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All done

Tricia Andron
As bald as it gets

Now that chemo is over, i’m ready for this business to be done. I didn’t want to get too excited and celebrate last week during my last treatment, with all the hurdles left in store. I need to keep my head in the game, and not go getting excited about the finish line. But now that I’m a week out of chemo, and beginning to get my energy back, I am, as Grace likes to say, “all done”. I want surgery done yesterday, radiation over with, and reconstructive surgery on the calendar. I know I won’t feel like the experience is behind me until the reconstructive surgery is complete, and all i can think about is getting it scheduled. If it’s on the calendar, and I know when it is, I will have an end date to work towards. Somehow, this seems so important to my mental health right now.
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Are you aware?

Tricia Andron

I’m not sure if you were aware, but October was breast cancer awareness month, and I am so glad it’s over!  Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciate the effort, fundraising, and awareness for breast cancer, but it was sort of like being pregnant – all of a sudden everyone around you is pregnant or has a baby, and you can’t escape it.. It’s  been a month of spotlight on an issue that I am still coming to grips with.

Breast cancer chocolates - still worth eating

Turndown service at the hotel in Nantucket almost put me over the edge. Elissa is a true friend – after the first night of breast cancer pink ribbon chocolates on our pillows, she had a word with the front desk, asking them to skip the pink ribbon bit the following night. I love chocolate as much as the next girl, but the last thing I wanted on my girls’ weekend getaway was yet another cancer reminder. I imagined the housekeeper creeping into our cottage with her pink ribbon chocolates, taking special care to set them out, because don’t you know – the guest in this room has breast cancer.
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Good Sport

Tricia Andron

I’m sick of being sick. Let me clue you in on a little secret about chemotherapy… the novelty wears off after the first treatment. Looking back, I see myself as almost cocky, walking into the treatment room the first day, with hair still on my head. There was a certain excitement to a new experience.

I have 3 chemotherapy treatments left, and two weeks after the end of treatment, I will have a double mastectomy, having found out upon our return from Greece that I am positive for the BRCA 1 mutation. I’m terrified of the surgery, and am in a weird limbo of wanting chemo to end, but wanting it to go on forever to avoid the surgery. Perhaps surgery wouldn’t be so frightening if I was going to get reconstructive surgery at the same time, but because Radiation treatment can damage reconstructive surgery, I will get the best results by waiting six months after Radiation is complete. Herein lies the source of my biggest fear; I will come out of the double mastectomy boob-less. Remember when I said I knew there would be more milestones? I look back at my hair loss, and the trauma it caused, and I laugh… that was NOTHING compared to thinking about waking up without breasts, and a giant gash of a scar where they used to be. I will live without breasts until six months after radiation is complete, when I will be recovered enough from the first surgery and radiation to get reconstructive surgery. Reconstructive surgery will likely be the end of next summer, more than a year after I was diagnosed. Sometimes it feels like this year will never end.
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The joys of chemo

Tricia Andron

From my Facebook update yesterday at 2 pm.: First chemo done, woohoo!! Little dizzy, but some would say that’s me. We’ll see what the next few days bring.

Oh the optimism of the first five minutes after treatment. From there, I got progressively nauseous on the ride home; at which point we got a call from the Dr’s office. We’d forgotten to give a blood sample, but were told we could stop by my local Dr’s office, they would call it in and I could get my blood drawn there. By the time we got there I felt weak and flu-ish, and was very susceptible to smells. It’s amazing how you can be healthy, fit, and walk into a Dr’s office and they tell you that you are sick. Then there’s this medicine you take to help the sickness that hasn’t made you feel sick, go away. You start taking the medicine and presto, you feel sick in an hour. And that means you’re getting better. Weird.
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