Wednesday, August 10, 2016

I'm feeling quite good, but I'm losing my mind!



Literally, I'm losing my mind.  I forget simple things on a regular basis.  Sure, I forget things everyone forgets- where I put the remote, where did I put down my phone & what I was going to do when I get into a room.  But it goes beyond that.  I'm finding myself completely forgetting words and having to work really hard to find them.  I took the twins to the beach 45min away last week and forgot their lunches.  I forgot about an orthodontist appt that was on my phone calendar.  I forget how to spell words. There's definitely more, but I forgot LOL. It's so strange.  Chemo brain has definitely hit me like a ton of bricks.  I've heard it can last 2 years or more.  Oh dear Lord, help me!

The twins and I at the beach last week


Physically I'm feeling really well.  It no longer hurts to put my arms up straight, and I never even did the exercises the PT recommended (I think those are for little old ladies who don't have 5 kids to chase around like me anyway).  My incisions are looking great and I'm kind of getting used to having numbness under my left armpit and have even managed to shave it without cutting myself. I did have a little freak out last week when I thought one of my expanders sprung a leak.  But it turned out to be fluid buildup.  I saw my surgeon and he tried to put a drain back in, but he was unsuccessful so he ended up just using a needle & syringe to get it out.  Since then, I've had a little bit of fluid build up but my body is doing a great job of taking care of it (woot!  I did not want another drain!). I'm working on losing some of the weight I gained throughout this process and it's motivating to see the scale go down.

I have an appointment with my oncologist on Friday where I expect to get a prescription for the med I will have to take for the next 10 years.  It's called Tamoxifen and it'll control my hormones so hopefully another cancerous tumor can't grow.  It'll also keep me in menopause.  Awesome.  I'll have another fill on Tuesday at the plastic surgeon's office, I'm hoping it'll be my last.  Then I'll have 1 more fill to "overfill" them a bit then wait 6 weeks or so to have the real implants put in.  I can't wait.  These expanders are so uncomfortable- they feel SO hard (ask anyone who's felt them- I basically make all my girl friends touch the expanders & my new head of hair).

Speaking of hair, here's the latest hair picture:


Looking pretty good, right?  This is about 10 weeks post chemo.  I'm really excited to see if it starts to curl when it gets longer.  It's funny because the hair in the front naturally goes to the right, when I pretty much always parted my hair to the left.  I'm pretty sure I never want to cut my hair again!

Thanks for following along on this journey with me.  I'll update again soon!

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