I got good news and bad news (but it's not that bad)

Today was picture day at XRT. That's it for that, lol. I called my insurance to see how much the surgery is gonna cost, that was great news, it's not going to be some outrageous amount!! I called the financial assistance deparment and we got a discount on how much we owe but it doesnt really matter because we have to reach "X" amount and then insurance pays 100%. That's the good news. The bad news is I called Dr. D today (he's a plastic surgeon) to see if I could get a tummy tuck while I'm having colon surgery and they said no :(. I knew they would but it was worth a try. I'm just lazy. That's about it for the day. I told you, boring. I'll talk to ya'll later.

Day 10

I couldn't help myself, this is funny!! We are 1/3 of the way through!!

Hopefully this will help y'all understand why I need a colostomy bag

Back in the Saddle

I don't suppose people up north use the saying... Anyways, today was chemo and radiation after a much needed 3 day weekend. I went ahead and used the Azo this weekend for bladder pain, it never hurt when I peed which is good. Today was doctor day so I told Dr. S, she told me to just stock up on cranberry juice, if it starts burning when I pee they will do a UA and give me antibiotics as needed. I also thought I had a yeast infection so I bought some muffin mix ***For a funny story read below. Dr. S wondered if I had diarrhea, I told her no and I told her about the swish and swallow and she said that will help against the diarrhea. My bottom is starting to feel burnt though so i'll be using some diaper rash cream tonight. Tomorrow is lab day, and Thursday is picture day. The labs and pictures don't go into the hospital system so I wont be able to tell you about those til Monday on doctor day again. Chris is off next week (YES!), so that works out for the whole family. I have a doctor's appt on Tuesday. Shout out to my mommy who made enchiladas and rice for us. Jessica, the kids swallowed the lasagna whole. Y'all know how I feel about asking for help but after talking to MJ today that helped. I realize that people helping is how they don't feel so helpless, that was so redundant. Also, my hero KE, had people make meals for her for a month so if she needs help and she's superwoman then I can accept help too. Aside from that, everything is good. I am getting bored going to XRT everyday. I ran into my big boss today and he looked sad, so that hurt too. And let me tell you, I wish I could tell you the crap I deal with on a daily basis, I know I keep saying that but it's true. Cancer is easy, it's the wackodoodles out there walking around that scare me. LOL. Talk to yall later!


If you're having to read this blog a second time, that's my fault, I forgot the funny story:

A long time ago I called my mom and told her I thought I had a yeast infection (I'm one of those lucky women very prone to those) so I asked my mom to pick up some medicine for me because I was a single mom working 12 hour shifts at the time. I told her it was so bad I thought when I pulled my pants down there was gonna be some raspberry muffins waiting for me, so she asked if I needed muffin mix. So that's what we call yeast infection medicine: Muffin mix. So if I ever ask you if you need muffin mix, I'm not asking you to bake for me ! lol!!!

So true! Thanks Candi!!!

This is starting to get old....

I have now figured out the waking up in the middle of the night (as much as I'd like to blame Chris) is from the Xeloda, it's a side effect. I might try some melatonin on Monday night. At least we have Netflix, tons of shows to keep me occupied.  I talk to the XRT nurse yesterday about my bladder issues, she said if I start having burning or pain with peeing to pick up some Azo (it's over the counter stuff for UTI) to hold me til I see Dr. S on Tuesday. I couldn't get my labs off the computer but Dianna told me they were all normal. I picked up my swish and swallow yesterday, it has lidocaine, hydrocortisone, and nystatin, IT IS NASTY!! It makes my whole mouth numb, so that might be for when my mouth really hurts, because most of the time I don't even notice it. Those who know me really well know that I hate asking for help. It's not that I believe asking for help is weakness or anything like that, I just hate to inconvenience people. I mean, how many people say "Call if you need anything", George Carlin has a whole skit on it you should really look it up for a good laugh. RIP George. Another thing is I hate asking for help now only 2 weeks into treatment because it's only going to get way worse. Anyways, I'm still not asking for help now, but you know. lol. I don't know what I am asking for, I would just be rambling cause I was awake at 4 this morning. Shout out to what will hopefully one day be my sister in law Jessica, she is making me her wonderful lasagna so I don't have to cook one day this week! Whoop whoop. I'm so glad it's a 3 day weekend so Chris is on cooking duty for 3 days! Talk to Yall later!

I just thought about something else...

I hate chemo brain, I cant remember crap as it is. So, I looked up diet for mouth sores:
1. No spicy food (There went 50% of my diet)
2. No hard chips (well, you took away my salsa....I guess I didn't need those chips)
3. No acidy fruits (There went ALL of my favorite fruits)
4. Warm liquids, cold could irritate gums, hot could burn gums
5. Water (yuk)
6. Eat soft foods
7. Limit sweets (There went all the soft foods worth eating)

So lets break it down: I can have warm water with bread, maybe mashed potatoes. This really bites. Actually it doesn't bite, it more like gums lol.

So much for boring treatment....

Well, yesterday when I got home I had to pee like super bad, and I hadn't been holding it for awhile, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Then it happened again an hour later....I already knew it had to be related to the radiation therapy. Fast forward a few hours: I fell asleep at 8:30, I was TIRED. At 11:30 Mr. Wilson thought it was a great idea to come to bed and watch Sons of Anarchy and play on his phone. He turned the TV at 12:30, I didn't fall back asleep til 1am. Sometime during that hour and half I realize my right lower canine is hurting......crap....I have a mouth sore, a side effect of the chemo. Sophie woke up at 3:30 (yes she sleeps with us, what of it?), she peed her chonies, luckily it didn't get on the bed. I didn't fall back to sleep for awhile, I don't know how long I was asleep but I couldn't get comfortable and my mouth hurt, I would have gotten up to take Tylenol but we don't have any! We have 1000 bottles of Ibuprofen but that's can cause blood to thin and I don't know what my blood counts are doing. Speaking of which, I went to look at my labs today and they weren't available on my computer, they must of gone straight to Dr. S.  I wake up at the usual time (drained of course) and go about my morning. I don't have that sense of urgency in my bladder anymore but I am peeing more frequently. My mouth is still hurting so I call and leave a message for Dr. Vega's nurse, of course she doesn't return calls til after 4 so I decide to put it out of my mind for the most part. Fast forward to the afternoon, I meant to ask Dr. S about my bladder issues but by this point it's not bothering me that much. About an hour later I'm talking to Chris and I think, "I have to pee, I'll go in a minute". When I got off the phone I forgot I needed to pee. I'm about to leave work so I go pee because I've Pavlov dogged myself into needing to pee before I leave work (interesting side note, if you don't know who Pavlov and his dog are you need to look it up, good part of psychology)....my chonies are wet. WTF!!!! Oh, I'm only on day 7, and I'm falling apart. It could be worse, I could have diarrhea. I had looked at a study this morning that said radiation therapy to the pelvic area causes bladder volume to decrease by 58% by the end of  six weeks of radiation therapy, so I'm sure that's part of it. Tomorrow Dr. S is off and Monday is doctor day. I need to remember to ask Dr. S to send me to the pelvic floor therapist. I know my bladder sphincter as well as my rectal sphincter are holding on for dear life! I'm working on my kegels. Back to the other side of my digestive system, Dr. Vega's nurse called me in some swish and swallow (Dr. Hirsch's own mix) for my mouth, I have to get it at McCoy's tomorrow because they close at 6 and she didn't call it in til after 5 and after 5 my second job (mom) starts. So that's my day today. I keep thinking 23 more days...Hopefully the weekends will give my body time to recuperate and I get a 3 day weekend this week.. whoop whoop..... Talk to yall later!

Treatment is so boring

I feel asleep on the XRT table today, I was so sleepy. It was a nice little 5 minute nap. If Mondays are Doctor days, Wednesdays are lab days. I just had a blood count drawn today. Last week I have blood counts and electrolytes drawn. One of my white blood cell counts was low but from what I learned from the oncology floor it wasn't one the important ones. My sodium was low last week, imagine that....let's count the signs of low sodium together:
1. low blood pressure
2. I crave salt constantly
3. I'm kind of crazy (low sodium does that lol)
The cause is probably the colon prep I had last week and all the potassium I ingest with bananas and multivitamins didn't help. That's about it today, I'll let you know my lab results tomorrow. Shout out to Callie D and Kim for the chilli's giftcard, Shout out ahead of time to my mom who is watching my kids while Chris and I go to dinner, lol j/k. Talk to y'all later.

Chemo day 6 but techinally day 4?

I give up trying to figure out what chemo day I'm on since I don't do chemo and XRT on the weekends. So today is Monday and Mondays are doctor day at XRT so I got to see Dr. S. She just assessed my symptoms, I don't have any, so that part went quick. Then she asked it Dr. K had told me about the colostomy situation, which he did. Apparently, he had known since my colonoscopy but didn't want to say anything cause he didn't think I would remember, he wanted Dr. S to tell me but she didn't want to be the bad guys, he was gonna tell me last Monday but I was busy with test, He was gonna tell me on Tuesday but got called into OR, so that's why he told me on Thursday. After XRT I went to go see Dr. A. I think he is taking all this hard too. He looked like he was gonna cry when he told me that he saw Dr. K this am and that the colostomy is very realistic. I'm over it but once again I forget most time this is their first time hearing it. Which reminds me, Dr. S is gonna have one of the CEO's of Hendrick call me because he has a colostomy so he can answer and questions I might have. I told her that I have a great support system and I'm part of an online group of people with colostomies but these old folks don't understand connecting with people online. You know, I actually have more drama outside of cancer than cancer is causing. That must be why I can handle it, this shit is nothing, you should see what I deal with on a daily basis. lol. Anyways, thanks Kaylee for the fazoli's for dinner tonight, thanks Amy Allyn for the frozen meals for when I don't feel like cooking. I mostly blog my thank you's so I remember who to send notes to later. Alright kids, I'm tired and I'm missing dancing with the stars. Talk to y'all later.

Chemo Day 3

I am so sorry I didn't post yesterday, I got bad news and needed to process before I talked to yall. I went to see Dr. Kendrick and he said that the tumor is right on my sphincter muscle and I will have to have a colostomy! I went back to the office and Dr. A told me that was worse case scenario because who knows what the tumor will look like when I'm done with chemo and radiation. I've already mentally prepared myself for needing one. At least this way if I need one I'm not shocked and if I don't need one great. One of my good friends is the wound care/ ostomy nurse at the hospital I work at I have learned so much from her over the years so that helps. I called her today and we talked about irrigation, that's where you train your bowels to just drain at a certain time daily or every other day when ever you want to empty it. If I could do that I wouldn't have to wear a bag everyday, I would just cover my stoma just in case. They make all kinds of neat things for stoma users now days. I even saw a cute tattoo that a girl put around hers on Pinterest. Chris is okay with it. I Think he just doesn't want to raise these little turds (lol) by himself so whatever keeps me alive is fine by him. I haven't really had any effects from the chemo and radiation, I did fall asleep for an hour earlier cause I was dog tired. I might just post if anything happens from here on out because I'm hoping for a boring treatment. My next doctor's appt is June 5th. Speaking of doctor's I need to make a correction, Dr. Wiginton said he read my CT Scan on Monday. Alright kids, I'll let ya'll know if anything else happens.

Nurse's week was last week but I was too busy to celebrate so we did it today... That's what I say everytime I open the door....

Chemo Day 1

I was going to count the cancer days but now we'll just count the chemo days. In oncology you track the chemo days because 7-14 are usually the worse. These are the days that the chemo really gets into your system and gets to work. I shouldn't experience too many problems since I'm only taking a pill and I only take it Monday- Friday. I started XRT today too, it wasn't bad. I just hate having to lie completely still, that's kind of a pain. I'm ready so happy to be getting back into a routine. I came home and cleaned and cooked dinner tonight. Chris didn't get home til 7 but that's ok cause I had it under control. While I have a moment I want to tell y'all what a wonderful husband I have. He is sweet to me when I need it and then follows it with a funny comment so we don't get too serious. He can joke with me about my cancer which is awesome. He has been the biggest help these last 2 weeks. The only thing that would make all this better is if Fuji's was back open because I'm still craving their chicken and rice that I didn't get last week. Tomorrow I have an appt with Dr. Kendrick but not until after my long awaited nurse's week lunch with the best coworkers on the planet!

People think I'm joking when I say I don't have time for cancer....

I am exhausted

I don't even know to begin with my day today, I had to write notes to remember what to blog today. Well, first, I'm still fighting with the pharmacy and insurance to get my chemo. This lasts for several hours, the pharmacy was blaming insurance and vice versa, it was maddening. Apparently, I found out from the XRT nurse, my old coworker DF, that this happens a lot, does no one see the problem here!  My medication should be ready for pick up at 10:30 am, I wont be completely happy until it's in my hand. I went to XRT today to do a "dry run" for tomorrow so we know exactly where we will radiate. I had a baseline chest x-ray today and a baseline labs. Oh, I lost my wallet, called labs, called XRT, it was in my office the whole time! I am seriously losing it. I do have a funny story from today...So I'm on hold with the lady from the insurance, she finally comes back to talk to me and when we were about to hang up she says, "I can only imagine what you are going through, I know this doesn't compare but my dog was diagnosed with bladder cancer last week"   WTF....did that seriously just happen?! Yeah it did. What a psycho. When I was texting Chris I couldn't help but laugh because it was so STUPID! That's about it, it felt my tiring than it sounds on paper. Y'all pray that they have my chemo tomorrow, I'm going to try to get it at lunch, if I don't get it I have to postpone radiation another day :( I'll blog again tomorrow... PS Shout out to the Nurses at Texas Tech Family Health Clinic they want to have a garage to help me pay for medical expenses! That is greatly appreciated and I cant thank y'all enough!  

See how tired I am, I basically said tr same thing twice!!

Here is a pic of the XRT machine

You want me to pay how much?

So, when I was looking through the fun stuff that Dr. Vega gave me (see below) I found a card for financial assistance from the drug company. I called the number on the card and got it activated, the drug company will pay 80% of the copay up to $24,000! YEY! So I call Walgreen's to how much the copay will be and they tell me they need a pre auth before they can tell me how much it is, I said how much is it without insurance...all I heard was $7000 I don't even know what the last 3 numbers of that quote were because I was stopped at the thousand part. The lady then tells me to call my insurance company. The insurance lady was wonderful, she gave me a number for the pharmacy to call and that would get it resolved. So NOW, I call the pharmacy and  a much nicer lady answers the phone. She explained to me that my medicine is on the high priority list and they are already working to get this issue resolved. I explained to her that ideally we would like to start chemo on Wednesday. She gave me her name and told me to call back tomorrow at 11am and she would see what the progress was. At this point I call my sister in law because she doesn't know how to read ;) and I tell her what is going on, she explained that with medications that expensive the doctor just has to prove that that medicine is needed. WTF is wrong with insurance companies!! Of course I need it, dummies!! I swear as much as Chris and I pay for insurance all this shit should be free!! Anyways, I'll let y'all know how that goes....

Fun stuff from Dr Vega's Office

So I have Stage II rectal cancer that is very curable!!

Day 5:

I had a CT Scan this morning (Thanks Tony at Hendrick Imaging Center) and it showed no lymph node involvement! YEY! Dr. Dumas (Radiologist) mentioned some lymph nodes in the abdomen but no one is worried about those and even if they were a problem the chemo will take care of it. I met with Dr. Vega today and we are going to do pill chemo. I will start that and radiation(XRT) on Wednesday. The chemo I will take twice a day M-F and radiation will be daily M-F. Dr. Vega will be my main doctor for now and he said for 5 years after the cancer is gone. He will evaluate me at 3 weeks then again at 6 weeks to determine when we will do surgery. I need to get baseline labs and a chest Xray tomorrow. I went to radiation therapy this afternoon and got my tattoo, I'll post a pic of that later cause right now it's covered up with stuff for radiation therapy. Today at XRT was simulation which means I got on the table and got comfortable because every time I do XRT I will be in that position. Dr Singh was also able to evaluate where my vital organs were in that area to make sure nothing's getting radiation that doesn't need it. Unfortunately (Stop reading if you are squeamish) but my anus will get radiated so my asshole maybe sore about 2 weeks into this :(. Tomorrow we do trial run at XRT, then I pick up my chemo from Walgreen's and start everything Wednesday. I have an appt with Dr. Kendrick on Thursday. He wont tell me anything new but I might as well throw him a bone since he will be doing my surgery. That's about it for today.

Possible Side Effects:
Chemo:
*nausea/ vomiting (he gave me Compazine)
*fatigue
*Hand and Foot syndrome (Where my hands and feet get dry, they gave me some utter cream and they said the lotion "Working hands" at Bath & Body is good. They said to just moisture every time I wash my hands)
*I am NOT expected to lose my hair

Radiation:
*Diarrhea
*Bladder irritation (Which Dr. Singh didn't think would be a problem)
*Skin irritation at my anus

That's about it. I will blog again when something interesting actually happens. See y'all later.

Better pic of the new 'do

I thought about naming it but I didn't want to get attached...

Sounds about right

What a boring day...

Day 3:
I went to the salon today, I felt worse for my hair dresser than I did for myself. Yall don't know how much work he put into my hair last time to get those highlights looks so beautiful just so we can cover it up this time. He did such a good job with my color today. It's difficult to dye hair dark without making it look fake and he did a great job! I got a message yesterday that I didn't mention what kind of cancer on the blog yesterday: it's adenocarcinoma which is the most common for rectal cancer. I tried to fix my blog so you don't have to register to leave a comment so we'll see if that works. That's it for today, I probably wont post anything until Monday unless I get messages or comments of questions I need answered. See yall Monday.

New hairstyle courtesy of Steven at Pura Vida

Who knew so much was involved....

Day 2:
Today I went to work and it was business as usual. Of course everyone wanted to know the plan and wanted to look at the pictures ( I work with a bunch of freaks, lol). I meant to post the pictures but I forgot to take a picture of the pictures with my phone and I left them at work :(  Went to meet Dr. Singh today, she is really cool, kinda goofy. She is super smart and wants to make sure you know everything that is going on. In fact, she wants you to know so much, I found myself zoning out and had to refocus. It's moments like that that I wish I had a video recorder in my head so people can see what goes on. So, she did her exam, learned everything about me. Apparently she can't really know what to do til the CT results come in on Monday and she already told me she is going to call Dr. Bliznak (JB Jr) about 15 minutes into my procedure to see what's going on so she can figure out my treatment. I learned more about radiation therapy (XRT) than I ever wanted to know, EVER. There is tons of math involved (hint to the title of today's blog). So, Here is my schedule on Monday: 8am be at Hendrick Imaging Center (formally Abilene Imaging Center) for my CT scan at 9 am. They are only doing an abdomen/ pelvis because insurance wont pay for a chest CT (WTF). Then at 10:30 I have my appt with Dr. Vega to meet him as "a patient". I LOVE Dr. Vega! We worked together on the floor and his wife has an art studio near Ralph and DeeDee Z. I decided that if Dr. Vega didn't take me as a patient I would burn that bitch to the ground, luckily I can save my matches for the bathroom candles. ;) . I'm going to try to go to work after that and then on Monday afternoon I go for my XRT simulation. I think what is going to happen (once again I was zoning out) is that she will do another CT type thing to see where the cancer is in relation to the rest of my organs so she can safely give me my radiation. Connie the radiology tech that does this part will give me my XRT tattoo, she said it will be a small dot on top of my crack, I'm excited, I'm finally getting a tramp stamp, lol. Let me tell you though, the radiation people are just as crazy as I am so I'm going to have a lot of fun. ALOT of dirty jokes happened today, enough to almost make me blush. Oh, I also asked Dr. S about a mammogram but she said that is completely unrelated, I'm not so sure so I'll just ask Dr. Kapu for one, she won't care. What else happened today....Oh my pathology came it: When he did the biopsy he biopsied the tumor and another area that he thought was benign just to be on the safe side. The benign one is definitely benign. The tumor is well differiented which means it's low grade, which means, had this been caught sooner it might have just been a high risk lesion. That's about it. I'm going to fill out some paperwork so when I leave to go to treatments or doctor's appointments the hospital will still pay me, that's always a plus. If anyone has any questions feel free to just comment and I'll try to remember to answer in the blog after that.  I guess that's it. I'll post pics of my hair do tomorrow. Yall might regret asking for a blog because I'm long winded and at this moment quite bored...

I posted this just because I'm getting a haircut tomorrow... Bye bye blonde!

So what's the plan..?

Day 1 Continued:

I guess I better give yall my list of things that need to be done now.
First off, my kids know NOTHING of this, we just tell them what they need to know as we go along. My friend KE told her kids when she had breast cancer and I think she regrets that. They are better now but those first couple of days must of been hell. So if anyone is reading this and your kids know mine or you know my kids: everything is normal!

Ok, So I had an appt with Dr. Singh, she is a radiological oncologist, on Tuesday but my awesome boss got me an appt tomorrow. Dr. Singh also said she would happy to help a member of the radiology family (being a nurse has its perks sometimes). I have a CT scan on Monday to determine staging. The pathology report from my biopsy will be in tomorrow so we will know what kind of cancer we are dealing with.

BTW, this is so very surreal! I'm surprisingly not that bothered by it, I imagine it's my strange romantic sense of adventure that makes everyday of my life exciting for me, it's more of a bother than anything. I hiccup in an otherwise perfect existence. Oh well, this too shall pass, and after all I am southern so I'll handle it with grace and charm, and KICK IT'S ASS!

I thought I had hemorrhoids...

Day 1:
Where to begin? I guess I will begin at the beginning (that's usually how it goes) cause as my good friend CG pointed out, the more times you repeat yourself, the more years off your life, and if we're calling a spade a spade, I don't have many of those to spare, lol. Y'all probably didn't think that was funny, but I did.

I started having rectal bleeding and mucus from my bottom 2 years ago, I thought it was hemorrhoids. I told my PCP who did a rectal exam when he did my pap smear and he said he didn't feel anything. He gave me some guiac stool sample cards and told me to pray about it. BTW, this is about the 5th major issue/decision on my care that I made that he told me to pray about. I didn't do the guiac cards because I knew I had rectal bleeding so I didn't see the point in wasting my time on those cards, plus, my PCP said the mucus could be related to diet. A year goes by (because I'm a great patient) and I'm still having these issues. I bring it up to my PCP again, and this time I do the guiac cards. For those of you not in the medical field, guiac cards test your poop for blood, pretty simple. I MADE SURE there was blood on the poop that I put on those cards....the PCP's nurse called and said everything is normal....really? So I decided that I will just live with this issue and change my diet and hope for the best....that lasted about a week. This year I went to Dr. Kapu for my yearly. I told her about my issues. She said she didn't see any hemorrhoids and they might be internal and she would send me to Dr. Kendrick (Thank God!). I went to see Dr. Kendrick on Monday May 6th. He did a digital rectal exam (he stuck his finger in my butt) and did a proctoscope (like a mini colonoscopy). He let me get dressed then came back in........He told me I have tumor. I was set up for a colonoscopy for today and now here we are. I have rectal cancer. Yeah it sucks, but it is what it is. Please don't boo hoo for me cause feeling sorry for me does nothing but get on my nerves. I crave normalcy. This will be my blog to keep all yall updated. This is so surreal.