Today is January 30th. I haven’t written for a couple of weeks and I want to give everyone an update.

I had my third chemo session on Jan 13th. Wendy came to visited me there and kept me company. That was so nice of her.

With Wendy

This session seemed to affect me a little different than the first two. I expected to nausea that night, but it never really came. I wish it had. At least I’d get it over with right away. I found that I was nauseous for about a week, here and there, not constantly, just enough to be a nuisance. I found that lots of small meals made me feel much better. Then I had the constipation again. It was actually about ten times worst than after the last two chemo sessions. I can truly compare the pain of it to childbirth. I’m told by a nurse who has been through breast cancer herself that it’s one of the anti-nausea meds that is causing it. She gave me the name of a drug to ask the doc for to eliminate the problem. Maybe the final session won’t be so bad (I can only hope).

Other than that, I’m feeling great. I’m not as tired as I thought I’d be through this whole thing. I was told that I’d feel like I got hit with by Mack truck during the 10th to 14th days of my chemo cycle (when my blood counts are low), but I really don’t feel that way. I certainly don’t have the energy I had prior to all this, but it’s much better that I ever imagined. Actually, I went to Keene State College with my sister Debbie yesterday to watch Jamie cheer at a basketball game. I had a great time and it felt good to take a little road trip. Can’t help but be a proud mom, so I’m adding a photo I took of her while I was there. I hope my third and final chemo session, which is on February 3rd, is as good to me in that respect.

Jamie Cheering at Keene State College

I saw Dr. Chatson on January 20th for a check-up and to see if he wanted to inject anymore saline into my expanders. That appointment met with disappointment. He told me that the next surgery I’ll have won’t be to remove the expanders and replace them with the implants as scheduled. He feels that one of the expanders is off-centered too much, and he wants to remove it, then replace it with another and start the expansion process all over again, but only on one side (thank God for small miracles). We knew it was off centered from the beginning but he thought he was going to be able to work with it. He now feels that it is just too great of an off-set and he told me that I am the “worst case scenario” he’s had to deal with. He would rather replace the expander and know for sure that it’ll come out perfect. I know he’s absolutely right, but it didn’t make the news any easier. This is something that I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. But that means another surgery, and then waiting two weeks from the surgery to start the expanding. The expander will be about half full, not starting from the very beginning, so it won’t take quite so long. But it still puts me off schedule by two or three months. I was hoping to be done with all of the surgeries by September, starting with the implants in March. Now the expander will be replaced in March, implants hopefully in May or early June. Then the nipple construction will be in September and he’ll do his final work (tattooing) in December. That’s four surgeries and almost another year to complete the reconstruction. It’s a little depressing but what’s a couple of months when you have the rest of your life, right? (I keep saying that to myself). These babies better be beauties, that’s all I can say.

I’ll keep in touch. Oh yeah, I found another benefit to this whole mess, I don’t have to shovel any snow this year ;>)