll here} hair loss!

Woo-freakin'-hoo, people!

It started, roughly, a little over a week ago, when I noticed I didn't have to shave the 1,023 square inches that comprise the surface area of my legs every day. It was every other day. Same with the armpits. Then, last Monday, twelve days out from my first treatment, my hair started coming out. Now, my devoted Cake Eater readers, when I have hair, I have a serious head of hair. It's thick. It's curly. It's long. And, for the most part, it's a pain in the ass. I whine as much about it as I possibly can. Because I can. I have a tempestuous relationship with my hair. I always have. It's Petruchio and I'm Kate. It's a love-hate relationship if there ever was one. Yet, it is also, quite seriously, my best feature. It makes or breaks my appearance. If it's out of control and frizzed out, creating what the husband calls "The Halo Effect," where all the broken ends rise towards the heavens, creating a halo of frizz that can be seen when I'm backlit, well, I look like hell. If, however, it's under control---easily achieved in January, when there's little to no humidity---I look pretty damn good. It is my crowing glory---to use an trite phrase to drive the point home.

I knew this was coming. My hair was going to fall out and I was going to be bald. Hair loss is a side-effect of both the carboplatin and the taxol I receive in my treatments. It was going to happen. I knew it was. I just wish it hadn't started to fall out when I felt so good. But, perhaps, there's a reason for that. Perhaps it's a built-in period of time to reestablish your good will towards life so you can deal with the fact that your hair has lost its will to be attached to your scalp, and any privacy you might have had regarding your diagnosis is shot to hell. Now, suddenly, everyone and their mother knows you have cancer. Or, in my case, had cancer. Because people know now. There's no getting around it. You look different than everyone else, so they notice the incongruity you represent---you're the one thing that's not like the other---and they look at you. They look hard. I have to say, my devoted Cake Eater readers, the accompanying reactions are interesting. Because if they're looking at me, well, I'm looking just as hard at them.

That said, I'm not bald just yet. That'll happen tonight because my head has suddenly turned into Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, and is shedding at every opportunity. If only it made that neat tinkling sound every time it shed, I'd have it made. I had to cut it short the other day because the hair loss was too unruly, too out-of-control. Go figure that my out-of-control hair would be out-of-control when it started to fall out.

They tell you that the best way to minimize the trauma of hair loss is to take it down to the scalp when it starts falling out. Otherwise, you just have to wait for it to do it's business. And it's a messy business. Particularly when your hair is long, because it comes out root to tip---and if your hair is over a foot long, well, my devoted Cake Eater readers, it looks like Chewbacca's been spending some time in your bathroom. Dr. Fuzzy Sweater told me to cut it short beforehand, so that it didn't create as much of a mess when it did fall out. I blatantly ignored this piece of advice. Fuck that, I thought. I'd had so much taken away from me, in such a short period of time, and I hadn't been ready for it. When my hair went, I decided, it was going to go on my terms---not anyone else's. I know it may seem a little whacko, but so much of what happens to you as a cancer patient is determined by other people---your doctors, your nurses, their schedulers, the lab technicians, and even the side-effects of the drugs you're on control you, as well. Cancer is like riding a roller coaster at an amusement park: you show up for the ride, but everyone else is in control---and all you can do, or are required to do, is hang on for dear life and scream at the appropriate times. So, when you can exert control over something, well, you grab the bull by the horns and you go for a ride.

So I did. It involved a barbershop, a pair of clippers and a willing barber. While I personally think the Marines would be happy with my hair as it is right now, the husband tells me it's not high and tight enough. What the hell, I wonder, would qualify? My hair is now less than an inch long in most places. This means, in the scheme of things, that I left, roughly, eleven or twelve inches of very thick, brown and blonde, curly, color-treated hair on the floor of the husband's barber's shop last Thursday. Don, bless him, had agreed to be my back-up a week before. The husband had offered to shear me. He has a set of clippers and I'm sure he would have done a fine job. I, however, wanted him to have a back-up in case he felt uncomfortable with the idea of it as the time came closer. When it came down to it, he felt Don would do a better job, so we got a last minute appointment, walked down to his shop and sat down for a shearing.

It was bizarre to be clipped, I have to say. I know that my devoted male Cake Eater readers probably deal with the buzzing every two weeks or so, but it was my first time and man, did, it feel weird. This vibrating thing was running along my scalp, cutting my hair as quickly as it's ever been cut, and long locks of hair it had taken me years to grow were falling to the floor as quickly as Don could move the clippers. The thought crossed my mind that someone had to invent this thing. How on earth did they come up with the idea that this vibrating thing would be the best way to cut hair? The most efficient way to cut hair? How did they think this up? I had no idea then, and I still haven't a clue. But, before I knew it, all the hair was gone. Don hadn't taken me down to the scalp. I hadn't mentioned that to him, so that was fine, because everyone in the shop was telling me how cute I looked with my hair this short. I didn't know what to say because I didn't have my glasses on. When I saw myself, I gasped a little bit, surprised at just how short it was.

And then Don made me laugh by telling me I looked just like a lesbian.

Because I do look like a lesbian now. And he's not the only one who's told me so. My brother called me the next day, after seeing the photo the husband had lightly bullied me into posing for and then emailed out, and he said the same thing. My hair is short. And it is cute, in a pixie-ish sort of way. It's soft if you run your hands down it; if you run your hands up it, well, it feels like a brush you'd pull out of your shoeshine box to polish your nicest pair of John Lobb Cordovan wingtips.

But it's still falling out.

It's just doing so in a more manageable way. I'm not clogging the drain now. Any long, brown hairs that are on the floor now are the husband's, not mine. My head gets cold, so I wear hats and do-rags when I go out---and to hide the fact that it's getting a little thin in spots. It's interesting, watching people watch me. Because, like I wrote up there, lo those many paragraphs ago, I can't hide it anymore. If you're wearing a hat or a do-rag, and your hair is as short as mine is, and your eyebrows are thinning out, like mine are, well, the chances you're a cancer patient are pretty good. (Although, I know some women who would pay really good money to have their eyebrows shaped like mine are now.) People look at you. They can't help it. They just do. What's interesting is how they respond to your cancer-ridden (or not) presence. I've devised a series of categories to place them in, because it's amazing how many of the responses are the same.

Ahem.

• First off you have the I'M NOT LOOKING AT YOU People. Theyr'e not looking at you. No, they're not. You just thought they were looking at you. They'll swear on a stack of bibles that they're not looking at you. You're wrong. Their pupils are firmly set directly in the middle of their sockets, they're looking directly ahead, and NO they did not SEE YOU. They'd swear they didn't. And if they did just for one fraction of a second, well, they didn't mean to see you. They really didn't. It was an accident and it will never happen again! EXCEPT THAT THEY JUST DID! AIEEEEEE! Oh, Holy Hell! Their eye slipped over to the corner and...they forced it by sheer will back to center. OHMYGODDIDTHEYNOTICE??? I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THEM FEEL LIKE THEY'RE IN A FREAK SHOW! I CAN'T LOOK! REALLY, I CAN'T. LOOK AT THE GROUND LOOK AT THE GROUND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST LOOK AT THE GROUND!!!!

  These are the people who pick up the pace and get by you really quickly.

• Second, you have the Smiley People. They're the ones who notice you, and make sure you notice them noticing you, then they break out in a big smile, to show you that you shouldn't feel awkward in their presence because---ahem---they understand.

  While their sincerity is sometimes hard to judge in an instant, I'm not knocking the Smiley People. They're the nice ones. You run into a lot of them when you take the shortcut to the oncologist's office through the hospital.

• Third, you have the No, My Mother Never Told Me It Was Rude to Stare. Why Do You Ask? People. They stare. They don't hide that they're staring at you. If you're a moving target, they will move with you to make sure their view of you stays unimpeded. Sometimes their jaws drop. Most of the time they manage to hide their Cro-Magnon Man instincts, however, and fit in with other Homo Sapiens and manage to just come off as incredibly rude.
• Fourth, and finally, we have the There, But For the Grace of God, Go I People. They're an interesting species. They notice you and they have a visceral reaction to you. It's not one that's meant to shun you or make you feel badly, it's just that you really don't matter. You're instantly out of the equation. Your covered head is simply the catalyst for them to think about how they would deal with the disease. You can see it play out on their faces. They're not sad that you have cancer; they're suddenly and abruptly sad because, one day, they might get it. And, judging by the reactions, their world will end if they do.

That it's so far. I might come up with new categories, we'll just have to see what happens. Oh, and I should mention there are plenty of people who look, but just look away, too. Then they just go about their business, like they would have before you wrapped your head up in a bandana. But they're hardly the majority. On the whole, however, it's been an excellent people watching experience.

And I'm not even bald yet. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow.

{Insert wiggling of thinning eyebrows here}

Posted by: Kathy at 05:59 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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A brief snippet of conversation over two steaming bowls of Cream of Wheat, approximately twenty minutes ago:

The Husband: "Do you want some craisins for your Cream of Wheat?"

Me: "No, I don't want to puke up any little red things later on."

The Husband: "That's a bit morbid, but I see your point."

UPDATE 8:19 p.m. 4/20/07: Just for the record, no, I haven't thrown up.

Not once.

That was me being paranoid. They've got me on three different anti-nausea drugs, decadron, ativan, and compazine, and they seem to be doing the trick, even if they all have their own little side effects associated with them, like drowsiness, fatigue, and a complete loss of appetite, and in the case of the decadron (which I had to take at three different, specific, times yesterday, before this even started) a flushed face, anxiety and sleeplessness. (Yeah, so last night was a real joy, because I had to take it at ten and wake myself up at four in the freakin' morning to take another dose.) But I haven't puked. And the oncologist swears that I won't, provided I keep up with these medications over the next three days. My job, as the RN pointed out to me right now, was just to stay on top of the medication (i.e. don't wait until the symptoms show up and then take it) and to rest, and I should be fine by Tuesday, when most of the drugs will have worked their way through my system.

The chemo procedure itself was, well, pretty boring, on the whole. It took about five hours, all told, to receive the drugs via IV---and I received them in a very swank recliner, in a room full of about twenty-five other people, receiving their own chemo regimens, who all had their own swank recliners. It was sort of like day camp for sick people, but instead of doing arts and craft projects, we all watched tee vee, read, listened to iPods, or, in the case of the husband and myself, we played a game of travel Scrabble, wherein I kicked his bony little ass by about fifty points. (That's what happens when you get stuck with the 'Q' at the end, after having already been beaten into submission by a few triple word scores.) Fortunately, I didn't have any allergic reactions to the drugs, and tolerated them well, except for when they pushed a half-sized bag of the decadron into my system and I thought I was having an hour long hot flash, but, again, that's just a side effect of the drug and it was remedied by a cold washcloth to the back of my neck. I tolerated the three hour taxol drip well, but by the time the half-hour carboplatin drip was done, the last bag of the day, I wasn't feeling so well, sort of like I had the beginnings of a bad case of stomach flu. Fortunately, we were on our way home and in and out of Walgreens, with all of my prescriptions, in a shot. And, within fifteen minutes, I had compazine in my system and it started working immediately. Enough for me to take a long nap. Which felt good, considering I had very little sleep last night.

So, all in all, it's going better than I expected. Which is good, because I kind of low-balled my expectations, assuming the worst. What I now have to look forward to is being immuno-compromised by next weekend, possible anemia, potential decreased white cell count (furthering the problems with my immune system), complete hair loss within three weeks, and, perhaps, neuropathies in my hands and feet from the taxol. We'll just have to see how it all shakes out.

Just in time for my next chemo session, three weeks from today.

Good fun, no?

And, just remember, my devoted Cake Eater readers, I'm already cancer free.

I ask again: good fun, no?

What's that line about the cure being worse than the disease?

And, Robbo, craisins are simply dried cranberries. They look just like raisins. Except they're red.

Posted by: Kathy at 07:43 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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The husband and I attended "Chemo Class" at the oncologist's office this morning. During class they give you the rundown on what will be happening to you during the treament, how you will feel afterwards and what the major side effects of chemo are. We toured the treatment room, we chatted about wearing jewelry during treatment (You shouldn't, just in case you're allergic to the chemo. They don't want to have to cut your rings off.), hair loss, skin and nail care, mouth care, infections, and, most importantly, nutrition. They then tell you that nutrition can be a major factor in how you feel, and that it can help control some of the adverse effects of chemo. The class was mainly a primer and they sent us home with a boatload of literature, neatly organized in its own expandable envelope. One little booklet from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, titled, "Eating Hints for Cancer Patients: Before, During and After Treatment," has some wonderfully helpful tips I'm sure we'll be using during all of this.

What I found interesting were the tips they gave in case you should lose weight and need to get your calorie count back up. They're simple, helpful tips to boost your count without having to eat more food---which might be an issue as appetite loss can be a problem. The last thing you want to have to do when you have no appetite is eat more. They include things like:

• switching to whole milk


• making fortified milk with whole milk and powdered milk


• add sour cream to cream soups


• folding unsweetened whipped cream into mashed potatoes (ed. heavy whipping cream has six grams of fat per tablespoon. Don't ask I how know this.)


• make hot chocolate with cream and add marshmallows


• melt cheese on top of casseroles, potatoes and vegetables


• add cheese to omelets and sandwiches


• use melted butter or margarine as a dip for seafoods, such as lobster, crab, scallops and shrimp


• stir melted butter into cream soups, sauces and gravies

I could go on, but I think you get the gist. What the cardiologist loathes, the oncologist loves.

Heh.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:24 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I finally, finally find a product that controls my curly hair and now it's all going to fall out in approximately three weeks.

Go freakin' figure.

You just can't win if you've got curly hair. Really. It sucks trying to find something that tames the wild beast that is the mop on your head. And you try everything that comes down the pike. Believe you me, straight-haired people of the world, you'll never have the product problems I have had over the years. But I found something. And it works. It does what it says it's going to do. And you, who have had the ol' bait and switch pulled on you too many times to count when it comes to "frizz control" have a hard time believing it. And when you finally believe it, you jump for joy, secure in the knowledge that, unless the company goes bust, your hair worries are at an end for the time being.

Then, of course, because God enjoys a good laugh every now and again, you get cancer and have to have chemo. Which makes your curly hair fall out. And then the doctor tells you it may grow back in differently. The color may be different. The texture may be different.

At which point, if you've got my luck, you'll probably be stuck with a whole lot of product made to tame curly hair you no longer have. Probably.

Alanis Morrissette should write a song or something.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:20 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Or, Why It's Generally Considered a Bad Idea to Chat With an Oncologist Whilst High on Percocet.

If you're interested, take the jump.

(Parts One and Two of the Neverending Ovarian Cancer/Hysterectomy saga can be found here and here.) more...

Posted by: Kathy at 02:14 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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