I am going through my blogs here as on my old community page on LotsaHelpingHands. The account below of my side effects 5 weeks after I started chemo in 2022 stayed on draft. I wrote it, reviewed it, decided it was too whiny, and published a gratitude post instead. Which I was…I am… grateful. But […]
This is not one of my cancer posts But it is a cancer post… It is a revisit of an article I wrote in 2016. Nearly ten years ago, I spent three weeks volunteering at CerviCusco Clinic in Peru. I was part of a service team sponsored by my employer at the time, BD, whose […]
It has been about 5 months since I posted here. Things have progressed as they must even as there have been other developments and surprises. Biopsy clear. The mass we saw during my post-surgery, pre-radiation mammogram in April turned out to be nothing—not more cancer, that is. But the biopsy we did to get to […]
These is a long and long overdue update. I’ve just posted this on my “lotsa helping hands” community page, but I know many of my international friends are not on that app, so I’m cross-posting here with minor edits. Last week Friday was chemo day, but in the morning beforehand I had my post-surgery/pre-radiation therapy […]
Friends have been reminding me how I haven’t updated this blog and I realize this may be the only way I’ve communicated out to some friends about the goings-on. I’ve kept up more with IG and my helpinghands app. Totally understand if you don’t have socials though. Since last post in December…let’s just rattle off […]
It’s the holidays! I got to celebrate Christmas with friends’ family with their adorable kids. There was gift-giving, lots of food, laughter and companionship. At the moment, I am feeling quite weak, but very eager to be doing things. I want to drive to Santa Cruz, maybe get in the water, I want to get […]
I haven’t written much here. Actually, save for my typical day of chemo updates on LotsaHelpingHands and my occasional IG story/post, I haven’t written much since the start of chemo #3. I’ve been feeling a bit downtrodden and didn’t feel like sharing my gloomy thoughts. I didn’t feel like writing that I had been feeling […]
Don’t think I’ve got much wit in me this post. Just going to run through my day of chemo cycle #3 today. Which was textbook. By the way, I use the word chemo to mean, more appropriately, infusion because I get both chemotherapy and immunotherapy infusions. Not all breast cancer (BC) patients get immunotherapy. And […]
I’m at Day 5 now and I suspect this is what it means by your chemo cycles being predictable but also cumulative. I have the same side effects: nausea, loss of appetite (unpredictable taste buds not helping), fatigue, weakness, throat sores, and the never ending cycle of constipation and diarrhea and, of course, bone pain […]
Almost. One of the most intriguing side effects of chemotherapy is hair loss. It’s the one that I have had the most controversial (I think) comments about before it’s even begun. Some comments I’ve gotten include: I probably won’t lose my hair and thinking I will is negative thinking, or even if I lost some […]
Journal of odd days (even ones too) 