Another One Bites the Dust!

Week that is.....  Five weeks post bilateral mastectomy.  What a week it was.  A few more firsts, some struggles, mentally and physically, but I made it through!

A major accomplishment on my healing journey occurred this week....  I drove all by myself!  Big day folks.  I had not been behind the wheel in five weeks!  Some of you may be freaking out right now, saying WTF, I couldn't stand that.  But I can honestly say I did not feel like it, nor did I have the ability, with my T-rex arms and lack of mobility, to even attempt driving until this week.  Craziness, I know!  Another one for the list of "things we take for granted".  And a big kudos goes out to my beautiful old ass car for starting right up on the first crank.  LOL  We had a bet whether white girl would start or not.  ha!  I had no doubt.  She's my old faithful and has to last me at least 5 more years (financial goals)!  Which are now all rearranged due to the big "C".  Maybe more than 5 years now....😝

I jumped into old faithful and headed to the only seemingly appropriate place for me to be driving myself to alone for the first time.  Physical Therapy. Two of the most hated words in the dictionary for anyone who has undergone some type of ordeal that requires physical therapy.  As with most people, PT is a love hate relationship.  I love it because in the end it does help and makes you feel better.  But in the beginning it hurts like hell!  This was true with my knee surgery a couple of years ago and true again this week during my first PT appointment.  My physical therapist specializes in mastectomy, dealing with the massive scar tissue, lymphedema,  and our fabulous t-rex arms.  She began by massaging my incisions and scar tissue.  To help you understand how incredibly freaky this is, let me explain ..... I have various levels of feeling in this area now.  Some of it is totally numb and some of it you feel everything, including all of those little nerves that are still trying to find a connection but are still too short to connect, which yes, still hurts like hell at times.  Bless her heart because I still cannot bring myself to touch it.  It literally grosses me out!  So yay for people like her that are okay with this.  Not even gonna lie, at times during this part of the session I was totally weirded out, total heebie jeebies!  There's a chick massaging my boobs..... Oh wait, I don't have boobs....  LOL  Next was the "fun" part of the session, the stretches and exercises.  I am always amazed at how weak surgery can make you.  Six weeks ago moving my arms above my head was done without a thought.  This week, I have to concentrate on how far I can raise them and it feels like my armpits are ripping in half, as I try to do "just a little more".   After 90 minutes of "fun" I head out, sore as $#@%, but feeling accomplished, as I always do after PT.   Time for a pain pill and a glass of wine! #dontjudgeme

This week brought another first......  Tamoxifen......  a pill I will take for at least 5 years.  At least that's what I'm told right now.  In my prior post, I was debating on whether or not to read the side effects before taking it.  I did the naughty thing and read.  And still, reluctantly, took my first one on Monday.  First couple of days were pretty good.  I was thinking yay, no side effects for me.  Ha!  How naive.  The heartburn hits.  This is not good, as I already take meds for acid reflux and gastric problems.  But if this is it, I can probably handle it.  But as the week went on, more of the lovely side effects reared their ugly heads.  This shit is the real deal.  First was massive nausea, then came the headache.  I don't get headaches... ever, well unless they are a result the mighty hangover 😂.  This made me feel terribly sorry for all of the people out there that suffer from constant migraines.  Nothing helped.  Not even Oxy.  Now I have heartburn, I feel like I'm going to throw up, and my head hurts so bad I think my brain is going to pop out.  But alas no hot flashes, which is the number one side effect of this drug.  Silver lining, no, I'd rather have the massive hot flashes.  I had a very bad day this day and had a major pity party (see prior post) haha.  I couldn't take it.  I decided to skip the pill for a day and a half.  I know, I know, what a pussy, on the drug 3 days and am a quitter.  I really hate myself for that, but I just couldn't.  I joined a Tamoxifen support group on Facebook and read lots of ladies posts.  Several of them cut their pills in half and take half in the morning and half at night.  So I decided to "woman" up and try this.  I've been doing this for a couple of days now and am feeling a little better doing it this way.  Mood swings are a bitch.  But I can deal with them... Poor Don!!  Hopefully this continues to work on the headaches and nausea.  I don't want to be a quitter and I definitely don't want cancer back.  This drug is a major contributor in helping the cancer from recurring.  Especially with my type of cancer.  But I am not willing to lay in bed with massive headaches and feeling like I'm going to throw up if I move.  That's not quality of life.  And this pill is not a guarantee that it will keep it from recurring.  Several women have taken this faithfully and still had recurrences.  But I am keeping my hopes up that this half and half solution works for me.

I am now beginning my last week of recovery at home.  Headed back to PT two days this week.  Get the pain pills ready!  I also have a surgeon follow up appointment, where I will get my prescription for my foobies (fake boobies, for the amateurs).  I'm not sure how to feel about this yet.  I may cry.  It may make this all too real.  And to round out my week of fun, my pre-op appointment with the gyno to discuss hysterectomy.  Sounds awesome right?  Don't be jealous!  haha

Then it's back to work next week.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't freaking out about it.  I don't even really know why, but I'm having massive anxiety.  But I'm hoping that getting back into my normal routine will help me to feel somewhat normal again and help me to quit dwelling on some of these bad thoughts in my brain.  The what ifs.  I hate them.  I'm assuming with time they will fade.  That is my hope!

Where The Hell Is Kristy Lee??

She apparently is still lost somewhere in the remnants of cancer hell.  I am unable to find her most of the time and the tiny moments when she does appear, she feels lost, fake, and out of place.  

When I start to refer to myself in third person, you know it's gotten bad.  Hurry friends, get the straight jacket!

Tomorrow will be exactly 3 months since the most awful phone call in the world.  I feel like my whole life has been turned upside down.  I do not feel like myself and I cannot seem to find me.  Lord knows I'm trying.  I hate feeling like I have lost myself somewhere in an abyss with no chance of ever returning.   And why did it have to happen at the exact moment in my life when I was really beginning to love who I was!  I had spent my whole life trying to fit in.  Trying to make people like me.  Doing anything to accomplish this via new hair styles, new clothes, new habits, etc. just to fit in.  Then one day a few years ago it just clicked.  And I no longer gave a rats ass who liked me, who didn't like me, because I finally was liking myself.   It is just so unfair.



When I began this journey, so many ladies who had gone through it before me had said that this  would change me.  I would not be the same.  And I would have to find a new normal.  I just thought that they meant how I would be learning how to deal with being boobless (ie. new bras, foobies, clothes, etc.)  Well I'm here to tell you that shit is a piece of cake compared to the mental toll it takes on a person.  Which I'm guessing is what these lovely ladies were referring to all along.  It is always in the back of my mind.  There is not a moment in the day when I do not think about it in some way.  Whether it's when I'm eating, drinking, exercising, not exercising, out to dinner, watching TV, blah blah blah... you get the picture.  It is consuming me and inhibiting me from being who I once was.  Before December 1,  I ate what I wanted, drank what I wanted, laid on my ass if I wanted and was a happy person who was living life like there was no tomorrow.  You would think that, after the shit I've just been though, it would be more relevant for me to continue to do as I was before.  But instead here I am finding myself unrecognizable.  Unable to find joy in even the smallest of things.  Unable to have fun and laugh at all.  I have been out and about with my fiancé and with friends.  I have had my closest girls over to hang out.  I put my smile on and try like hell to be "me".  And all I feel is dead inside.  I feel fake.  I am not happy.  But everyone expects me to just bounce back from this and act like nothing happened.  We need fun Kristy back.   But I just can't. Not yet.  It's too soon.  And no one seems to understand.  I am lost in the forrest of my emotions and haven't found my way out yet.

I feel terrible because my fiancé fell in love with the old me.  Now it seems like he's going to be stuck with this new person whom I do not even like.  Why should I expect him to like her.....  oops... me.... where's that straight jacket?  haha!  He is seriously a rock star in my book.

Along with everything that has happened thus far, I also began a new medicine Monday that will probably, in all reality, cause severe hot flashes, massive mood swings, along with other side effects that will again interfere with who I am trying to get back to.

I'm hoping this is temporary and eventually I will feel like me again, but so much has changed and I am a new person without a doubt.  I just hope I can learn to like this new me as much as I liked the old one and get back to some type of normalcy someday SOON!  #thistoshallpass #imissmynormal