Long Time, No See

Hi All,

Tonight is my "Help me say Ta-ta to my Ta Ta's" party! I'm really excited for multiple reasons - 1. It's fun to have a boob-themed party, and when else do you get the excuse to do that! 2. I get to see a lot of people that I haven't seen for a really long time, I feel like I have a major friend-reunion coming up! and 3. When I started scheduling this party, I made it something to look forward to because it marked the end of my chemo. Now I understand that my last chemo was a while ago, but I used to get chemo every 3 weeks - this party marks the end of my last 3 week cycle, and I will not be getting any more!

Physically I've been feeling pretty good lately, well enough to go to Chicago for my good friend Becky's wedding. The wedding was beautiful, and I saw a lot of good college friends, some of whom I haven't seen for 5 or 6 years. It was amazing to see all of them, but at the beginning I had a little bit of a weird self-conscious, hmm I wonder if all of these people are shocked by seeing me bald, I'm sure they don't all know what I've been going through. Oh well, just another one of those things that could be an uncomfortable situation but you just have to plow through, smile and eventually get past it. I got comfortable in my skin pretty quickly and had a great time dancing and having fun.

There are definitely still some lingering side effects of the chemo that won't go away anytime soon - I have a strong numbness/tingly feeling in the tips of my fingers and toes, it makes it a little hard to type, I make a lot more mistakes than I used to because I can't feel if I'm right on the key or to the edge of it. My fingernails are still turning purple and look like they are going to fall off, although they may just grow out and not fall off entirely, can't really tell yet. I've been trying to keep them painted so you can't see it too much. I had a glass of wine last night and woke up feeling a little headachey and dehydrated, so although I can drink from time to time I need to not just let it all go crazy now, or I am going to be hurting. And, I can't wait until my hair starts growing in... I still have weird chemo-fuzz that looks like baby hair on the top of my head, barely visible. I have heard that when it actually starts growing in, it will look more like real hair although may be curlier than pre-chemo. We'll see! Should be about another month or so before it starts growing in probably.

Thank you all for keeping me going with reading my posts and following my journey through chemo with me. I can't tell you how much it means to me that people want to know what I'm going through. Even though it's hard to explain, it does help that there are people to tell. It makes me face the facts and be real even when real is really hard to face. I am definitely ready to let chemo be a memory that will probably be blocked out fairly quickly as many really difficult memories are. I'm sure I'll never forget entirely, but the really bad physical feelings will fade and higher energy will bring back somewhat of a normal life, it has already started to. It has made me much more conscious also of how much energy levels affect your ability to be happy and emotionally cope, and I think something I will take away from this (among many things) will be a renewed effort and importance on managing my energy levels to maximize my life even post-cancer.

I have a few weeks here in between chemo and my surgery - final surgery date is September 15th. I will try to post a few times, but I will get back to regular posting when my surgery is upcoming. I hope to see all of the local crowd tonight at Lush Lounge (Sutter & Polk) at 8pm.

Love,
Amy