Thurs Jan 25th

Well for the first morning in a week and a half I actually woke up not feeling nauseous which was a welcomed break. My sister has been an absolute hero this last week. I don't know what I would have done without her. Jon left on Monday morning and she has been here all week. She is flying home this evening and Jon should be back sometime today. Perfect timing. Last weekend we didn't do anything. I felt so horrible that Jon spent the whole weekend taking care of me while I lounded around. Then he left for Salida again this past Monday. The week was also pretty uneventful. Toni and I took the kids to Toys R Us on Tuesday and they each got to pick out a new toy from their aunt so they really enjoyed that. I felt like an old lady walking around the store. I had to sit down about 10 different times because I was so tired. We still have snow on the ground and icy, slushy roads from before Christmas. The weather guy said that we have had snow on the ground for almost 4o days and the record is 60 some days. It would be nice to just have it warm up enough to get the ice off of our neighborhood roads. It is such a pain taking the kids out in this.
I was able to get a surgery date scheduled for the 28th of February. I still don't know what surgery I will end up having but it is nice to have a date so that my other sister, Amy, could make travel plans to be here to help out. I also found out that I have to wait 6 weeks after surgery to start radiation. Then do 6 weeks of radiation. Nothing like dragging out the process. Jon and I were thinking about getting away for a few days in May, but I guess we will have to wait.
My eyelashes are all gone. Total bummer. I could deal with my eyebrows since they were practically non existent to begin with but my thick, long, big eyelashes are another story. I went with my sister to get some false ones yesterday that look pretty good but itch on my skin. It looks pretty funny not to have any hair, eyebrows, or lashes.
I got a gift subscription to netflix for Christmas from my work that has been awesome. It is so convenient to just be able to pick out movies online and have them come in the mail. They have been fun to watch while I am feeling down and out.
I went in for Herceptin yesterday. It is nice to go in and be done in about an hour. Much nicer than camping out there for 1/2 the day. My sister and I met my parents and brother Mason last night to go out to eat. Our friends Vernon and Kira watched my kids so we could have an adult night out. It was really nice. I have my breast MRI on Friday afternoon and then I don't meet with my surgeon until the 8th. I am taking Jon out on Saturday for his belated birthday celebration. We are going to see the Music Man at the Carousel Dinner Theatre in Fort Collins. Hopefully it is fun.
My friend Aislinn is hosting a Layers Clothing Open House Party for me next Thursday night from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. If anyone is interested in ordering something but won't be able to make it you can look at their website at www.layersclothing.com and let me know via email at elizajonbrock@msn.com or if you need directions to my house and are interested in coming you can also email me. I love their shirts and they are having a big sale right now so that is a bonus. All the proceeds will go towards my medical bills. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Friday Jan 19th

What's up Jason?? Here is the newest groupie sports fans. This is Jason Kamigaki. He is my friend Jenn's little brother. Also my friend :-) By the way Jas, you da man!! He and his wife just opened their restaurant Chicago Times in Johnstown and I hear it is some good eats, so everyone should stop by there and try it out!

Well the good news is I had my last FEC treatment on Wednesday, but the bad news is that it has been a horribly long week. Jon had to go out of town this week to work in Salida. He left really early Monday morning and just got home this afternoon. Olivia was really sick on Friday night with what we though was food poisoning. She threw up about 5 times during the night and then was fine by Saturday afternoon.

Monday I had my appointment with Dr. M to talk more about surgery options and the rest of my regiment. No matter what way we decide to go with surgery I have to have 6 weeks, yes, 6 weeks of radiation. Monday through Friday with the weekends off. That was a bit longer than I had anticipated. I had all sorts of questions for her about surgery. Since we had always planned on doing the mastectomy from the beginning that is what I have been preparing myself for and with this other option I am having my doubts. She has always said, "Eliza your young and we want to be really aggressive in trying to get rid of this." So that has also been my mind set. I would just hate to do something less than aggressive the first time and then have it come back and say man if I just would have gotten rid of this thing in the first place....yada yada. She did say that it was still my choice to do whatever surgery that I would feel the most comfortable with and that it would probably be best to make a final determination after I did my final breast MRI next week and then meet with my surgeon Dr. Chiavetta. I left feeling kinda defeated thinking that I would be leaving this appointment with a definite answer on "the next step". All in good time I suppose. Also I found out at my appointment that I would have to start taking a prescription for progesterone since I can't seem to stop my period. (lovely)

Needless to say Olivia must have gotten a bug because by Monday night I was sicker than a dog also. After going through chemo for 6 months and not throwing up I defiantly got my fill in on Monday night. If I wasn't on the toilet every hour I was hanging over it. YUCK! Good thing my mom loves me and lives close by. She came to my rescue on Tuesday morning and stayed with me and the kids until my sister Toni got back into town on Tuesday afternoon. When I called the doctor to ask if I still had to do chemo the next day they unfortunately said yes, unless I was still throwing up. (I should have made myself throw up again that afternoon) Who knew that my last chemo would be my very hardest. I could hardly walk in the room without having the overwhelming urge to vomit all over the place from the smell. On top of the fact that the progesterone was supposed to make me stop my period it can make you a little "weepy". That's a nice way of putting it in my book. The morning started off with someone across the room making a comment about how this was her 4th time with cancer........REALLY!?!? Apparently that made her the president of the club. Super. Is that now what I have to look forward to, counting down the years until I have to go through all this crap all over again? I am sure you can all see where the rest of that day went. It actually wasn't too horrible emotionally compared to Thursday. I did make it through the rest of Wednesday with the help of a lot of Ativan (anti anxiety) medicine from my favorite nurse Judy. I just couldn't even stand to see my IV drip the red nasty medicine down into me. I had to cover up the line with the blanket. Also on my list of "can't stands" at the moment are ice chips. I have to eat ice chips during that infusion to slow down the blood flow to my mouth to prevent mouth sores. I never thought ice could also want to make you vomit. Well believe me it can. Good news was that I don't have to have any shots for white or red blood counts. After I had finished with my treatment I all of a sudden developed a fever and started shivering really bad. They think I could have developed an infection and so got the shivering under control and pumped me up with some benedryl. I went home and went straight to bed. Again thank goodness for my family and Jon's parents being her to help out with everything.

Thursday I got up and went to hydration with my sister Toni feeling surprisingly not nauseous for the first time in days. Odd. But okay I'll take it. When I got to hydration of course the nausea kicked right in. Again, super. I did meet this really nice girl that just started her treatment. She is the same age as me (sucks for us) but hopefully will be nice to get to know. We also sat with another older woman who decided to tell us all about how she was dealing with breast cancer and her sister had breast cancer and then about how some sweet little 4 year boy she was related to was killed recently by chasing his ball into the street.....Enter "weepy"emotional psycho Eliza. I am sorry but a person can only take so many depressing stories. Why can't people tell nice stories. There are also plenty of those out there, aren't there? Enter my hero nurse with some more Ativan. I couldn't stop crying the whole rest of the day. I tried to get into the bath and my hot water heater had gone out from the wind the night before. Hmmm, so much for the one thing that might make me feel better. Mom mom, sister, and I loaded up the kids and went to her house so I could take a bath and they could keep my children away from their crazed mother. My sister ended up coming back to my house with me last night to stay over and we watched some friends episode. Those will really bring up your mood. They are pretty funny. I am glad to say that that day is behind me.

Today I had hydration again and have been feeling pretty horrible, although not "weepy". I hope everyone else is finding the humor in that word. Today has proven to be quite uneventful, which is fine with me. Jon got home this afternoon and also found out that he gets to do the same thing next week. Delightful. I took a nap this afternoon and have been pretty much just lying around all evening. Olivia went over to grandma Mondy's house to have a sleepover with my other niece Caylee. She was pretty excited. No big news for us this weekend, probably just trying to recooperate. Jon's birthday is on Sunday but we are going to go out and celebrate next weekend when I am feeling better. I don't have my breast MRI until next Friday and then I meet with my surgeon on the 8th. Hopefully I can move that up a bit so I can get a surgery date nailed down. My sister Amy is going to try and fly out to help when I have surgery. Well that is about all the excitement I can handle for one week, so until next time.....

Wed Jan 10th

This morning I had to go in for my Herceptin infusion. Pretty much normal. Short and sweet. Last Wednesday at my Herceptin infusion I found out that I was anemic which meant I had to start getting shots of Aranesp. They give it to you in your stomach and it's nice and slow......which means nice and painful. It feels like a bee sting that lasts for 60 seconds. Unfortunately there isn't anything fun about this whole process.
Otherwise I have just felt pretty tired and don't have much energy. My sister Toni has been here since Christmas to help out and it has been awesome. She comes over everyday and helps with the kids, laundry, or whatever needs to be done. We took the kids swimming yesterday at the Greeley family fun plex. It has a park area in the kids pool that has water squirting out of the equipment. They also have a lazy river pool. It was pretty fun for the kids. We had another round of snow last Friday and Jon couldn't make it to work. We are supposed to have snow for the next couple days again. The snow still hasn't melted here from our first huge blizzard before Christmas. It has been interesting trying to navigate around the neighborhoods.
My sister in law Brandy had her surgery yesterday to remove the tumor that was growing on her kidney. They ended up removing the mass and also removing the kidney. They will get the biopsy results back tomorrow. Hopefully everything is fine with her. I posted some more pictures of the kids and some other misc pictures from over the last few weeks on my snapfish link.
Ladies, it is also buddy check 9 day yesterday so everyone remember to do your self breast exams. Hope everyone is doing well!!

Tues Jan 2nd

I have to admit that every one's going to be jealous of my new year. Feeling like junk for most of the day my hubby and I were in bed (sleeping, ha) by 10:30. We were defiantly living it up! I didn't get a kiss at midnight but I did get one before I went to bed :-) What a good sport my husband is. He is back to working days, which I love. I don't have to worry about being loud here during the day (impossible with 3 kids) and I hate sleeping alone. He keeps me warm!

It is official, I have lost all but one of my fingernails in the last week. That's hot, as Paris Hilton would say. I know, I would say back! I have really underestimated the convenience of having fingernails for pretty much my whole life. It makes things like scratching almost impossible. My hair is also growing back on some parts of my head. Yes, I have lost hair pretty much everywhere else on my body. Also hot! I am still torturing myself by shaving my legs at least once a week, even though I don't need to. I don't know what to say, except it helps me to feel normal. Besides I bet if I looked really closely I could find a hair or two there that needed to be shaved.......At least that is what I am saying to myself to justify the extra time and energy in the shower. Why bother checking, I am sure they are there. Right, moving on....... I am still feeling nauseous on and off through the day, so I am still taking my anti-nausea meds and trying to take it easy. My sister Toni is here for almost the whole month to help me out and we did all sorts of errands today and then relaxed for the afternoon. I have spent the last few days researching this new procedure that they are wanting to do for surgery. It is called wire localization and I explained it a bit in my last post. After reading more about it I have to go into the radiologist and have the wire placed before the surgery is done, meaning I am not under general anesthesia for it. If you remember my nightmare biopsy story with the radiologist you will understand why I have been taking my anti anxiety meds for the last 48 hours freaking out about the fact I have to be awake for yet another "minor procedure" as they would put it. Needless to say I am NOT excited about this but am still trying to weigh the pros and cons of everything. I go in for Herceptin tomorrow am. (wasn't I just there???) I feel like I need to start paying rent at the doctor's office. Although if it costs what they are charging me for chemo by the hour, it better be the Ritz. Speaking of which, I might put a suggestion in the box of my insurance company that they should start sending their patients on vacation to help relieve the stress of serious illnesses. I am sure it doesn't cost any more to go on vacation for a week than some of the out of control prescription costs!!