Chemo is officially over now!!! YES!!! I felt like that day was so far and that it would never come but it has. Four months of chemo is over! Next step, radiation. We are really nervous for radiation because we have heard some horror stories. We have been thinking that radiation wouldn’t be as bad as chemo but there are lots of people that seem to disagree. We have heard from multiple people that radiation was so much worse than the chemo. This is scary! There are also people that have said that radiation was easier on them than chemo. Everyone is different and we won’t know how it will be for my Mom until we start the radiation. I am praying that it won’t be as hard on her as the chemo. We are all ready for my Mom to start getting better.
Her neuropathy is getting really bad. She is frustrated because she thinks it will never get better. I keep reminding her that her last chemo was on Wednesday, April 27th, and it won’t feel better right away, it will take months. There is a chance that the neuropathy may never go away, this would really suck. I keep telling her it will though, it will just take time. I met a woman a few weeks ago that had breast cancer and had finished all of her treatments a year ago. She said that she had really bad neuropathy in her hands and feet as well and sometimes she still has the numbness in her hands and feet but it was nothing like it was while she was going through her treatments. My mom is really having a hard time holding anything. I guess the chemo has burned some of her nerve endings.
Tomorrow we will meet with the Radiologist at the cancer center. I really wish that my Mom didn’t have to get radiation but it raises her chances by 10% of the cancer not coming back behind where her breast was, like in her rib bones. So, I know it has to be done. The surgeon told us that if my Mom got her whole breast removed and she had clear margins around where the tumors were then she would most likely not have to do radiation. However, we went to Salt Lake, before chemo was started, for a second opinion and we were told that since it was in the lymph nodes (only one that they found) and by the size of the tumor, radiation would raise her chances that the cancer won’t come back in the same spot by at least 10%. Since then we have known we will do the radiation. I am kind of clueless about the radiation right now but tomorrow the Radiologist will go over everything with us and then we will know more.
I have been thinking lately about how scary cancer is. Cancer is so common, everyone knows someone that has it. The month that my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer there were 19 other women that were also diagnosed. More than is usually diagnosed in one month and they were all around the same age as my mom. This is weird. I have also heard so many other stories about people that have since been diagnosed with some kind of cancer and so many of them are around my age, one of my friends has been diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, I am sick of the word cancer! It seems that the question of “if” we get cancer has changed, it has turned into “when” we get cancer. I seriously felt like my family was immune from this disease. Since my Mom was diagnosed my whole prospective regarding cancer has changed. A boy I went to school with has Ewing Sarcoma, I see him sometimes getting treatments when my Mom does. He says that when his treatment is over he is leaving the country because the United States has one of the highest cancer rates. I have really been thinking about this lately. Why do we have the highest cancer rate? This is scary. It is our lifestyle, the way we eat, the pollution, etc. These days everything causes cancer. Somehow and someday I really hope that we can find a cure.
Sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent. I just get so worked up about this subject sometimes. Anyways, we meet with the radiologist tomorrow so I will fill you all in on what we find out!
“Believe that problems do have answers, that they can be overcome, and that we can solve them.”
- Norman Vincent Peale
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