I am done with Chemo!

Last Tuesday was my last chemo treatment.  It felt very surreal and a little emotional as I was hooked up to the IV for the last time.  The nurses were so nice and I was even able to have my favorite nurse Larry unhook me in the end and sign me out since the nurse that had been assigned to me for the day left for lunch before I was done.  All the nurses in the infusion center signed a card and gave me a little pink heart necklace pendant on my last day and the ones who had worked with me gave me a hug on my way out which was nice.  I know that once I start crying, I don't stop, so I was doing some serious Jedi mind tricks to keep it together, but inside I felt so tender and writing this I am crying like a baby, but who cares since I am now in my own home.

My hair continues to grow, but it seems pretty slow to me, A few weeks ago I decided that on April 1, I was going to stop wearing hats and just go for it with my short hair, but I am not so sure now.  We will have to see how much it grows this month.

I woke up so happy this morning that I do not have to go in and have my blood drawn today, or go to the infusion center tomorrow.  I really won't miss anything about having chemo treatments, but I did enjoy the little texts from my kids while I was having chemo.  Every week Peter and Andie would send me fun little messages.  Kate was actually obeying the school rule of not having her cell phone out in class, so I appreciated not getting texts from her as well, but here were a couple of my favorites

WOOHOO! YAY! (sent from Peter during my last treatment)

Just randomly sent from Andie during treatment 14

Their texts always made me smile.

I have not posted for the past few weeks because as I have finished out my treatments my thoughts and feelings about the experience have been very personal and deep and I was not sure how to put them into a blog post, or if I should even try.  Mainly they have been feelings of gratitude for the amazing blessings I have received throughout the experience and an increased faith in the teachings I have learned as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  For those of you who are not Mormons, a quick sum up of what we believe is this.  We are sent to earth by a loving Heavenly Father to be given a body and to be allowed to experience all the pain, heartache, physical and mental challenges, joy, and wonder that being here and having a mortal experience presents.  God does not punish us by giving us trials, but He does allow things to happen so that we can be tested and see how we will handle the experiences we face.  The beautiful thing that I have been taught my whole life is that when we do experience hard things, Jesus Christ, who came to earth and suffered for all our sins and heartaches will help us through them if we have faith, keep the commandments He has given us, and pray and ask Him to help us.  I decided to test this teaching out and I have been overwhelmed by what I have experienced.  What I didn't realize, is that when friends of all different faiths add their prayers in the mix, even more blessings happen.  As I have tried to do my part and have faith, pray and follow the teachings I have learned, I have experienced amazing peace and joy.  Adam has been the best support ever and my kids and extended family have really kept me going with their love and generosity.  I know that I still have radiation and hormone therapy ahead, but knowing that I have the month of March to just feel like myself feels like a huge gift and I plan to enjoy it (even with my extremely short hair :)

20 More Days and I am done with Chemo

Wow,  I cannot believe February has come!  I can remember so clearly the day Adam and I were in the doctor's office and he was giving us my chemo treatment plan and telling us that if all went well we would end on February 24.  It seemed like such a long way away and now it is almost here (only three treatments left).  I really couldn't even do a blog post in January because nothing was changing and the monotony of it all just seemed a little depressing when I tried to write about it.  I guess there were two changes that I could have mentioned, one good,  and one not so good.  First my hair started to grow back.  One day about three weeks ago I took of my hat and Adam noticed some very fine, very white peach fuzz all over my head.  We tried to get a picture, but it was too fine.  Still it was very exciting.  The hair has continued to grow and the nurses say that not everyone loses their hair with the drug Taxol which is the drug I am receiving every week and luckily I am in that category. My brown hair has started to come in as well which makes it a little easier to see in pictures.

What a strange (but very wonderful) thing that my hair will just keep filling in.  I am curious how long it will take to want to just go around with super short hair without a hat.  ( I am not there yet)

The other new development, is that my eyebrows which had stayed in pretty nicely during the A/C chemo treatments fell out during the Taxol treatments.  I think this is strange that the hair on top of my head would come in, while the hair above my eyebrows fell out, but what can you do.

I realize that there are still a few hairs hanging in there, but for the most part they are gone.  I have an eyebrow pencil that I use to fill in the eyebrows whenever I go anywhere, but one day I looked up in the mirror and I must have rubbed my eyebrow or something because there was a definite hole in the middle of the pencil mark.  I just took it all off thinking it would be better to have no eyebrow, than an incomplete eye brow.  I also lost most of my eye lashes.  My neighbor told me her Mom's eyebrows never grew back, so fingers crossed that in March I will have eyebrow hair again.  All in all I just feel like a very puffy, hairless person walking around and I am getting very excited to be done.

I do have to say that I am still extremely grateful for the way I have been able to handle the treatments.  Each visit the nurses ask questions about all the possible side effects to see if I have started to have any and I am reminded of how blessed I have been to have so few.