39 weeks in, 39 weeks out

Elise has now been here as long as she was inside of me!

Then: Just shy of 39 weeks pregnant. Now: Just shy of 39 weeks old

She's gained 14 lbs since her birth day and I've lost 26 lbs.

I've gotten say, these last 9 months have been way, way better than the 9 before it. I love seeing my little girl grow up. Every single day with her a gift from God.

Will you have more kids?

This is a question that a lot of people ask me, so I thought I'd address it on the ole blog...

The answer is complex.

First, I need to wait until I'm NED (no evidence of disease) for three years before I can consider another pregnancy. That will make me 33 (and Elise 3). I simply cannot risk the cancer returning while I'm pregnant again because I'd basically have to choose between my life and the fetus' life if it came back. In December I got an IUD to make sure I don't get pregnant accidentally (btw I love it).

Secondly, chemo can cause infertility for a woman of my age about 25% of the time. There are tons of stories of young breast cancer survivors going on to have multiple kids after chemo but it's not a sure thing. I did get my periods back just a few weeks after finishing treatment which is a good sign!

Thirdly, I have a pretty rough time getting pregnant with Elise. It took one pregnancy loss and 1.5 years to get pregnant with her. I actually was doing acupuncture and herbs for two months to boost my chances of getting pregnant when I got the positive pregnancy test (so it worked!). But I'm clearly not the most fertile person in the world.

Fourth, emotionally I think another pregnancy would be really tough. I've never had an easy, normal pregnancy. For the first 14 weeks of my pregnancy with Elise I was worried I'd lose her (because I'd lost a baby before) and then for the last 12 weeks of my pregnancy I was battling cancer. Just the thought of all the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with being pregnant makes my heart race.

So sounds like my answer is "no", right? Not exactly...

If in three years I'm feeling healthy and if somehow we manage to get pregnant with me being sub-fertile and potentially chemo-damaged, then we'd be overjoyed to welcome another baby. But I'm not banking on all that happening because, as you can see, there are a lot of ifs in that sentence. 

I thank God multiple times a day that we have healthy, happy, sweet Elise. She is a true miracle. I know people throw that term around for babies, but she really is a miracle straight from God. And if she's our only child I am more than OK with that. I am an only child and actually really enjoyed/enjoy being an only child.

So I guess what I'm saying is that in 2.5 years, we'll likely be open to having one more child and at that point we'd just trust God to decide if family grows.

New Hair & Other Updates

Thanks everyone for the love on my hair post. I did end up getting it cut and dyed and I like it a A LOT better.

Straight from the salon, loving it!

I went with a warm brown and I'm loving the color. Now i just need it to grow a little bit and my pixie will look pretty good.

My sweet baby girl is now 8.5 months. How did this happen?! I'm loving this age so much, I wish I could just bottle her up! She's wearing 12 month clothes now and weighs around 21 lbs and she's tall (I'll find out the exact inches in a few weeks). Chemo didn't growth restrict her one bit! She's going to be tall like her mom and dad.

My little love

When I was pregnant with Elise I set out to complete all the photo album/digital scrapbooks I was behind on. I did 2010-2011 when I was pregnant with her and have now finished 2012-2013! I'm all caught up. Wahoo! In a strange way it gives me a little comfort that if for some reason I'm not around when Elise is older, she'll have these memories of her family from before she was born and when she was a baby.

Collage of some of the 2012 album

I'm feeling pretty good overall. My chest and upper back and left armpit still hurt. Not bad pain, just consistent nagging pain. I know this from the mastectomy, lymph node removal, and implants. It's just annoying. I'll be having my next reconstruction surgery in May (more on that later) so I'm hoping that helps reduce some of the chest pain.

If you have a moment please say a prayer for my continued health. I'm now 6 months cancer-free. I need to make it 2.5 more years before I'm really "out of the woods." I feel really optimistic about my prognosis and life, but I'd appreciate the prayers nevertheless.

A Hairy Situation

It's a rite of passage every cancer/chemo survivor must go though -- the regrowing of the hair. And I think about 95% of us absolutely hate the process.

Basically, I like my hair blond, long, and straight.

Like this:

July 2009. For the record, I did dye my hair frequently and straighten my hair daily to achieve this look.

I don't care what you tell me about liking my  my current length, texture, color -- I do not currently like my hair. One bit. No matter what I do to it.

I've tried just embracing the wild natural curls. Like this...

This look kind of works in Hawaii. Kind of. 5.5 months post-chemo.

I've tried blow drying and flat-ironing the curl out of it and turns out it's just not the curl I hate...

A whole heck of a lot of straightening went into this mess. #notworthit. 6 months post-chemo.

What I do on most days is try to use a crap-load of product (gel, hairspray, fixation goo, etc.) to get my hair to stay down but it still has some waves/texture and isn't an unruly mess. And this is what I end up with...

Try not to be envious of how awesome my hair is mmmk? 6 months post-chemo.

Note: If you tell me about some hair product that's awesome that I should use and blah blah blah. Stop. I'm not buying it. I have no money and I'm sick of buying hair products that don't do much to change what I dislike.

The one thing I can do something about is the color. So I'm getting it dyed to tomorrow. Just to warm up the mouse-brown and cover my few greys. Maybe that will put me in a better mood about it.

The rest only time can fix. A lot of time. *Sigh* 

Living Life

I can't believe my last update was about two months ago! Since then we celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. We also went on a big family trip to Hawaii to celebrate being cancer-free!

Aloha!

I've fully entered the "survivorship" phase of cancer recovery. Where I'm trying to live life as "normal" but everything has changed...

Every ache, pain, or lump still scares the heck out of me. Recently I was worried I had a lymph node recurrence but both my surgeon and oncologist assured me that the lumpiness in my armpit is just scar tissue from the four lymph nodes they removed. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I just have to trust God with my life and trust that right now, the cancer is gone, and with His grace it will stay gone forever.

I'm less focused on the "am I going to live another year" thoughts I had in the beginning and find myself more focused on the superficial ways that cancer messed up my life. I fret about how I don't like my short, curly, brown hair. I hate the way my foobs (fake boobs) look in most swimsuits and some tops. I think about how I can't wait until I get my final implants and my hair grows out to a length where I can straighten it again.

This week I've started back to work. Already I'm trying to navigate how I balance work and the life I want to have. A life where I still work hard, but find enough time to focus on exercise and diet, and even more importantly, on faith and family.


I guess there's no playbook for how to live life after you've played ding-dong-ditch with death. I'm just trying to appreciate every day and live a life of joy, not fear. 

Thankfulness

Since November is the month of "thanks", I've been thinking a lot about how much I have to be thankful for. Sometimes don't feel very thankful that I got friggin' breast cancer in the first place, but then I focus on all the blessings that God's given me over the last ninemonths...

The biggest two being that I have a healthy daughter and I BEAT cancer. 

Survivors!

So so so many of my prayer requests have been answered. My faith has been so strengthened during this time both in seeing my prayers answered and knowing that God takes care of us no matter what happens.

Before church one Sunday

My friends and family have been there for me every step of the way. And my parents have been so incredibly helpful with taking care of Elise and me whenever we needed it.

These are just a few of the awesome people who've supported me. Pic taken before the Race for the Cure.

I had 18 amazing milk donors give milk to Elise so that I could have her on 100% donor breast milk for the first 5 months of her life. And some are still donating!

Elise loves donor milk!

So many wonderful people have unexpectedly stepped up to help us. They've donated money to our paypal account for medical bills, helped babysit Elise, sent grocery gift cards for meals, and gave us tons of useful gifts for Elise. My amazing neighbors even donated the proceeds from the annual pub crawl they do to help pay for some of crazy expenses we've incurred this year. 

Right after they gave us the check. We were so touched!

The Bible says "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). The last nine months have truly taught me to do this.

Done with Radiation!

Yesterday was my final day of radiation! Not only was it my last day of radiation, it was my last day of all cancer treatment. Forever.

It's hard to believe I've been in treatment for 8 months. It seems both shorter and longer. It's still kind of surreal.

I had 33 rounds of radiation. 27 to my whole breast, chest, and armpit. And the final 6 were to my mastectomy scar line. I'm happy to report that burns in my armpit are already getting better thanks to Aquaphor, Miaderm, and Silver Sulfadiazine cream. I'm starting to feel major fatigue and probably will for the next several weeks. But it's nothing I can't manage.

Elise came with me to my last day of radiation (she stayed in the waiting room with my Mom). We wore pink to celebrate!

DONE!

Now I will have follow up appointments with all three of my oncologists (radiation, medical, and surgical) every 3-4 months. And in 6 months I can have my permanent reconstruction surgery (the implants I have now are temporary). TNBC is most likely to reoccur/metastasize within three years, so there will be lots of vigilance in watching me for a while.

Burn Baby Burn

I've now finished 27 of my 33 radiation treatments and I am burning. My whole left chest, breast, and armpit looks like they have the worst sunburn you can imagine. The most painful area is my armpit. It's so red it's almost purple. I'd post a picture but I don't want to scare people. Seriously. I put the rx creams and lotions on it constantly but I'm still burning. On Monday I'm going to talk to my radiation oncologist about how many more treatments my poor skin can tolerate. Please pray that I don't burned too bad.

Radiation is also zapping my energy. I cannot wait until it's over and I can spend some much-needed time resting and recovering.

I keep reminding myself that I'm close to the END. When I'm finished with radiation, I'm finished with cancer treatment. For good.

I see my medical oncologist and breast surgeon next week for my 3 month follow up. It's been almost 3 months since my surgery and NED declaration. I'll see them every 3-6 months for a while. I know these appointments are routine, but they still scare me. Please pray that I will have good appointments and no recurrence scares.

In happier news, Elise is a great joy and a distraction from the pain and anxiety of all of this. She really gets cuter every day. I'm just in love with this age. She's now 5 months! 

My heart

This weekend I'm leading the "A Bump and A Lump" team in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k. I'll post pictures and more about it next week!