As I recover in my medical recliner from my recent reconstruction. ( and man is this one rough!) I still can’t pull myself up, open door or really stand for too long before the pain stars in. So I am revising my Etsy store to keep me sane, nothing like fixing pictures and titles to get my mind moving! Here is my address to my store, check it out and let me know how you like it!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShoreSerenity
By now you know who I am. Just a few short months ago to help with my anxiety I created my Etsy store ShoreSerenity. I just love, love the beach. To breath in the salty fresh air renews your soul. And the sand on your feels just as amazing.
One day I thought to myself why not start making beachy jewlery and home decor from recycled items of course. I now carry bracelets, earrings, necklaces, wreaths of all kinda, beachy decor and items make of recycled cork.
When I’m in my zone doing this the world goes away and I feel free of what ails me! I am so proud of what I have done and want to share with others.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShoreSerenity
-thanks!!!
Here I am not able to sleep. Partially because of pain but mostly anxiety. Plus the dog curled up in my lap constantly does not help the hot flashes, but it’s ok I need the snuggling to get me through this.
Tomorrow I get to see my new breasts!! And maybe have a drain removed ( I hate them they are horribly sore) I really hope this was the last surgery, and believe me this one was a doozie!!! Constant pulling and pressure.
The first day home was a huge struggle to get the pain meds right. The second day started running a fever, highest it went was 100.9, whew just missed going to Er. I have tendencies to run fevers after all my surgeries. I think it has something to do with my Lupus. Having a fever to go along with everything else was pretty unbareable. But I can see some cleavage!! At least there is cleavage at the end of this tunnel!🚂
I’m just so uncomfertable with the two drains and not being able to lift my arms. My husband has been a fantastic caregiver as always, I don’t know if I could do it for someone else.
My son has also been a huge help, but you know 15yr olds busy with friends and work. Sadly to say this is “normal” for him lol. I do feel this entire cancer thing has made him a better person. I see a lot of compassion from him and he has a tendency to always help someone in need. ( plus he does his own wash! Your welcome future wife! Just don’t meet him for like 13-14yrs from now I’m not quite ready to cut the apron strings 😁)
I’ll be back in a few days with an update of how my girls are going
Oh and don’t forget to check out my Etsy store!! http://www.etsy.com/store/ ShoreSerenity , sea glass jewelry, beachy decor , wine cork decor and wreaths. If u mention my blog “chemobrainandmore”, you will receive 15% off any one item in my shop, good only until September 5th so hurry! One per customer please.
Well yes, it’s that time again we all love, preparing for surgery. Somehow I end up having one major surgery for each of the past five years! Now it finally time to fix up my girls! I’m now a pro at this by now!
It’s been a year and a half since my implants where put in. Things have settled and I’ve lost weight. My right side keeps contracting making my left side 3 sizes bigger. We are hoping with this revision it will help it not look so much bigger.
So this apparently is pretty painful… PLEASE! I’ve been down this road before I can handle it! They will be creating pockets on my chest wall and placing the implants in them to prevent them from being so moble. Let’s not forget I’m a large girl, my implants are 900cc, it take a village to hold my girls up lol. And let’s not forget the part we all love the most…the drains!! Yes for two weeks I will be battling these lovelys. Let the measuring begin!
So I’ve gone over my own list of ” mastectomy must haves”, knitting needle, dry shampoo, chair, good ol Poocharoo and of course the wonderful care from my husband rick. Everything seems to be set for 7:30am surgery tomorrow.
Just trying to relax today an not worry about the three house surgery. I know I will wake up a new person, just in a little more pain then when I went to sleep.
Another major thing happening is, our deposit is down for our gestational carrier!! Hopefully by the time my twins are healed, we could actually be expect another set of twins, babies!! Positive thoughts for both out comes! 😁
Well here I am approximately almost 4 years in remission, and I finally feel like I’m moving on with my life. My husband and I are starting to embark on a new journey of surrogacy. I still have more reconstruction to be done before the birth, but we are jumping on that mommy and daddy wagon right now. Some how in my body I’ve got a biological clock, and it’s ticking. Yes! Amazingly enough a part of my body that has not been remove! Lol
In between having my lumpectomy and my chemo treatment, I was smart enough to have my eggs harvested at age 36. I really feel that doctors nowadays need to inform younger women of their options about the fertility before going through treatment chemo. I only had a 8 week window to squeeze two cycles of IVF in. If I was informed sooner I might have done one before my lumpectomy and two after. I Was only able to harvest nine eggs which resulted in eight embryos. I had also found out during IVF I had polycystic ovarian syndrome, who the hell has this many diagnosis is in their life??? So it looked like Cancer or not,Ivf was in my future, but not necessarily a gestational carrier. Thanks Cancer for throwing that curve ball into the mix!
Now,I had mixed feelings about disclosing myself obtaining a gestational carrier for my embryo. Hopefully there are some people out there like me who can share their story. I was hesitant because a lot of people have made very nasty comments to me particularly about my age and having a baby. Or me being too ill ( I now have fibro and lupus,yay) Seriously??? Wtf?? At 40 I’m too old? Believe me I didn’t choose to get cancer at 36, nor would I wish this on anyone else. I think 40 is the new 30, and to all those who have nasty opinions… What’s the saying? Opinions are like A-holes everone has one?? Or I prefer the golden rule, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all! I beat cancer, I CAN raise a child. My son is already 15 yrs old and I did it while fighting cancer. That should tell you I am one strong woman.
And what about Juliana Ransik, anyone make nasty comments to her? She didn’t have chemo or a hysterectomy, but because she’s famous it’s ok?
Ok, enough about my rant lol. I’m excited for my family to hopefully be growing. It’s a long process, lots of paperwork, lots of patience and lots of money. I guess it’s going to be kinda like Match.com for a uterus!! I just pray my husband will be blessed with a child of our own, or twins if we are even more lucky!( not to be greedy, but been through hell n back I think that’s ok to be lol).
I really don’t know what to expect on this journey. I know there will be ups and downs. And the big one, no guarantee this will work, but we won’t know until we try. Hopefully this time next year I will be writing about what to expect, when your expecting someone else carrying your child 🙂
So I know I have not posted in quite some time. So Here are things in the past few months in a nut she’ll.
I returned back to work to in May to my normal routine. It was extremely hard because of the chemo brain trying to remember everything which I’m sure others can relate to. Unfortunately in October I thought I had a really bad stomach virus and went to the emergency room I was misdiagnosed with a neoplasm in my liver and was completely freaked out that the cancer had metastasized. The next day I went to my oncologist and by the time I got there I was in liver failure and returned back to the emergency room and low and behold I had gallstones and pancreatitis! Seriously you can’t make this crap up!! The pancreatitis was so bad I was admitted to the hospital for seven days and ended up having my gallbladder removed. So that was a lot of fun because it was my son’s first homecoming and unfortunately I had to miss that milestone. Btw being admitted that long is enough to make you nuts! I was lucky enough for three days to have the room to myself. Plus I had a fan and febreeze with me to make it more tolerable. You know me I’m always looking for a way to make to crappy stuff a little more easy to deal with.
Then next, I had my six-month infusion. That was a treat as always, however it was made worse by my new diagnosis of Lupis. Yes, another wonderful aliment that I have been blessed with. Thanks to my surgical oncologist who recommended me going to a rheumatologist because of my PTSD ,anxiety ,skin disorders and allergies she pinpointed that it might be something other then a coincidence I had all these issues. So after going through all the testing with the rheumatologist I was also diagnosed with Epstein- Barr . I’m glad I have these diagnosis is now because I am absolutely exhausted all the time and I couldn’t figure out why.( so to everyone who thought I was lazy, haha your wrong).
And last but not least looking towards the future I’m starting to begin planning my next reconstruction surgery. It’s been a year since I’ve had my implants put in and I truly feel like it’s time to close the door in this chapter. I’m starting to feel somewhat incomplete by the way I look. I’m just worried about the anesthesia and going through the pain of not being able to be mobile for a few weeks. Not that I’m not saying having my breasts perfect makes me a complete person, but I’m just reminded every single time I look in the mirror of what I’ve been through the past four years of my life. Truthfully I’m just really over cancer. And plus I finally get to get my tattoos of the cherry and strawberry for my nipples! LOL
The other thing that I’ve been up to is I open my own Etsy store to help with my anxiety. I usually do my crafting late at night when I can’t sleep ,I find it extremely calming. Personally when I was going through my chemo treatment or anytime now that I am really anxious, my husband takes me for a ride down by the beach. So I figured why not start a little Etsy store with my crafts that I do with sea glass, shells, jewelry and wreaths. Plus who can’t use a little extra money for the medical bills! If you would like to check out my store here is the link, I hope you enjoy it. I called it ShoreSerenity.
http://www.etsy.com/assets/js/etsy_mini_shop.js’></script><script type=’text/javascript’>new Etsy.Mini(10720216,’gallery’,4,3,0,’https://www.etsy.com’);</script>
If the link does not work go to Etsy and put in ShoreSerenity to vist my store!
I hope you enjoy!
We’ll it my week to celebrate 3 yrs in remission and counting! I’m half way there!! 5 is the Magic number and hell YES!!! I am gonna make it. I’ve come too far and fought to hard not to! Life is good, it’s different now, but still good! I’m so grateful for being here and living life!!
This rainbow is the perfect picture to describe the past year… It was rough, and hit me hard and didn’t seem like it would end. At the end of it all a bright miracle in all that darkness! I am finally seeing the light and life after the storm 🙂 God has some amazing miracles!
“and I think to myself, what a wonderful world”
( picture from the Jersey Shore it’s a FULL rainbow! And one end it’s a double rainbow, I know it’s a sign good things are coming!!) 
What is normal after having two bouts of cancer?? Are you ever the same again? How do you get from here to there? These are some questions I’ve been asking myself.
First step is finishing up physical therapy. Unfortunately I go three times a week, I had no strength in my arms. But I’ve made great strides, but some how I don’t think I will be entering in any power lifting contests anytime soon! I have I also lost 40 pounds by juicing, eating organic, cutting out red meat and ALL sugar/sugar substitutes in the hopes of becoming healthier and stronger. I don’t EVER want to be sick again!!!!!!!
Next, mentally preparing to go back to work. I am nervous but excited at the same time. I can’t wait to see all my friends that have been a huge support this time around. The “chemobrain” from three years ago STILL lingers, and is aggravated by the menopause, Femora and stress. It’s beyond frustrating and embarrassing. I know I ask my husband four, five times a day the same question! How am I going to manage at work with the memory issues??? I guess I’ll be headed to Costco for a case of post it’s! The other thing about work is I know the second I see people that I have not seen since the mastectomy I know their eyes will be looking at the “new” girls. Do I first say to them ” hey I’m up here! It’s just something uncomfortable I’ve been noticing people do since the surgery. I may just stick one of those post it’s on my chest and write on it ” hey, eyes up here!!”.
Wish me luck this week, for it’s off to work I go to begin my “new” normal!
Ah yesssss, my favorite activity! Playing darts with my arm! Being that I only am able to use the one, it’s a hit or miss with me. I had my sentinel node removed on my right are two years ago. And I also developed lymphadema from my mastectomy which sucked so I shall avoid that arm at ALL costs.Unfortunately this time it was a total miss!
It’s like one of those bad jokes, how many nurses does it take to start an IV…..So what did it take?? Two people actually! Along with 3 hot blankets, two different tourniquets and four 22 gage needles, that’s how many lmao! I have small veins that roll and blow out. It’s beyond sad when I know where my veins are and I can tell them when it’s in the vein and when it’s gonna blow. I felt so bad for the MRI tech and the nurse they called in. They are apologizing to me as I’m apologizing to them. It could have been a comedy routine! They couldn’t believe I was joking the entire time( I had my T-shirt on that said,”Heck yes they are fake. My real ones tried to kill me.”) anyone who had that on has to have a sense of humor! I told them really this is NOTHING compared to the past three years! Plus I have a 18 gage needle eleven times in my breasts over the past four months. Really what am I gonna do be pissed, yell at them? Nope they are my own crappy veins, till death do us part or unless I get a port again lol. They where going to stop at three, I cheered them on to do number four. Low and behold after an hour for slapping my arm, even sweetly talking to my veins one stood out and took one for the team!!!!
The tech is so great at the hospital he said he felt bad because the last two times he got me on the first time( he said he didn’t want loose his reputation with me lol). I told him I will make sure I schedule the next six month MRI with him but we will do it earlier incase my veins decide to up and play hide n go seek again. Next time we will be sure a radiologist will be there and they can do it under ultrasound. I agreed it would be less interesting that way but for the sake of those who does my IV much better. There’s less sweating that way!
I have included a lovely pic of just ONE of the pretty veins that blew, it will be a lovely shade of green in a few days.( just in time for St. Party’s day!) Hopefully by then I will get the ok that the mass on my liver is not growing, fingers crossed. The one thing about cancer you learn patience. Also the pics of the puppy, well let’s just say that’s how I felt…it was like wrestling with a porkiepine! But I won lol./>
chemobrainandmore 