Your Friendly Local Cancerlebrity

A funny thing has started to happen. About once or twice a week, I will get recognized while I am out and about. Now let me clarify, I am just your average minivan driving, yoga pant wearing suburban mom, but since I have plastered my face on an overwhelmingly candid blog, people have started to…

Aesthetics and Athletics

For those of you who haven’t read every word of every blog I’ve written, allow me to tell you that the t-shirt I am wearing in the above photo is a professional photo of my God-given breasts. I had t-shirts made of my breasts for all of my family to wear to my mastectomy cause…

Lymphedon’t

I had my long awaited appointment with the lymph specialist doctor this week.  Shocker alert! I have been officially diagnosed with mild lymphedema. The great (read: horrendous) news is that this is a life-long condition. I will be worried about my arm swelling for the REST OF MY LIFE. Thank you breast cancer. You are the…

Sloth University

It’s been over two weeks since my final chemo. I was honestly expecting to be in a much better place than I am by this point. Not so much. Yes, I do feel somehow better as a whole, but the individual parts seem to be continuing to break down. For example- my eyes and nose…

Kids

I am not exactly a ‘kid’ person. Yes, I have three kids. Here is what I mean: I was never that 13 year old who was desperate to babysit or who wanted to be a camp counselor. Maybe it is because I was the youngest child/cousin on the side of the family that lived nearby….

Second Opinion/I Am Never Not Hot

Probably seems a bit odd to seek a second opinion after I have already had 3 surgeries, 4 drains, 4 rounds of chemotherapy and 2 infections. I never felt I needed a true second opinion from a hospital system outside of the one I have been working with. My doctors would always ‘present my case’…

Hurricane Cancer

I am a bit of a scaredy cat. I get spooked really easily (i.e. Phil Collins’ Land of Confusion, which could be blamed for ruining my entire childhood). Mix this with anxiety and you have a cute little cocktail of I cannot even think about that or I’ll never sleep again.  Here is a short list…

Live Report from The Chemo Bunker

See what’s happening in this photo? I am simultaneously freezing and wearing a blanket around my face, but also boiling and have an ice pack on my head. Oh chemo, you’re so silly. Let’s discuss ‘Cancer Normal.’ ‘Normal’ is hard to define under any circumstances. When you are talking about statistics, normal becomes a pretty…

Crowning Achievement

This post will be a visual odyssey through my last day of chemo. I’m too verklempt to write much about it today. ⬆️Straight clowny⬆️ ⬆️Feeling chatty⬆️ After a fun lunch high on the the pre-meds with my A-Team of my mom, sister and huz, I came home and have been sleeping ever since. My body…

Chemo Eve (Ho Ho Horrible)

***Pills pictured above clockwise from top left: Prozac (you try navigating cancer without an anti-depressant/anxiety, judgy-pants), Astragalus, My Community Host Defense Mushroom supplement, 2 steroids, Turkey Tail Root Mushroom supplement, Claritin. Not Pictured: Vitamin D, which fell off my head. (And PS- that is a shadow on my noggin not a scary bruise.) So tomorrow…

When You Are Bald, Everything Is a Hat

I am sort of a trendsetter. I am quite sure that after posting this image of me wearing half of a cardboard fruit snacks box as a hat, a trend will be born. I am naturally bald at this point, but have had this bizarre ostrich hair on the top of my head that somehow…

Uninspired

I haven’t been blogging. I haven’t felt I have had anything of real interest to say. Here are a couple of blog concepts I’ve been tumbling around: More general complaining Cake! My kids have been sick all week. SOS- Feelin’ chubby (see; cake!) Guilt New problem with my arm As you can see, none of…