The
color for today is yellow. I love these dahlias that are shaped like a
firework. I also have some in pink and white, but they haven’t bloomed yet.
Supposedly it calls for rain today (Thursday) and I know my garden is hoping
for a thorough soaking. For some reason, my watering just doesn’t do as good a
job as Mother Nature.
Today
(Wednesday) had been a busy hot day. I went to the Yakima Valley Fruit Market
and bought cucumbers and dill so I can make dill pickles tomorrow, probably the
least amount I’ve made in decades. Not many people to give them away to any
longer.
Following that, I went on line to
search for something I can do to make whatever it is that’s biting me go away.
That led to a search for essential lemon oil, or Eucalyptus oil…I prefer lemon.
I had to drive to Lynnwood to get some and then stop for a new spray bottle.
Back home, I took every single thing off the bed and ran the pad, sheets, duvet
through the washer on HOT water and the dryer on HOT. I think the fitted sheet
shrunk a bit because I could barely get it back on the mattress.
While the washer/dryer were doing
their business, I moved the mattress off the box springs and sprayed EVERYTHING
with lemon oil water. I sprayed well, so I had to wait for the box spring to
dry before I could put the mattress back, then wait for the mattress to dry
before the cover, yada, yada, yada.
When I wasn’t roasting and sweating, I began to
dust everything in my room, every nook and cranny and ran my Swiffer vacuum
over the floor. I moved the bed, moved the other furniture and cleaned every
single place I could possibly reach. Did I see one spider??? NOPE!!! And did I
see any evidence of spiders as in webs??? NOPE!!!
This morning when I got up, my
underarm not only itched, but it hurt as well. And, the red marks aren’t all shaped
like round bites. Some of them are big and funny shaped, as if I’d scratched
the area with my fingernails. I’m doing everything possible not to scratch and
haven’t a single time today. Since the problem seems to be around my left
breast and I’ve had breast cancer in the right one, I found myself wondering if
this could be some form of cancer. But I’ve never heard of cancer appearing in
this fashion. If I have more evidence tomorrow, then it cannot be my bed so I’ll
call the doctor and see if I can go in.
The very thought of having breast
cancer again gives me chills; well, it actually scares the shit out of me. This
time I wouldn’t have John here to hold my hand, take me to the appointments and
chemotherapy and look after me when things got a little tough. He really was a
good husband when it came to the “in sickness” part.
I remember calling for my mammogram
appointment only to find out I couldn’t be seen in March…it would have to be
April. Okay, fine, no big deal. Got a call after the mammogram asking if I could
come back for an ultrasound. Sure, no problem, it had happened before. At the
ultrasound, they asked if I would mind if they did a biopsy…they just weren’t
sure what they were seeing. Well, okay, now it’s a tiny bit scary, never done
this before. So, they did the biopsy and would call me in a day or two with the
results.
Instead, I got the call the very next
day…infiltrating ductal carcinoma. I barely heard another word the nurse said,
but did understand I had an appointment with the surgeon for the next day and
the surgery would be the following Tuesday. Whoa, this cannot be good, cannot
be good at all.
I left work early and cried all the
way home. I sat in John’s lap, barely able to talk, scaring the crap out of him
and Thor. I finally got the information out and John was very supportive. I
would be fine. We’d get through this, not to worry.
John went with me to the surgeon the
next morning. He was there for the discussion and decision about what to do. He
went back with me the following Tuesday and waited during the surgery. It wasn’t
clear if they were going to take lymph nodes or not. I kept asking and was right
outside the operating room when the surgeon finally arrived. No, no lymph nodes
he said. Yes, I insisted, so instead of a local anesthetic, they had to put me
out. Later I was glad I insisted.
We were told the excised tissue had
clean edges and the lymph nodes appeared clear, but the material would be sent
to the University of Washington for further examination. Then, it was on to an
appointment with the oncologist. At that meeting, we were told that the test
results showed a very aggressive cancer with more than one-third of the cells
replicating at any one time. If, somehow, they missed a single cell…well, I
definitely wouldn’t want that.
So, there would be six rounds of
chemotherapy, each one three weeks apart, followed by 30+ radiation treatments
and five years of the drug Tamoxifen. So, basically the journey I began in
April with the mammogram wouldn’t be complete until the following January, or,
five years from that January if I included the drug I’d have to take. Nothing
like having your life changed in a very big way.
I was very fortunate, however, because
chemotherapy did not make me sick. In fact, I gained 20 pounds during that time
and was told later by the oncologist that isn’t unusual…why wasn’t it mentioned
before I indulged myself so much!!! I had chemo on Friday mornings. The first
time I came home and got into bed with a bucket beside me. Two hours later, I
was starving and that was it for being in bed. Subsequent trips, I would be
awake until like 4:00 am Saturday morning, sleep for a few hours, get up have a
normal Saturday and Saturday night, then at the crack of noon Sunday, I’d fade into
sleep that would last until Tuesday morning when I got up to go to work. That
was my routine until November of 2000. And, John went to every single
appointment and chemo treatment on the schedule. Even when I told him he didn’t
need to because I wasn’t getting sick, he said I wasn’t going to do it all
by myself.
Once all the treatments were done, it
was time to decide what we would do to celebrate. I came up with three
options: 1) We could go on safari in
Kenya in late March with a travel group from the zoo; 2) we could go to China with
my zoo boss in April; or 3) we could rent a luxurious car and travel the United
States for a month. We decided on Kenya.
Still, the cancer process wasn’t done
with me. The initial photos in Kenya, my face is normal, but by the end, I have
a fat face. Back home, everyone has jet lag which is what I thought I had as
well, but it didn’t end. Checked in with the doctor only to find out my thyroid
died while I was in Kenya. The nurse who called me couldn’t believe I wasn’t in
bed my reading was so low. That was followed by months of fooling around with
the medication to get the dosage correct. During that time, I managed to injure
myself which led to a month of going to work mornings and going to a health
company for occupational and physical therapy in the afternoons.
Every so often I would go on line to
see if there was any information about the breast cancer drugs I was given.
Were there any side-affects? It took a few years, but finally there were
reports that Cytoxan can cause peripheral neuropathy. No wonder my feet burned
and hurt and caused a lot of pain. Thankfully there was a drug that would help…Cymbalta.
Later on, CBD cream also helped with this problem.
Then, my skin began to do funny things
as in I kept developing white patches. Welcome vitiligo, another auto-immune
disease possibly caused by cancer treatment. The final (I sincerely hope)
crappy result from that treatment came when my doctor told me after my annual physical
that I was Type II diabetic. How could that be when I went to the gym every
morning and didn’t eat a lot of junk? Well, now research is showing there may
be a correlation between breast cancer treatment and diabetes. I know someone
else that was diagnosed about eight years following treatment which was pretty
much the same time for me.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to
be alive. I’m happy they had the necessary tools to eradicate the cancer and
keep me alive. Even if I’d known what was coming, I would still have elected treatment.
Still, I certainly don’t want to repeat the process for the left breast. So, I’m
hoping really hot water, essential lemon oil and everything clean and dust free
in my room keeps any new spots from appearing tomorrow (today), because if not,
I’ll have to call the doctor and get checked out. And if she tells me it’s bug
bites, will I be embarrassed…nope, just relieved and pondering my choice of bedrooms.