Holy Cow

I didn't realize that it had been THAT long since I had posted on here. I am still here (obviously!) just busy living life. I have gone through phases where I have had to back off from the cancer community for a bit, but I have always come back.

A lot has happened since I last wrote. We have finally gotten an affiliate of the Young Survival Coalition in Chicago, I finally made it to a YSC conference, I have been on the Komen grant review committee for two years, and I am sitting in DC right now! I was asked to come here with Komen for their Lobby days, and it has been a great experience.

I am tired though, so I am going to head off to bed. I will try to keep this blog up to let you my family and friends know what I am up to after cancer. For others that may stumble on this blog, I feel it is probably a good idea that you know I am still alive and kicking. So if you are going through the bc experience, it completely sucks, but there is another side to come out on.

This blog will take on a little bit different spin though. It will still have quite a bit of cancer information, and I will probably get snarky once in awhile, but it will also contain the day to day, and tidbits about the family and my girls. Remember, this is my blog, if you don't like what you read, you can always leave, I promise-you won't hurt my feelings.

Peace.

Still Here...

Hey, Everyone... Yes, I am still here. I just haven't really felt like writing a whole lot lately. (Like that isn't obvious!) Once the girls are back in school, I will try to write more, and catch up.

A quick run down, we got the  girls lap tops for Christmas. They loved that. John and the girls got me a digital SLR camera. I can take pics with it, but I would love to learn all the tricks to it. It came with free lessons, so I may be taking those.

We are heading out tomorrow to the Great Wolf Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells. Ann, Jim and crew as well as Joey, Jennifer and Jack will be there. Jr. and Justin will be getting there on New Year's Eve. It should be fun. I may check into a massage while I am there. While I don't like the fact that we are heading towards cooler temps and snow, (did I mention that I HATE WINTER!) at least in the resort it will be warm and we can play in the water!

Now that the Twilight movie has been out for awhile, I will have to see about changing my background too. I realize this one can be hard to read.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year!!!

The Other Side of Me...

Ok, I still haven't found a good link for the press conference. Who knows if I ever will. Hopefully those that wanted to see it were able to.

As for the title of this post, as you may have guessed, that is my way of making light of this situation. I do feel like a stranger living in my own body. I want to trade this body in at times-it could look exactly the same, just FEEL better. Again, I debated posting this for a couple of reasons. I don't like to complain, and it doesn't do any good. I also know that there are those that won't want to read this. But, that being said, this is a journal of sorts (albeit a public one), so it helps me to right it down. And if anyone were to stumble on this site that were going through this, maybe it would help them to know they aren't alone. Probably not, but you never know.

Since having my ovaries taken out, things have gotten a little off kilter to say the least. I was already dealing with the fatigue that kicks in way too quick for someone my age (an after effect of the chemo and surgeries), now I had new issues to deal with. Not at first. At first all seemed well, great even. Then the migraines started to increase (which I thought would get better) and the hot flashes grew steadily worse. This is again one of those cases where if men had to deal with it, there would be a "fix" for it already. My ob also warned me about possible mood swings. Well, since I didn't really experience that around my period, I wasn't expecting it to happen now. Boy, was I ever wrong. I now get into these terrible moods for no reason. I literally want to tell everyone to fuck off and go crawl in a corner. (I did get the name of a few therapists in case I need outside help dealing with that.) Now, add to that being uncomfortable in my skin because either my head is pounding, or my internal furnace just kicked the temperature up to about 1000 degrees, (or if I'm real lucky, both at the same time!) and you can see why I want out of this body! The hot flashes were making it impossible to sleep too. Which of course didn't help with the attitude problem. An ugly vicious circle!

Last week I had a couple of check ups. Check up number one with the onc (all is fine), and check up number two with my plastic surgeon. I don't go see her again for a year. Can you believe I actually felt bad about that?? How f'd up is that? I also had to have my flu shot, and saw my general about my migraines. He has put me on Topomax, I have still had a couple of headaches this week where I had to take the Excedrine Migraine. Compared to 3-5 a week though, not so bad. He did say it would take a few weeks to fully kick in. I go back in 3 weeks to access that situation. I had called my ob to get the Lexapro she had mentioned to help with the hot flashes. There was a little bit of an issue with insurance with this, apparently you have to try another drug first, if that doesn't work, then get the Lexapro. So she subbed Celexa (or the generic of actually). This can take up to a month to feel the full effects of. I do believe it is helping already though. I am still getting the hot flashes, but they don't seem to be as intense (maybe only 500 degrees!). And I am finally able to get a decent nights sleep. The other plus is that this is actually an anti-depressant drug (not sure why those work on hot flashes) so it will help with the mood swings too.

So, me, the anti-pill person, is now taking syntrhoid, oscal-d, topomax and celexa. I guess to feel like me again, it is worth it. There are some side effects. My mouth tastes funny, which I was told goes away. And I was a little queasy, but that is already better today.

So here is hoping that I am getting back to the right side of me!!

OMG!!!!

Not sure why exactly I am so excited about this, but Obama gave his first press conference today as President Elect--and he did it from the hotel I am staying at!! I wish I could have gotten in there! Unfortunately we didn't get to see him. I am at the Chicago Hilton for the Network of Strength Conference. There was talk last night about all  of the news vans out front. Well ,on the news this morning we found out why! One of the girls was trying to get a press pass to write about it on her blog. She was doing a bit of snooping to find out where this was, she seems to be quite the detective. After breakfast, I went with her to the third floor (where most of this was being staged). The secret service we talked to knew nothing except what pertained to his little corner. Then she talked to a White House Staff (or Obama staff-not sure the official title yet) person. She told him that there was a breast cancer conference going on in the hotel and that it would be nice if the President Elect could stop by. He then explained to us that they can not vary from the schedule because of Secret Service. Oh well. It was worth a shot. Last I heard from her, she had been waiting two hours to see if she would get that press credential. I can't wait to talk to her and see what happened.
Well, I am heading back down stairs. If I find a link to the full press conference I will post a link.
What a weekend!! Tomorrow I get to see Robin Roberts!

CNN: Barack Obama wins presidential election






YEAH!!!!!

Priceless Part 2

Yet another hiliarious SNL skit.

Priceless!!

Ok, for some reason I can't get this to embed here, but PLEASE check it out. It is something Ron Howard put together.

"Ron Howard's Call To Action"