Dear Diary

 Hey Friends, I feel like I haven't been blogging much. I don't even have a good reason for that. But here I am. A full week into round 2 of chemo and I am feeling good. This round started out a bit rough, and definitely rougher than round 1, but I don't have any 'major' complaints at the moment.  Infusion day seems to be relatively uneventful. The steroids that are given in/around chemo days either mask the symptoms or keep you just wired enough to not really care, hahaha. So day of and day after chemo are proving to be pretty good days.  Day 3 is showing up as my crash day. Sunday was rough. Even Darrin pointed out for the first time through all this that I even 'looked' really sick. Maybe a bald head contributes to that? Who knows!  Saturday night I woke several times with something akin to chest pain. Not quite heartburn, not quite acid reflux, not quite a heart attack (not that I really know what any of these 3 feels like). But this seemed to be the beg...

Another surreal moment today.  I got up this morning, after a rough day yesterday, and took a shower (far less traumatic to shower now that 'most' of my hair has fallen out hahaha). Our shower has a lot of glass. There was this woman staring back at me in the reflection. She had a scar across her chest, and no wet curls.  Who is this woman I wondered?  I'm getting more used to seeing her around. It is less shocking when I catch a glimpse. But at times she is still a stranger.   I'm not interested in a long post today.  I'm tired. But please know that I am okay.  After my second infusion on Friday, I can officially say that chemo won the day yesterday (Sunday). Totally kicked my ass.  But today is a new day, with some improvement, and tomorrow will be even better! Keep cheering friends.  Peace and love  Barb

 Hey friends, Back to feeling a bit whiney today, so thought I'd come and get some thoughts out of my head again. Please don't mind me. I mentioned last week that I was dealing with a pretty good case of hives. These are not new to me, so I wasn't really that concerned about them. I did call my oncologist on Thursday to see if she could offer anything. She declined my request for a stronger topical steroid cream, but offered my an oral steroid instead. I declined. I really don't like being on steroids and I don't sleep well. I thought they would just clear up on their own, and I'd just keep slathering on hydrocortisone cream.  Well that didn't work. I woke up Sunday morning losing my mind. The hives are bad, not going to minimize it. I called the weekend on-call line and begged the on-call oncologist to call in the Prednisone script and off we went to Airdrie to get that filled. Day 3 today of steroids and not yet seeing much improvement. Sigh. Hoping for be...

Hey friends, Today is a bit of a fucked up day. It really shouldn't be, but it feels like it is. This turned into a long post, oops, apologies in advance.  Remember the Surreal blog? Well today is still surreal. Who has Cancer? Who is going to lose their hair? Who is this girl looking back at me in the mirror?  As much as everyone around me has been super hopeful for me, I have always known I was going to lose my hair in this process. Even the oncologist said first thing when we talked about the drugs I was being offered.....'you are going to lose your hair, and it will be the hardest thing to have happen'. One of the chemo drugs I am being given - Docetaxal - is well known for hair loss. Actually, there is a class action lawsuit against the brand name of this drug - Taxotere - due to permanent hair loss, but I just pretend I don't know that little fact and hope for the best.  I have seen many many posts about hair loss and it seems the average days post first infusion ...