Lovin' Fall

It has been a while sense I blogged so I am giving an update. My TAH was June 14th and I still have pain in the incision area when I exercise, so I of course ceased that. :) I do not feel any different without hormones. I am on Premarian, but it does not make me feel fancy or anything. I am light headed more often now than before surgery and hope that one day I feel "good". The mass that was takin out of me had the same make up of my tumor, but it was not malignant. This freaks me out on so many levels because my cancer was not suppose to come back and it did. I am wondering where it will strike next. I have my check up in a couple weeks with my onocologist since I am back on every 3 months. I have a new job that keeps me busy working as a case manager through a school district, I like it and want to be around to enjoy working for years to come. Sense the surgery I feel depressed more, but am trying to constantly look at the positive. When i tell people my story, I always get the reaction "Why aren't you depressed?" Never thought about it, I have always been thankful to be alive and found being depressed a waste of time, but now with no hormones I am depressed. Crazy! I was kept for a reason, so I hope I am on the right road because I can not take another surgery or chemo again. I just want a normal, boring life! :)

Still Recovering (2 weeks post-op from TAH)

I am in the latter part of my 2 weeks from my hysterectomy and it stinks. I do not feel any better from before my ovary was out and now I have horrid menopause symptoms to deal with on top of that. I have headaches, dizziness, hot flashes, dry skin, ringing in my ears and massive insomnia. My doctor does not believe in hormone treatment so I am just living one minute at a time. I have been drinking soy and taking flax, but do not know what else to do. My incision is healing nice, but I still have discomfort and swelling in my belly. I found that the mass in my ovary had the same mix as my cancerous ovary, but it was still benign. Thank goodness! I just want to know if my symptoms are going to improve or are they going to get worse? Honestly, if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have tried harder saving that ovary, but I know that I would of had to have this surgery at some point in my life and at least it is behind me.

My friends are coming in for the Fourth and we are going to catch up since I am still on orders to not do anything drastic. I am able to hang wih my dogs so that is a positive perk. My next post will be more positive because I hope these symptoms will be in my past. I HOPE!

Done with surgery, now it is recovery

Surgery went will I guess. My doctor decided against my past c-section scare and cut me up and down my stomach for an added touch. My incisions do not hurt, but the gas is very uncomfortable. I have been walking and it does not seem to do much. Today is 3 days post op and I finally farted. Yes, I had a mini celebration, but I know I still have a long road ahead of me. My staples come out in two weeks. They checked my ovary in the hospital and it was benign but samples were sent out and I won't find that out until tomorrow. My doc is not worried. Hopefully, this will be it and I can live a boring life from now till I am 100. Thank you for all your thoughts and now just think of me pooping and farting to get my intestines back to normal. :)

Another surgery approaching

I hate being put under, but who does? I have my hysterectomy surgery on Monday the 14th in Columbus which is 2 hours away. Sunday I have to cleanse my bowels. I did not have to do that with my last ovary removal. Sounds fun. I just hope that I will finally feel better getting the other ovary gone and all my other female parts. Supposively my tumor markers were normal, so this should not lead into chemo, but my onocologist is doing the procedure, so that makes me wonder. Currently, I am bloated and in some mild pain due to the enlarged ovary. I had to fill out one of those sheets about allegies and past surgeries, it is intimidating. They have to tell you everything that could go wrong and I hate that, so know I am thinking this is it, my life was short and I have not accomplished much. Hopefully, the man upstairs will keep me around to see my girls grow, get married and hopefully not have to deal with all these female issues I am having. I have looked into nursing and am going to finish my master's in criminology this fall and go into the program from there. With my exprience in cancer, chemo and surgeries, I should do well in that job market. :) I will let everyone know how surgery goes. If it goes like last time, I will be up and walking the halls that evening against doctors orders, I am good at not listening. :)

Deja vu

Had a mysterious pain in my right ovary and went yesterday to have it checked out. I have a 8cm mass in it and have to have emergency surgery to remove this mass and to have a total hysterectomy. The interesting part to this is my gynocologist and onocologist are arguing over who should do this surgery. While they do this, this mass is continuing to be painful and growing. My onocologist is confident it is not cancerous and wants teh gyno to do the surgery, but my gyno is scared to do the surgery and would feel more confident if my onocologist would do it. On top of this, my onocologist is out of the office for the next couple of weeks due to a death. I just went to the 6 month appointment on May 20th and everything checked out fine. I did have a 5cm solid mass, but my onocologist feels that it is just scare tissue. Can we talk pain? Wow! this is menstral cramps x 100. I was offered pain meds, but I do not even like taking tylonel. Pain makes me feel alive and aware of what is happening to me, so if I don't have to have the meds, I won't take them.

Doing this all over again makes me think of death. I know, it is morbid, but you can't turn away from this possibility. I am trying to talk to steve about it, but he keeps telling me not to talk about it. IF something would happen, I do not feel comfortable being cremated and sprinkled in the "family" plot. This sounds stupid, but I want steve to fall in love again and having me in the "plot" seems akward. I know my girls will always be mine and needs a place to visit, but I am stuck on where to be sprinkled. I always get morbid before surgery, but I am not ready to leave this world quite yet. I have to annoy my girls for at least 50 more years...... :)

Y do people suck?

I have been cancer free about 2 years and have my 6 month check up on May 20th. I work as a home health aide and am almost complete with my master's in criminal justice. Today at work I came in to get a new care plan for a client and my supervisor wanted to speak privately with me. I had a client assigned to me last week and out of 4 visits this person cancelled twice. This woman is in her 50's and has fibromylasia. Today she said she did not want a visit so I left. When my supervisor called her to see what was up she stated that I harped on having cancer and that I did not want to do anything. This client stated that I would not give her a shower! First of all, I do not harp on anything and I do not talk of my past unless it comes up. My agency recently did a full page spread on my life and it is noted that I am a cancer survivor. My supervisor told me that if I told anyone else about my cancer past that I can find a new job. What? Isn't that discrimination? I am not ashamed of my diagnosis and am pretty damn proud that I survived. If someone wants to know my history I am not going to lie about it. Someone in my agency thought my story may bring hope to our clients so why can't I share my story? It is not like I go in and say Ha, Ha, I survived and you are dying of the disease. I am a damn good worker and go over the hill and through the woods for my clients no matter the diagnosis. I feel my supervisor is ashamed of me. As for this client, I was down on my knees and scrubbed her kitchen floor, did two loads of laundry, dusted, disinfected her house, vacuumed and made her bed along with changing her sheets. As for the shower, she did not want me to touch her, so what was I suppose to do. I hate that she threw personal information back in my face b/c the client did not get her way. Shame on my supervisor thinking I would stoop that low as to throw a diagnosis that happened TWO years ago in a clients face and not take care of them. I hate people today and I actually feel ashamed of myself for having cancer. I did not have the choice to not have it, so why should I feel this bad? I am an optimistic, happy person and grow from my adventures and I am not going to stop sharing my story if it will help another in coping with a loved one with a devasting illness.

For anyone who may read this and yes it is a rant, but I do have a question. After having such extensive chemotherapy, are long term side effects normal? I still have digestion issues, which my doctor says it may be IBS, I have no short term memory and I have little damage to my left valve of my heart. Can someone share their story with me and tell me if this is from chemo or am I just getting old?

joy of anal cleansing

Went to the GI doctor Monday and he wanted to do a colonoscopy on Wednesday so today I cleansed. 11am drank this nasty fizzy stuff and have not left the toilet since. Writing this I am going back and forth and it is almost 11pm. After talking to a few healthcare professionals I decided to cancel the appointment around 4pm today b/c I don't feel I have Crohn's disease and that is what he wanted to check. This doctor took no history, no blood and stated that he wants to do the colonoscopy then if it isn't Crohn's he will just give me meds for IBS. the more I thought about it and the fact my visit that probably cost as much as my car payment lasted less than 5 minutes, I decided to scrap it. Of course now I am paying for it since I can't stop going to the bathroom. I 'm sure you're glad I am writing about my bowel movements. Hey, I have one clean colon right now.

Swine flu has finally hit my girls schools. Of course they are not getting vaccinated till November so if they get the flu now, will they even need the vaccine? Are you immune to it once you have it? I can't find the seasonal flu shot for me anywhere. I have never had a flu shot before but since I have had chemo in the past, I thought I would do it, but now I can't find it. Figures. I just hope this panic soon fades and we can start living again without fear and face masks. I told my husband, I feel like we live in a sci fi movie, but without all the cool costumes.