28 September 2012

I Think I Can, I think I Can.....

Shifting gears, I'm moving on to a new stepping stone.  For years I've said I wanted to work on strength, flexibility and stamina.  And for years I've messed around with an on-again, off-again, love-hate relationship with various gyms and trainers.
So today I'm through my trial period and I jumped into Crossfit
I'm going to take it slow, as my surgeon recommended, and see how I do for a month.  If I do not hate it, I will continue.  My goal is twice a week, augmenting my walking schedule...

Which is seriously compromised these days by a flurry of busy-ness.  I did get a good walk in on Tuesday.  But once or twice a week isn't going to cut it for me.  I miss walking religiously, but can't seem to work it back into my schedule on a regular basis.  Priorities, priorities.

I am continuing with my modified paleo.  I slid off the road while on the cruise in early August, partaking in a couple of desserts.  It is a slippery slope, my friends.  Before I knew it I was putting honey in my tea and eating handfuls of dried fruit.  Granted, it's not slices of cake, but then I had some of that too.  I was able to maintain my weight, but I stopped losing... about 20 pounds too soon.  So I'll be heading back to Whole30 territory October 1.  Sugar is a huge psychological and physical trigger for me.  I need to just say no.  And eat more bacon.

Which brings us to my physical last week with my internist, Dr. T.  She was pleased with my weight, but not so pleased when I told her how I had changed my diet.  So we did a fasting blood test.  My cholesterol is HIGHER.  But wait! Before you go and blame the bacon, know that Tamoxifen raises cholesterol measures, and I'm still 15 points below the borderline range.  Also, like I said above, I've been eating a lot of sugar, and so my triglycerides are up too.  All in all, she was ok with my numbers.  I can only assume it will improve once I get the damn sugar monkey off my back.  (And drop some more body fat.)

I am chronically dehydrated.  I have been for years.  It's a coping mechanism developed from having a bladder the size of a lentil.  So I'm working on more water in frequents small amounts.

I had an interesting experience about a week ago.  I signed up for a new session of belly dancing at my local community center.  The teacher was different from the last session I took.  (More on that later.)
The teacher had her hand on my front and back, adjusting me and she asked if I was sick.  I said no.  So she asked if I recently had an illness.  I told her I had cancer last year and she said she felt it in my body - the surgical trauma, the chemo, and the struggle my body is fighting to come back from both.  Weird.  I don't think I look sick, so I'm not sure how she figured it out.  Sure my hair is short but I prefer to think of it a 'kicky' instead of post-chemo.  Do you think I look sick?



The teacher at the community center was less professional than the teacher in the summer session I attended.  So much so that I won't go back.  Instead I found a class that Bronwen teaches once a week just down the road.  I bought my punchcard and I'm back to doing shimmy drills rather than crunches.

16 September 2012

Cancer Free One Year!

As I have recently said, I'm assuming I've been cancer free since my surgery.  Today marks my one year anniversary.

The past year has been pretty weird.  It has been a year of opposites.  One the one hand, I really had a break.  On the other I was exceptionally busy with important stuff.  I felt great, and I felt lousy.  I was very sick, and very healed.  It was hard, yet it was also easy.  I felt shattered, and whole.  I felt blessed and cursed.

In the pro column:
Ability to say no to stuff
Smaller foobs
Witnessed and benefited from much kindness
New and better hair-do

And the cons:
No boobs
Lymphedema
Painfully thin hair that is NOT growing back
Early menopause
Recurrence risk

So with this anniversary, and with how I'm feeling back to mostly normal, I'm ready to move on. I have had some feedback that my posts are starting to get repetitive, and for good reason - NO NEW DEVELOPMENTS.  It's time to start writing about something else.





 

11 September 2012

Nuts and Bolts Update

It occurs to me that some people who are not in my life day to day may not know what is really going on with me since I no longer blog frequently.

I am almost a year out from my double mastectomy. My reconstruction is essentially done. I am assuming that since my surgery, I have been cancer free. They removed everything; tumors, tissue around them, actually all breast tissue, on both sides. There's just no way I have any breast cancer left, unless some cells broke off prior to my surgery and have lodged somewhere else.

And so I opted for chemotherapy, which ended about nine months ago. In the event some errant cells were hiding, the Taxotere and Cytoxan would find and kill them. The mechanism there is that the drugs target and damage the mitochondria in cancer (and other fast growing) cells so those cells cannot reproduce.

In addition to that, I take hormone therapy in the form of Tamoxifen, which I will continue for five years. The cancer I had was estrogen positive, which means it was nourished by the estrogen in my system. The Tamoxifen binds to estrogen in my system and prevents it from binding to any other cells, cancerous or not which essentially starves them. And hence, I have drug induced menopause.

There is really no test that can be done for this cancer. No scan or lab test can detect if I have weird cancer cells floating around. In that sense, I cannot say I'm cancer free, although I think I am. Likewise, I cannot claim to be cured, as there is no cure for cancer. The term remission does not apply to me since I do not have a tumor that is measurable.

I am finding my life to be settling back down to where I was, with slight changes. My memory fails me more often, names and words escape me, I don't have the stamina I used to have and I get overwhelmed more often. I feel behind on many things this year, disorganized and disconnected.  Catching up takes all my focused energy which means other things fall by the wayside while I'm working on one area at a time.  At least I am able to focus and plough through stuff.

I still do not feel 100% healthy.  I am still having some issues from my surgeries, notably muscle tightness, weakness and limited range of motion.  Some days I just don't feel well, although I don't feel bad in any way I can pinpoint.  This process is not over for me.

4 September 2012

Something Doesn't Feel Right

Something doesn't feel right... or maybe that's wrong.  It's more like something doesn't feel well.

The past two weeks my chest has been really tight and I've been quite lethargic.  I haven't exercised regularly for almost six weeks, the result of out-of-town guests, vacation, getting the kids back to school and a general busy-ness.

I have had a stomach ache off and on for five days.  I think it's because of my diet, but I'm not sure.  I'm laying off raw veggies for a few days and also the hard to digest root veggies.

This morning I woke up with a killer headache, centered behind my left eye socket.

So I'm not feeling well.  And I know what I have to do, but it's really hard right now to embrace the walking like I have in the past.  I feel yucky, much like I did during chemo, like nothing works right and all I want to do is lay in bed.

So I'm going to put on a pair of sweats and go for a walk now  It's long overdue and it's what I need to be doing.