Progress

My hair is growing back... oh dear merciful baby jebus, it's straight. The first time it grew back after chemo it was curly. I hated it. I prefer NOT having hair to having curly hair. So this time, to my sheer elation, it came back straight! I'm not entirely sure what my dear ol' hair is up to though, it's growing in fairly thick but I have these 2 spots above my temples that refuse to grow. I look like a little old man with a receding hair line. My eyelashes are growing in very squirrly and kinky. I'm waiting for that to normalize... and my eyebrows are slowly coming in too. No nose hair yet... I can't say that is a bad thing tough. I will be so happy when my hair it grows out enough for me to ditch the wigs. I'd like my head to be free!

I drew a self portrait with hair progress. I look like a chia pet with illustrated grumpy face and weird eyebrows. Gooooo me!

Illustrated party bummer

I do try and stay positive, and most of the time I am successful. It's been a long road this past year and I am still figuring out the new normal and the new me. One of the side effects of chemotherapy was rapid weight gain. I gained 19 lbs over the course of the last 4 months on Taxol. Nothing fits and I am pretty miserable. I don't recognize myself and I think my butt may have registered with Los Angeles county for its own zip code. It's difficult to go through such an emotionally and physically challenging ordeal such as cancer without the additional muffin-tops. Funnily enough my sense of pride and vanity is mostly related to the chub factor. I've always been a thin person and I am now officially (according to my BMI) overweight. It's embarrassing and even though I have an excellent excuses as to why I've become fat, it causes me almost more grief than missing a breast or having no hair.

My cats have taken to trying to hibernate in my squishy fatness when I get out of the shower. The combination of warm pudgy smell good pillow people is too much for my cats to resist. When I get up in the morning I am covered in kitties.... ain't right I tell you!

Here... have a picture.

OUCH! and an MRI update.

I'm all done, but I sure don't feel done. I guess because I am a living billboard for cancer. I have this awesome newly fat and mangled physique. Hot stuff I tell you. Maybe it will feel more final when I get my port removed.

So I got my MRI results back for restaging and to look for mets. Here is a Tracey-fied version of what it says:

Patient has had her left boobie lopped off and irradiated. There is mild irregular thickening of the underlying major and minor boobie muscles (pecs)... we know this because we injected some contrast and that area looks all cloudy and feathery with some veins snaking around in it. Also the muscles under the armpit (lats) are swollen. The lower chest and upper abdomen are all poofy too. In the fat layer. She's a little swollen in a near perfect square. Kinda freaky if you ask us.

We don't see any signs of tumors anywhere in the muscle swelling. We also don't see any tumors in the lungs. We did however discover the secrets to space flight hidden in her right kidney (not really true).

Conclusion: Us here MRI readers thing the poofyness is caused by boob removal and radiation. Probably....

We sorta think you should get a baseline PET/CT.

Sincerely,

MRI readers of America.

Huh? PROBABLY caused by radiation... and... and.... SHOULD get a PET/CT scan?! Cant you be a little more definitive than that MRI readers of America?!

My franken boobie hurts. All the time. It has all sorts of interesting sensations..... like tingly, itchy, shooting pains, sometimes feels like it's being prodded by burning pokers... sometimes flaming ninja stars, it ALWAYS feels like I just subjected my left side to a thousand chest flys so it feels sore. I can't move it around that good either because its stiff. I also have this otherworldly tan that happens to be in the shape of a square.

Is all that normal!? Chemotherapy really sucked... and when I say chemo I only mean Adriamycin. Radiation however was the worst thing ever.

Here are some graphic representations of what my frankeboobie feels like... Is this NORMAL!?