Harpooning

Well there is good news and there is and medium-good news and banal news and bad news and really bad news. Which do you want first? I will take the good news first with a side of onion rings!

I had my third PET scan on January 4th. 2008. Such a crazy test! It is actually measuring how things are doing on a cellular level. The day before you cannot eat any carbs. It is kind of a meat day. Additionally, no strenuous activity so clearly I cannot slaughter my own meat. I have to purchase it at a store.

Anyhow, then you can have nothing after 8pm. No water, no nothing. Your necessary medications are OK in the morning but with 20 ounces of water. Once you arrive at the scanning center (if your bladder hasn't burst) you get to drink two liters of barium. Yum! Yum! and not filling at all! (Go for the Banana over the Vanilla if given the choice.) Once you get the super radioactive sauce shot into your veins you have to remain perfectly still. No gum chewing and no reading. This would make your eyes or your mouth might light up on the scan.

The other weird thing is that the radioactive sauce is in the big metal box and the syringe is in a thick metal sleeve. The tech has 3 radiation exposure markers on her person but it is being mainlined by cancer girl. It is so weird. It makes me feel dirty from the inside out in a Karen Silkwood kind of way. Then you lie on the conveyor belt and you go into the tube. You must remain perfectly still (which is easier said than done.) It is not as long as a MRI but still it is long enough.

You come out, you pee (and it really is radioactive not just B vitamins) and you are on your way. Now you can't be around children or pregnant people for 10-12 hours but you are FINE it is SAFE!!! It is akin to taking direction from Mr. Burns on the Simpson's.

The good news is that every cancer tumor, cell or lesion in my body is either shrinking or slowing down (not up taking estrogen as fast.) Isn't that great? The medium good news is that there was an area that lit up on the PET which was my left armpit node. As we all remember this was the first lump I found in June. The first one is the one that you find and then you get buzzed and have your girlfriend, in my case Kimmie Kilker, feel you up in the Newcastle Golf & Country Club bathroom to give you a second opinion. The girlfriend ALWAYS precedes the physician.

The banal news is that this could be due to an infection process that couples with swollen lymph nodes. The bad news is that it could also be due to the cancer cells in that lymph node becoming Tamoxifen resistant. The really bad news is that the treatment for the bad news is a drug called Faslodex. It is "indicated for the treatment of hormone receptor positive metastatic breast cancer in post-menopausal women with disease progression following anti-estrogen therapy." You know me and the 4 other women on the planet that this applies to. (Yes, Lucinda, I read the entire drug company insert. Now and forever a geek!)

You may be asking why this is such bad news. Well here is why: The effin shot is a harpoon. It could take down a whale. It is about a 16 gauge needle and the drug is the viscosity of honey. It is a 2 minute push in the ass. It is so incredibly uncomfortable. The fabulous oncology nurses do a great job with what they have BUTT it isn't pretty.

Oh and other late breaking good news is that after 2 months of having my CA 27-29 be relatively unchanged (Oct. 75, Nov. 68, Dec. 77) it is down to 51. FIFTY ONE! That is so awesome and definitely worth a pain in the butt every month.

What was Samson's deal?

Well it is done. My hair is shorn and unlike Samson who lost all his power and ju-ju after a too close hairdo I am empowered, emancipated and back to being a product whore.

I had been thinking about it for some time. I mean my hair was just out of control. I swear that it weighed in at 10 pounds and it would never, ever dry all the way. The only way for me to get it dry was to use the blow dryer on HI for 45-60 minutes. Having my head heated for that long in tandem with the hot flashes was like being in a sauna.

The other treat was that it was falling out. Seriously, every day that I showered there would be a giant wad in the drain. Totally disgusting! Then if I brushed my hair the brush would be full---every day! I was losing more hair on a daily basis than most men I know have on their prematurely balding heads.

Matt says that he read somewhere that 5-10% of women on Tamoxifen have hair loss as a side effect. Dr. Kaplan said it was probably stress, drugs, menopause and just bad luck. It really didn't bother me that it was falling out because no one would ever be the wiser but it was getting on everything, my clothes, my bathroom floor, the kids. It was gross, like a shedding cat.

I have heard of this magical wig-maker in Bellevue named Anton. Apparently, he can make a wig for you out of your own hair. I decided that proactive was the way to go. I was going to have all these long tresses to make the wig of my dreams when and if my hair does actually fall all the way out. I could get a styrofoam head and style it while off my head. It could be so cool and so retro and the back would always look as good as the front.

The directions are to "section the hair off into 10 areas" and shave. Because I am not ready to shave (Britney wrecked it) my lovely stylist Petra got 18 ponytails out of my mane. She cut them off at about 2 inches. Eighteen, I mean seriously these 18 ponies are bigger than most women's one pony. It is funny because now I have the 18 carefully marked sandwich bags drying on my dining room table. Left Occipital temple, Right parietal by ear, top left near part, the baggies are all marked so they can be put back together again later.

I loved it when she just cut off the ponies. It looked so rugged and fresh to me. To Petra it looked like "you let the girls cut your hair with plastic scissors." It did have that 'not quite right in the head look.' She fixed it up just so. I tried to go blonde but after 4 processings my head was on fire and I couldn't take it any more. We took it from a very brassy orange to pretty close to my normal color but redder.

Well, here are some pictures for you to see. Everyone seems to like it. It still doesn't get me any verifiability that I actually have cancer. All I hear is "you look so good (with this lilt at the end like I really had prepared myself for you to look like shit so I am not really sure how to end this sentence....a question or a statement.)

I love it! I love that fact that it dries. I love being able to use product again. I love that it is spikey or flat or whatever. I love this crazy blue goop that makes it stand straight up. Mostly though I love that I had a choice. That's what I really love.

LXVIII

068,
originally uploaded by sesom.

You may be wondering why I am so focused on sixty-eight this day. In '68 the best song was "Up, Up and Away" by the Fifth Dimension. How could we forget my beautiful, my beautiful balloon? Now the ubiquitous song of Safeways all over the nation. The best country song was "Ode to Billie Joe" while Billie Jean was kicking butt at Wimbledon. In '68 both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Andy Warhol was shot. Astroworld opened. The Republicans nominated Nixon & Agnew for their ticket. Ari Onaissis and Jackie "not yet O" Kennedy were married and Yale finally became co-ed. Lisa Marie Pressley and Vanilla Ice were born and the Boeing 747 made its maiden flight.

All of these events occured in '68.

Today I found out that my CA 27-29 is down to 68. I had another treatment on Friday that left me with a lot of bone pain but no nausea. Today I am feeling better and ready to go.

Please send your thoughts and prayers to Matt's Grandmother and the girl's great-Grandmother Ruth. She had a heart attack over the weekend and is currently in the CCU.