Checking in on Amy

I haven't written in a while because the first few days of healing from surgery #2 were pretty boring and also frustrating. It felt like such a setback to be healing from scratch all over again, especially so soon.  My mom spent a few days in Barrie with me after my surgery, and my sister even came for a quick visit last weekend. It was wonderful to have them here to help look after me and be my cheerleaders. Mom is really good at letting me be quiet when that is what I need. We took a walk every morning, drank lots of tea, then spent lots of time sitting quietly either reading or knitting or stitching. We went on one excursion to do a little bit of birthday shopping for my girls. Mom stayed until Thursday after taking me to my nursing appointment Wednesday evening where my bandages were removed. Gloriously, my drain was also ready to be removed. I can't tell you how much better I felt with the drain out; it was the definitely the most uncomfortable part of this surgery. I thin...

I had my first post-chemo appointment with my oncologist today and he had great news to share. My MRI looked really good! Lymph nodes are looking clear and there is only a very small tumour left in my breast after chemo. He explained that they can't even really tell if it is a tumour for sure and that it may just be scar tissue.  This was the good news I was hoping for, but the EVEN BETTER NEWS is that the planned surgery is a lumpectomy and lymph node removal! After mentally preparing for a much more invasive surgery I was surprised and delighted by this news. I don't have a surgery date yet, but it should be sometime in September. If they do a lumpectomy as planned, they will examine the tissue they remove (what remains of the tumour as well as the tissue around it) and that will inform the rest of my treatment going forward.  Tomorrow I have my first immunotherapy-only treatment (the drug is called Herceptin) which happens in the chemo suite where my other treatments were. ...

I'm 9 days out from my last chemo treatment and I'm feeling more like myself every day. :) Although I have probably lost sight of what 'normal' flavours are I'd say my tastebuds are at about 75% today, which is something to celebrate. My mouth has been sore the last couple of days; it was sore last round too and I'm not sure if I mentioned it then. I have avoided getting any actual true mouth sores but there is a tenderness to my gums and parts of my mouth that makes me think I narrowly avoided them.  Our morning walks yesterday and today were the first that have felt good from start to finish, so my fatigue is fading and that is nice. I'm still pretty tired after walks but it is nice to feel the small improvements. My adventures with the open wound meant way less activity than usual for the last few weeks and it feels good to get moving a little more. My brain is also feeling a bit more normal the last couple of days. Brain fog is hard to measure. Sometimes...

Here are my selfies from my FIRST chemo eve on April 13th and my LAST chemo eve which is today (August 10th). It's hard to believe that four months have passed since then. I am very glad that this first phase of treatment is finally coming to an end. It has been a bit of a marathon. The image from April is mirrored...I must have changed a setting on my phone since then. Both picc lines have been in my left arm. :) I'm going into my last chemo treatment with a similar mindset to the one I had before the first treatment. I'm glad things are moving along. I trust my doctors. I was nervous the first time because I didn't know what to expect. I am nervous now because I DO know what to expect - that I'll feel great until Saturday, really awful for a couple of days, then suffer broken tastebuds and fatigue for a few more days after that. I know I'll have trouble finding food I want to eat, but that the food will stay down. I know how much it helps to stay hydrated and ...

Update one day later...we are good to go for chemo #5 tomorrow! Read on if you missed this week's excitement. -×-×-×-×-×-×-×- It has been a lovely last few days. Quality time with my sister and her family this weekend was very good medicine for my heart and soul. We lucked out with fantastic weather and the cousins made the most of the beautiful days. The dogs had fun too! They are also photogenic. ;) Chemo port rejection story... It had been about 2 months since my chemo port was put in. In that time it had a good start healing, then things regressed a bit, but with the advice of my amazing nurses things were looking a bit better again a week or two ago. Still, the incision never completely closed up (one stubborn little end just would not heal) and I have been using steri strips to help keep things in place and encourage healing. Well, over the last couple of days my body decided to assert itself and rejected the port once and for all.  !!! Skip the next paragraph if you don'...

  Many things have happened in the week since my last post, so I am breaking this one up to help me organize my thoughts. Side Effect Report Treatment went well last week, and my side effects are consistent with what I have experienced with previous chemo treatment. If anything, I was a little bit less tired on the weekend than I have been previously, perhaps thanks to the extra recovery week. My sense of taste is the worst it has ever been, though, so that has been really annoying. Textures and flavours are all not quite right, and I have had to give myself little pep talks in order to eat properly this week. My finger numbness feels about the same. My feet feel more numb than last time, but better when I move more. It feels like my brain fog has been worse this time around, but it is difficult to know for sure as this has not been a normal week. We have been busy, and that makes it feel like I can't keep up. Grade 8 Graduation Our family has officially graduated from Codrington S...

I think this is the longest I've gone without writing a post. This week has flown by. I did lots of walking in the beautiful spring weather and have averaged about 10 km each day. Monday was the first day that I wasn't totally exhausted after a walk, and I am determined to walk as much as I can while I'm feeling well. The numbness in my hands and feet seeems to have improved a bit (or else just seems better since I feel better?) and my taste buds have definitely recovered a little bit, though they are still not at their full tasting potential. On Tuesday I attended an online 'Look Good Feel Better' workshop about skincare during cancer treatment. It was fun, despite being online, and I feel more prepared to deal with losing my eyebrows if that ever happens. :) It was nice to see a bunch of bald heads in the Zoom call and the people who ran the workshop were kind and knowledgeable. My skin has been VERY dry, and I am very sensitive to the sun these days so I have to ...

This weekend Rick and I are up at the cottage and our kids are not! We have never been up here alone except when doing big jobs like installing kitchen cabinets, so it's kind of weird but also VERY NICE. We are so thankful to our chosen Barrie family for kidnapping our kiddos and taking them camping this weekend. It's cool this weekend - single digits at night - but beautiful and sunny. These beauties were blooming at the point and I could not resist taking a picture: I'm definitely more tired this week than I was 3 weeks ago. We just got back from a post-dinner dog walk and I can feel how tired I am even though it wasn't far or fast. My taste buds continue to be dull and I'm noticing more of a metallic taste in my mouth this week. Sensations of being hungry or full are not normal either, so the desire to eat or not eat isn't normal. No nausea though, so I'll continue to be grateful for that. Thank you to Fiona for another wonderful walk in the w...

What glorious weather we had this past weekend! Weather in May can be so unpredictable. In the last 5 years we have seen just about everything, including snow. We were very lucky to be able to spend this unusually warm one at our cottage. Our cottage is part of a corporation including 8 families that have each purchased a share in what used to be a lodge/cottage resort. Leading up to Victoria Day weekend we usually coordinate with the others to do the spring job of putting in our big docks. This year two weekends were put aside for this and we were not able to attend the first. We arrived this weekend (the second of the two) to find that the big jobs had all been completed. Of course, no trip to the cottage is without 'work' of some kind, and our water heater didn't make it through the winter so Rick spent half of Saturday replacing the element. I am certainly feeling better every day post-chemo. More like myself. My surgical incisions seem to be healing OK. Every day less ...

Today Rick and I celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. I am so lucky to have such an amazing, supportive, loving partner. I wrote last week about things I have found easy and hard as I go through cancer treatment. Seeing worry on the face of the human I love most is one of the hardest things. I have wondered why I feel this way, and I think it is just because inside his look of worry is everything else. All of his love and care. Every story and adventure. And we have had quite a few adventures! 💗 I found this flashback photo on our trip blog from the year 2000! This was taken in Amsterdam: These next two are from our honeymoon in Newfoundland in 2003. We spent 5 weeks camping our way around the island. First photo is from a LONG hike that involved a cold stream crossing. Makes my feet cold just to think about it. Pardon the glare on this one. This was taken in Ecuador in 2005 (or it may have been 2006 as we were there over the New Year's holiday). We crui...

This second round of chemo has been similar to the first. I was feeling pretty good the first couple of days (if you can consider a steroid high 'good!') and like last time that is being followed by a couple of really slow and tired days. This round I have found that the feeling of exhaustion and brain fog bothering me more than the first time. The first round of chemo I wasn't sure what to expect, so to have my symptoms limited to fatigue and a nagging headache seemed like a gift (which it really is) and that 'pleasant' surprise may have distracted me from the details. Or perhaps things are a little worse this time. Hard to say. I've been trying to explain how I feel. How my brain feels. It is weird. But I will try. This feels sort of like jet lag. The kind where you are exhausted AND you still have a 10 hour day in front of you and you need to gather your wits so you don't get on the wrong train and it takes all of your concentration. The kind where you ge...

This week will be chemo treatment #2. I'm not overly worried about it since I know how last round went and I can anticipate how things may go. Some symptoms are cumulative, so I can't really predict how well I will feel, but as long as it isn't drastically different from last time I know I will manage. The hardest things about my illness so far haven't had to do with treatment.  Admitting to myself that something was wrong with me was hard. Saying the words out loud to Rick, the girls, and to our family doctor was hard. Telling our friends and loved ones that I am sick was hard. Admitting that I needed to take a leave from work was hard. Waiting for my first couple of appointments to be scheduled was hard. The hardest things involved facing the reality of a serious illness, confronting my mortality (because that is unavoidable), and witnessing/absorbing the worry and pain of my loved ones. These are BIG things. These are the things that shifted my reality and in some wa...

We spent this weekend in St. Catharines visiting with our families. It was great to see everyone in person. We hadn't joined them for Easter since we didn't know how I'd feel after my first round of chemo and I didn't think I should be spending hours inside with everyone given the pretty good chance that someone in the family is exposed to COVID every day. Having a visit with our parents and with my siblings felt like it helped everyone understand that I really am doing OK - that I am still myself and that not too much has changed. I know that if I were in their shoes I'd be worried about them and probably not believing them if they told me they were OK. We have lived in Barrie for over 18 years and this is the first time that I think the distance is feeling bigger than it actually is. Reassuring people that you are feeling well on the phone just doesn't have the same effect as being with them in person. We went for a hike on Sunday with almost the whole family ...

This afternoon I got some news I wasn't expecting. The genetic counsellor called to let me know that I was NEGATIVE for all nine of the breast-cancer-related gene mutations they tested me for. (Negative = GOOD in case you have forgotten!) I didn't realize how much I was expecting to hear that I had a bad gene until I found out I didn't. Now, of course, there are potentially 'bad' copies of other genes out there that we aren't aware of yet, but I will still count this as a win. During the call I also elected to go ahead with a larger panel of genetic testing for other genes linked to non-breast cancers and will find out more about those results soon. This was a great way to end the day. I got to spend today with kid #1 and was glad for her company, so the day was already shaping up to be a good one. :)

This morning I met my medical oncologist. There was LOTS of information shared at this appointment, but I'll cut to the important bits. My first chemo treatment will be Thursday April 14th. (Mom...I know I said it was the 15th but they switched it, I swear!) I'm going to have a PICC line put in next Wednesday. My MRI will happen Thursday morning before my chemo treatment. Six chemo treatments are planned, with each treatment 3 weeks apart. In terms of side effects we expect the 'usual' ones (hair loss, nausea, fatigue, joint/muscle/bone pain, etc.) but also some bigger long-term ones. My ovaries are not going to survive the treatment so it looks like I'm going to truck right on past perimenopause and bring on the real thing. Awesomesauce. Lol. It's funny how 'big' news like that seems like it's not that bad when you are focused on a much bigger problem.  In other news, we have spent lots of time the last few days working on re-locating daughter #2 to...

Last week I received little gestures of caring from so many people. So far I have been able (and eager) to respond to everyone's messages. A wise friend reminded me that I may reach a point when I don't have much energy to write replies, and that I shouldn't think twice about NOT replying when that time comes. Know that I will always receive your messages with gratitude even if I don't reply. Other things that have arrived on my doorstep this week: a warm beverage; surprise lunch; a plant; food for the freezer. All of the deliveries made me smile but only one made me laugh out loud . That one was a GIANT delivery of cookies and butter tarts and cupcakes and edible cookie dough that I was sure was a mistake (since it was enough for a really big party) but was not a mistake. We shared some of these treats and ate some of them and stashed the rest in the freezer. Treats for weeks! Thanks, brother. ;) Among the kind messages I have received was an email from one of ...