I was diagnosed with Breast cancer on April 13, 2009, five days after my birthday. That was the date that will be etched in my mind forever. I really thought that was the end for me because when I first got the news I couldn’t think past that day. I first learned from my pathologist that I had stage 3 Invasive ductal carcinoma, I was in shock and even though he said it was not a death sentence; the only thing that registered with me was that I had cancer. Although nothing past cancer registered in my mind of what I have and that I still had an option; it meant nothing to me because cancer is cancer. The one good thing is, I wasn’t alone, and I certainly wasn’t the only one with this dreadful disease. I just felt as though I were alone.

In my journey I met a lot of women and men battling the same problem, so after it finally sunk in, I knew I wasn’t alone in the fight. I was just dumbfounded in the beginning not knowing anything else about breast cancer, but along the way I gained a lot of knowledge about cancer and cancer survivors that I hope and pray I will never go through this again. When you first learn that you have a disease invading your body all sorts of negative thoughts go through your mind. You start to blame yourself for allowing this to happen to you. And then you blame God for why he gave this disease to you. A lot of irrational thoughts go though your mind. After I became more rational and I calmed myself down I started to I read from one of my brochures that 1 in 3 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every day. Although it took me awhile to let it sink in it also allowed me time to think about all the options I have and it allowed me time to think about what to do next. I keep thinking about all the poor women and men who have already lost their lives to cancer because of the lack of treatment made available to them and also of how blessed I am able to sit and talk about it today. It also saddens me that back in the 80's and 90's women nor men had no one to help them to go through it. They were all alone because there was no modern technological avenues made available to them like it is now.

I still had a lot of unanswered questions to ask my doctor that it helped me a great deal --- knowing I did have options. One of the options was that my doctor, Dr. Dax told me that I should go through chemo first, and then have the surgery to remove any remaining cancer cells and then have radiation for any lingering cells. While Dr. Dax explained the whole process to me about all my options he handed also me material with all the answers he could not answer and names and information to other professionals who could answer any questions he couldn’t answer. The only thing that was on my mind was, “how am I going to get through this?” All of the people Dr. Dax put me in touch with were wonderful for me but since time was of the essence from that day forward, I was still a little confused about what to do first. The great thing was that his nurses did for me was to put together a calendar for all of my appointments and set reminders of where to he and when to be there, which was a blessing to me because as a cancer patient I forgot everything.

For the next six months my daily schedule was busy and hectic and I often did not know where my head was. If it had not been for Dr. Dax and his wonderful team I would have been lost because I had so many appointments---two and sometimes three a day. With the help of my nurses all I knew was where to be and what time. Many appointments overlapped but no one ever cancelled on me. That is how caring and wonderful everyone was to me even If I was running late, the person doing the scheduling just said to “get there when you can, we will wait on you.” That is the reason I cannot emphasize enough how I had a wonderful team of doctors, they did really care about me and for me.

Dr. Dax, who was my primary oncologist, was there for me from day one. He told me to just take it one day at a time and have faith that was how I made it through it. I am a person who to needed to have a schedule done for what I needed to for that week and his staff had a monthly calendar done for me for each day of the week for the next six months of chemotherapy. There are several types of chemotherapy; I was treated with Adriamyci/Cytoxan for the first four sessions. The drug can only be taken through your skin or muscle. It is through the administration of this drug that goes all over your body to fight the cancer. Normal cells and also be hurt by this treatment as well. There are many side effects associated with cancer treatment. I thank God the side effects I experienced only lasted through the first session. Do not let people convince you that you will not have drastic side effects of chemo because believe me you will. I lost all of my hair and nails but I was well prepared for it because my doctor told that would happen. So the very first thing I did was that I went to my barber and had him cut my long hair to the almost bald look. I was able to accept this drastic measure so fast because I knew it would grow back and that allowed me to sport a new look for awhile. Even before I had cancer I was growing tired of the way my hair was looking anyway so unlike others who can’t go to that extreme, it was easy for me.

I had three different drugs entered into my system (via IV) the first two drugs the A/C portion the worse ones, every other week for four weeks and hen Taxol (the more tolerable one) every Friday for 12 weeks. The chemo I experienced was put in my veins to kill or hurt cancer cells. I had an IV via the Port-A-Cath. Unfortunately this form of chemo treatment would also kill normal cells. Your white blood cell count goes down which makes you anemic. This is when you cannot be allowed around babies or dogs because your immune system is weakened and small children and get sick a lot and with a weakened immune system you might not recover from it. I had to be very careful because I had to limit all of my contact with others due to my lowered white cell count.

I am starting this blog to hopefully help others experiencing cancer treatments and also to help me as well for when all of my short and long term memory fully returns I will be blessed once again because right now I am still in a little darkness. When I first went through chemotherapy I entered a world that no matter if it is daylight or darkness outside, all I see is darkness. All I think about is that soon what I am experiencing will be over. This is one experience I cannot wait to be over with soon.

I can still remember my very first chemo appointment. That is something you cannot shake out of your mind or forget about. The hardest part was when I reverted back to a 5-year old child. I did not even know how to open the bathroom door. I remember when I went to one of my doctor appointments and I had got stuck in one the bathroom stalls I had to stay in there until I remembered how to open the door so being prideful I just sat there until I did. My short term memory kicked in for just a short period of time allowed me to think and then suddenly it was gone again. There were lots of times when I get in the shower and not know to get out of the shower so I would just stay in there until I remembered. Or there were times I did not know how to flush the toilet and just stayed there until I remembered what I was doing because I forgot what to do. One time I went in the men’s bathroom and thank god no one came in because I could not remember how to open the door. I honestly think that is why all of the doors in the chemo lab were sliding doors because I was lost whenever I went in the restroom. And there were times when I did not even know how to turn on or off the faucets. Don’t ever be alone at the doctors because if you cannot remember the simplest things you will began to wonder if you will ever get it back.

I never felt safer as I did during the tough times during my bout with cancer with the loving support the nurses gave all of us and made us as comfortable as they possibly could. During each appointment session we had no choice but to sit in those chairs for anywhere from 2 to 5 hours every week. When I first started the program for the first 8 weeks I had two kinds of drugs being pumped into me and I constantly had this wick feeling the whole time I was sitting in that chair. I was so tired from those treatments that all I could do was to go home to sleep. This was around the time I lost all function of who I was or even where I was. I had times when I could not remember how I got to where I was going. Once I completed the first session I had to wait 3 weeks before I began the second portion of the session. Although the second part was not nearly as bad as the first part it easier for me to go to my appointments on my own. Once when I went to my one of my appointments I forgot where I was going that was when I ran into these two wonderful ladies, one of them just finished her final appointment she was at the hospital to get her Port removed. They knew I was struggling so they grabbed my hand and took me to the lab and stayed with me until they had to leave.

Although all the cancer cells shrunk to operable sizes I still was not out of danger so on October 12, 2009, I had surgery to remove the remainder cells the sad part is that I could still see the cancer moving around in my body.

Now that the hard part is over, I don’t know what to do with myself accept to write about the whole experience. When my doctors told me the whole transition would be overwhelming to me I had no idea how overwhelming it was until I found out how for that whole year I was not in control of my life. My doctor also told me I would forget a lot or a lot of things which is why he said to bring a family member with me to all of my appointments. I never realized how important it was to have a good family support system but knowing that my family members could not put their lives on hold for me for almost a year is why I felt I was alone in this struggle. This was when I wanted to end it but a lot of prayer and excellent doctors kept me going.

While I was on the first portion of chemo and when I lost my hair and nails I actually thought they would never grow back so I took a lot of pictures of them. My nails actually became black and were falling off and I lost a few my finger and toe nails. I hope one day I will be able become an advocate and speaker for the health care community and go to Washington DC to speak on behalf of the American Health Developmental Organization on the hill for the healthcare industry because health should be our main concern.

All of the doctors expressed to me that I could get Lymphedema, but I was lucky because I did not experience it. I know a few people who did get it and they said it was very painful to get over. Lymphedema is where the area that you had cancer in swells and the only way you can get rid of it is through physical therapy and lots of it too.

During my first week of radiation my hair and finger nails were beginning to grow back, but my toes nails are another story. I was so happy that I do not need to wear a scarf or hat on my head anymore. At first, my doctor was worried that I still had quit a few cancer cells left in my lymph nodes but the good thing is what she originally thought is false it wasn’t as bad as they thought. In my 5^th week of radiation I learned that it was all gone you can not imagine how happy I was. I think I worried her too much but she had to be optomistic but she assured me all was going great. I think she was worried that I would not continue with my session as she was hoping I would. I told her pain and all I was continuing until the end of my treatment. Since all of my treatments were all concentrated around my lymph nodes it was a painful process because my skin peeled away all around my neck, underarms and stomach areas and other areas were very dark. It was like I was sunburned on one side of my body. It w as funny though because every other day I had to have a wet towel put on me because it radiates so high that the lab needed to fool the machine into thinking the wet towel as my skin. As painful as it was they would keep me laughing because they would always tell me that that was my spa day. And spa day it was I was always soaking wet going back to the room to put on my clothes. Because my radiation appointments were done during winter season I was always freezing cold and with only a little bit of hair on your head I was always catching a cold. Believe it or not these 6 weeks went fast. Before I knew it I was already going on the last week of radiation. I am now finished with my final radiation appointment. The radiation was really burning my skin. There were pockets of skin removed. Once radiation was over I had to wear medicated cream to mend the burns. I couldn’t even lie down at night because the cream has spread out onto my healthy skin making it sting a little. I was so uncomfortable at night having to sit up at night in my bed, sometimes I was up all night trying to get comfortable. Now I am into the beginning of the third week and my skin is mending well although the skin is mending the skin is still opened but it is becoming healthier day by day. This is a new beginning for me and healthiness is my main goal. In life we have to make better choices and if one expects to live a long healthy life, making the wrong food choices, can eventually catch up to you and if you don’t make the changes now, later will be too late.