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Posts Tagged ‘prayer’

Five months?!?!

Posted in Boston, Cancer, chemotherapy, connections, Discovery, Fundraising, prayer, recovery, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

I honestly cannot believe it: today is five months since I was sitting in my office and got the call from my doctor saying “you have breast cancer.” In some ways, it feels like a lifetime – I hardly remember a time when cancer wasn’t consuming my life. In other ways, I don’t know where these last five months have gone – I feel like it was just February, we were finishing the shutdown and celebrating my 38th birthday. (What a dud 38 has turned out to be – bring on 39!!!!)

But as much of a nightmare as this has all been, anyone who knows me knows that I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I refuse to curl up in a ball and cry endlessly (although I let myself for a few minutes every now and then…), become useless or a burden and just accept my fate. I am not going to over-analyze this and whine ‘why me’ over and over, either. In fact, I don’t think I have to – I think now maybe I know why me…

Just as I sat down to write this, my phone rang. I was so relieved to see my friend’s name. It was only a month ago that she told me the horrific news that she’d found a lump. I refered her to my fabulous dream team at Dana-Farber and it was confirmed as breast cancer. And today she was having a lumpectomy. While I’d heard she made it through fine, I was excited to hear her voice and know it for sure. I exclaimed my relief over the news that the doctors said all went well and they believe they caught it early and it’s all gone. And she said, “It’s thanks to you. You reminding everyone to check.” And that’s it. Maybe that is why. Maybe I needed to go through this so others can catch it early enough and stop it. Words can’t express how thankful I am that she found that lump and stopped it. That makes every second of this journey worth it.

So please – do your self-checks. And tell your sisters, mothers, wives, lovers, friends, daughters, everyone, to do their checks, too. But it’s not enough. We have to stop the damn c-word completely! As some of you know, I am excited to have two opportunities to help in the collective fight against cancer:

  • Tomorrow (Tuesday, August 21) at 1:15 p.m. I will be interviewed live on the 11thAnnual WEEI / NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon – Events – The Jimmy Fund. (WEEI is Boston’s sports radio station – 93.7 FM and 850 AM and you can listen live online at www.weei.com; It may also be simulcast on TV (NESN), but that’s TBD.) They are going to interview me about my personal cancer experience, my interactions at Dana-Farber, etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to help some cancer survivors know they are not alone in their experiences and inspire some people to donate and help conquer cancer. (And hopefully I won’t embarrass myself on live radio/TV…)
  • I’m also honored that my childhood friend Heather Forbes started a team for me in the Jimmy Fund Boston Marathon Walk on September 9. I am thrilled to be feeling healthy enough to walk the last three miles with the team, so have registered. Our team is still looking for walkers (and supporters), so if you are able, please join us – there are multiple legs, you don’t have to do the whole 26.2 miles! For more information on walking or donating: Amy’s Jimmy Fund Walk Page.

Thank you: every prayer, every self-check, every step walked, every penny donated: together we really can make a difference in this fight!

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Good riddance to the A/C chemo cocktail!

Posted in Boston, Cancer, chemotherapy, Discovery, hair, Planning, prayer, recovery, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

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Phil was right – you can do anything once. So I did get through the last round, at least so far. I am not feeling great, but not horrid either, and for that I am very thankful! After feeling similar last time and then crashing later, I am taking it easy and being cautious.

I did smile for real once the chemo party got started, as you can see in the pics. Not only did we celebrate the last of the worst chemo cocktail, we celebrated Vanessa’s birthday with a yummy cake made by Tara. And while he’s not in the pictures because he had to leave a bit early, Nick was with us for the first part of our celebration, too – I couldn’t ask for a more loving, supportive son. I am very lucky.

And yes, also as you can see from the pictures, I tried embracing the blonde a bit to see if I could get used to it. Not exactly my favorite, but I will be happy with my real hair no matter how it grows in! Just to have my own again will be so nice! I got encouraging news, both from my oncologist, who said hair grows in rounds, so some parts will grow at certain times, and then other parts at other times, and then from a fellow cancer survivor who said that her hair began growing in between rounds 3 and 4 of A/C and through Taxol, and is now up to 2″ – so maybe I will stop having Nick shave my head and see what happens… maybe I will have some hair before the end of the year!

I also got my new schedule: I have three weeks off and will start Taxol once a week for 12 weeks on Tuesday, September 4. Then I will be able to work every Monday, have treatment Tuesday, and hopefully be able to work Wed – Fri each week – at least Thurs and Fri – but we’ll see how it goes… Then I should have my last one Nov. 20 and will truly have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!!!

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Wishes

Posted in Boston, Cancer, chemotherapy, Denial, Dreams, family, hair, London, prayer, recovery, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am making a wish on each eyelash that I catch as it falls out. All those wishes have to add up, right? I refuse to waste a wish on anything pointless, like wishing that my eyelashes and eyebrows wouldn’t fall out, although I really don’t want them to. So what am I wishing for? Like birthday wishes, I don’t think you’re supposed to tell or they won’t come true. But I bet you can guess – they’re pretty much the same things that I pray for…

So I guess I can tell you more of the things that I wish but don’t waste the eyelash wishes on:

  • I wish the hair on my head would either all grow or not grow at all – it is so annoying having these patches of hair growing on my head! I really feel like a chia pet. Luckily, Nick is home from London and offered to shave my head again. I think I will be taking him up on that…
  • I wish people wouldn’t worry about me so much. Tonight I told Nick I was going for a run and he looked all serious and said “Really? Ok, but be careful. What time will you be back?” It is sweet. But I really do feel fine, these in-between weeks, after the initial week of hell and the next infusion. I can run, I can babysit, I can work, I can drive. I am good. And I feel bad wishing this – I am so, so thankful so many people care about me. I just wish they wouldn’t worry so much… 🙂 And yes, I am blocking out the incident at Training Camp, but that was also because I was stupid and rushed being better – I was still in that first week post-chemo. I will try to be smarter this next round…
  • I wish I could go to my cheap nail salon and get my regular mani/pedi’s again. Oh how I (and my hands and my feet) miss them…
  • I wish I didn’t have chemo brain. I hate it when I am not at the top of my game. And according to Sue, chemo brain lasts for months and months after the chemo stops. So I won’t be back 100% until well into 2013. Ugh. Good excuse for why I won’t be winning at trivia though. 🙂
  • I wish I had unlimited funds so I could buy more wigs. Now that I’ve started wearing them, they’re not so bad. But I don’t like to wear the same one all the time, I like to mix it up between wigs and hats just to try to have fun with it. Now to buy the electric blue one…
  • And then the most pointless wish of all: I wish I wasn’t sick! I know, as people keep reminding me, I am officially cancer free since the surgery, but the fact is the chemo makes me more sick than I ever felt with the cancer! I do understand why it had to be cut out and why I now have to go through all this chemo to kill all the cancer cells (especially after talking to my friend Laura who had it come back again, even after having a mastectomy!), but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

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