I am vain. SURPRISE!!! I have donated my hair twice but know I would have trouble dealing with the loss of it too. Did you take pics??? When it comes back it will most likely be different from what I have heard.

I told you I would sacrifice myself and do your hubby for you. I'm a giver :D

These weeks have gone by fast. Maybe, just maybe, the whole thing will go by fast and you'll be done with it all and cancer free, ready to move forward with all the great things you have planned to do with your life.

*sniff* that's an awesome thought!
we did take a pic! we have a silly after pic planned as well.


gg - you're durn right it's better than cancer....
most stuff is. :p:D

Hey,I really think bald chicks are hot, too...well, maybe not so much Sinead O'Conner, but even she has that somethin-somethin going on...

Hair is just stuff. What defines you is *you* -- which is a pretty damn awesome mother, wife, and friend. I love that you're fighting cancer and winning.

But I sure hope the next few weeks fly by. :x:

Osuche is right. You;re super, wyndhy ... with or without hair. We just want the cancer gone for good so you can catch up and pass jseal in the posting count. :thumbs:

((((( HUGS )))))

lol, db. fat chance, but i will have time for a bit more smut-gaming.:)

i love you guys. (((hugs)) and thanks :x:

i have a quick thought i wanna share.
i've had a couple messagesfrom pixies saying that they are thinking of me, but feel bad or guilty or unsure of posting here. i know this sucks. cancer sucks. that's all there is to it. it's hard and it's hard on your friends and family. it's even hard on people you've "never" met.:) i'm here to say DO NOT feel bad if you've had the same thought. you don't have to PM or post here or do anything that you don't want to, but don't think for a second that just because i don't hear from you personally, or that because you don't post here, that i think that means you don't care. this thread isn't here for me to keep shoving all this cancer crap down your throats, or to garner hugs (or pity) when i post updates. it's the opposite. it's just to keep you in the loop, so to speak, exactly because i know many of you do care. :sun:

And that ^^^ is why we love you so much, & why so many of us do care...

aw shucks. get goin' :x:

treatment #2 is over. WOOT! two nasties down, two to go. i cut out the dexamethasone. feeling less drugged, more nauseous, and a few other things are a bit worse without the steroid to help control them. totally tolerable so far, though.

my hair is coming out like crazy. started yesterday morning. we're gonna do the shaving ceremony today or tomorrow. all will be present. hubby and son wanna shave too. oldest daughter does locks of love so she's abstaining. and the baby's already bald.:D

oh! and my pubes are falling out too. ya know the expression snatched bald?....:roflmao:

Well, that's one bennie. You get to skip the razor burn for a while. :p

My intern has no eyebrows either. It's sort of Whoopi Goldberg-ish.

Your cancer (or currently lack there of) has nothing to do with why the peeps here love and respect you. You garnered those feelings from people long before cancer interupted your plans. What cancer does though, is scares people. Cancer is non-discriminatory and therefore a fear we all share.

I'm sorry you are losing your hair. I am sorry you lost your boobies. But I am happy that both can be replaced in one way or another. You will have to be the judge on whether or not it was a price worth paying to be cancer free. I'm sure your family (the one here too) is grateful you are strong willed and determined enough to go through this in order to give them more time with you. I know I am.

I love your kick ass 'tude

I will love you here or there, I will love you anywhere

I have nearly 3 feet of purple red hair hanging around on my noggin--you want it?

Hey, I'll even shave my pussy bald for you *grabs big grey cat* oh, wait wrong pussy.

In 6th grade, I shaved off my eyebrows and my mom had to teach me to pencil in my eyebrows until they grew back otherwise I'd look like Bozo. It worked for a while and no one noticed until a few days later I gave myself a hugh bruise on my forehead from a large suction cup. Then everyone noticed my bruise and lack of real eyebrows and was the laughing stock of the school for quite a while.
---Moral of the story--don't give yourself a forehead hickey whilst you are sans eyebrows.

When all this is over, keep the baldie and get some righteous tattoos on your back and arms. Preferably full-sleeves. Dress in denims and leathers and cutoffs with patterned pantyhose more often. You'll rock bad-girl sexiness and not just because your hoo-hoo is silky smooth.







So sexy being bald. And I'm not just saying this to be glib, I've always felt this way, even before the alt-porn craze!

:wave:

:nod: Totally in awe of how positive you're being, Wyndhy :thumb:

There's a female TV presenter in the UK (Gail Porter). She lost all her hair suddenly and without warning to alopecia. Her attitude to the hair loss totally kicks ass, and I love what her boyfriend at the time is said to have said:Wyndhy, I wish you all the best for the remainder of your treatment and will continue to keep you in my thoughts whilst you fight this :)

:roflmao: oh man i am laughing so hard.

i think i'll skip the tats (and the purple-y hair:D) but i'll keep the 'tude.;)

you guys are the best! thanks for the support and the chuckles. (((huge hugs)))

wyndhy,

When your hair grows back, do not be surprised if it is different. You may find the curl has changed, the texture, or even in some cases the color. Something to look forward to.

yup. we kept some for comparison purposes. not the only thing to look forward to, though - an end to these treatments is MUCH anticipated.:)

QFT!

I lost a good friend to cancer. I'm not interested in losing another.

I also want to add that I am glad you are frequently updating this thread. The unknown is a well from which much fear is drawn.

Thank you for keeping this part of your family in the loop. :molest:

Long days and pleasant nights. :)

(((hugs))) i'm not interested in being another. :)

i'm sick. grrrrr. the rugrats have infected me with their vile, rugrat germs.:D but unless i'm running a high fever or my white blood cell count is low, i'll still be able to go tomorrow. this interim went by pretty quickly again, but there is a teeny tiny part of me - the part that doesn't want to do any of this - that hopes i get a reprieve, just to temporarily sate the procrastinator in me.:p

i totally love my noggin! it’s actually quite prettily shaped, no weird concave or convex malformations. yup, i like me noggin just fine. i got head, baby.:D.

Can I practice my phrenology skillz on afore said noggin'?

I hope it's not the "corrective" version of phrenology.

:yikes:^^

a willing guinea pig, i am, liz.

It's tomorrow already again????????????????????????????????????????

:cool:

Just wanted you to know I was thinking about you today.

Hugs, Wyndhy. I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to send hugs. Your attitude (even with germs) is inspiring. I'm sorry the big C found you, but damn if you're not kicking its sorry ass!

:wave: ty guys!:x:
it's been a while, heh? i feel like poop still. this cold is taking forever to get better. otherwise i'm doin' good. last A/C treatmant this week. wOOt. big hugsez.

(((((hugs))))) and good wishes to you wyndhy, last A/C treatment is good. Take care of that cold.

halloooo! LTNS...again. :x:
ahhh, well, so far the next round of "easier" stuff really is easier. queziness is practically non-exsistent ergo no antiemetics ergo no icky antiemetic med side effects. sweeEEEt! no blood count boosting shots, also nice, AND my energy level is much better. the rest should only get better too. (although i'm told my libido will likely not be making an appearance for a while yet. le sigh)

ok. that's about it, i guess. just poppin in to say hi, i'm still here;), doin' well and hardly complaining much at all.:D (((hugs))) ttfn

Glad to hear it's getting better!! :x:

Great news, wyndhy :thumb: Hope the easier stuff continues to get easier as the days and weeks go by :)

Soon you'll be back in overdrive.

How ya doin'?

Yeah! You're overdue with an update and there's a lot of us that don't like that. :mad:

:) you guys are sweet to care so much.

all's still reasonably good and definitely better than it was. still no antiemetics needed (unless you count weed, which i don't :D:p) the damage that the first round of nasties inflicted is still improving - i can actually use a toothbrush again so i don't need to clean my teeth with baking soda and a paper towel anymore, and when i wipe my bum i no longer cry.:p no leg pain (a common side effect of the taxol) so i dodged that bullet. slightly tingly finger tips and lips - no biggie. and a few vision thingies, floaters and a blurry spot in my right eye. need to see the eye doc. and also hotflashes – a possible indicator that i've been thrown into early menopause by the chemo, or not. i need to wait at least a year from the end of chemo to be sure.

oh! and i have "chemo brain” (lmfao) – a complaint expressed by many peeps who take the dose dense regiment as i did. my vocab is dwindling and sometimes i can't recall words for stuff or i say the wrong word. it's sorta hard to explain but often i'm thinking the correct word in my head but another word comes out of my mout - always has the same beginning sound but it's the wrong word. kinda disconcerting. doctors have often dismissed this phenomenon as a stress problem, not a chemo side effect, but more and more are beginning to take it seriously and are doing studies (my onc's partner is conducting one at the moment). chemo drugs do not cross the blood/brain barrier, which is why it's sorta been dismissed, but that doesn't mean that something else isn't going on. i'll be interested to see the results.

i have met again with the radiation oncologist. she took an extremely long time to tell me that she does recommend radiation even though there are no US trials that support her, and the french and canadian trials have been soundly trounced by US oncologists. i really picked up some weird signals from her - it's as if she feels that her profession is the least respected when it comes to breast cancer. she blamed the lack of US trials on the reluctance of surgeons to recommend a patient for a phase 2 or 3 trial because of fears that someone who needs radiation would be randomized to NOT get it and vice-versa. i said that seems like a perfectly reasonable fear for a surgeon or a patient, that at the very least (barring last-ditch efforts for the terminal) minimum standard of care should be given. she reluctantly agreed but admitted it does make for some controversial issues in regards to patients like me who do not have 8 or more lymph nodes that showed cancer cells. in my case, the cells were a very high grade (meaning that they looked about as different from normal cells as you can imagine) and there is just no way to know if there are other nodes affected without more surgery. specifically, removing all the axilla nodes. surgery is dangerous of course, and there is the very real problem of lymphedema. there is also the very real fear that there are more nodes contaminated though. i feel that there are. like i mentioned, the two that tested positive were so far gone i feel that there is no way they were the only two affected. radiation has its problems, too. a slight risk of lymphedema, and the beam will nick a part of my lung and heart and that can cause serious (and cancerous) damage to those organs of course, and then there are the complications it causes for reconstruction because of the damage it does to the skin (the least of my worries at the moment). so i've got some research to do.

all in all, i’m feeling sooooooooooooooooo much better and grateful for it. and my kids are handling it great. there’s the occasional fear for me and hate of the treatments expressed, but for the most part hubby and i are keeping them well informed in a non-threatening way and breaking it down so they can understand and not be afraid of it without actually making promises. i feel bad about that but i can’t lie to them. better that they understand all the possibilities, but know that there are some that are way more remote than others. focus on the good, ya know?

so that’s it. long update but i think i covered it all. except this … love you guys! :x:

I can confirm other instances of chemo brain. My intern definitely had the same speech processing issue you describe. Some times she would notice it and be embarrassed, other times she was a bit indignant with the kids, "Yea that's what I said." When they corrected her. She too had the finger tip issue. I wanted to get her the rubber thumb covers like people who count money/papers use but was not sure if she would like that.

If you do radiation use emu oil for the dryness. My sis in law said it was the best stuff. We bought it for her to try from a local farm. They squeeze the emus right on site :p

emeeeeeeeeeeeew.:D

What, wyndhy, you don't secretly want to squeeze emus?

So! We have more in common than just my lust for you. I didn't have the treatment or even have breasts to get 'chemo brain'. :wobbly:

Watch with the emu-bashing you lot!

That's half the Oz Coat of Arms you're disrespecting.