{NOTE: This was originally published on Vanessa’s CarePage. We are copying all those posts here to have her story in one place that all can access. We are back-dating the posts to match when she originally published the post there, and marking the blog post here with Vanessa as the author as these words that follow are her own.}
look at all my hair!
welcome! glad you came to get the latest news! :) not much of a “blogger” but thought i’d give this a try to keep you all posted.
today i’m feeling great. the past week has been nothing but CRAZY! within a week’s time, i had a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, and biopsy (and that was all in one day!). on friday the doctors confirmed that my lump was indeed cancer and that it had spread to my lymph nodes. so what did i do that night?…go to a hockey game of course!! wouldn’t you??! :)
saturday i spent the day with my sisters having fun. christina came home from her time scooping poop to be with us (not kidding) so we had a “party” at mom & dad’s house. and by party i mean eating ribs and apple pie and ice cream, and then dying jess’s and christina’s hair and giving mine a trim. we plotted a way to get a snipet of my hair so when it all falls out, i will still have something to “twirl”. that was my revelation–i don’t care if i end up bald, but i sure as heck am gonna need some good twirling hair! i’m sure you all know how i twirl my hair when i’m tired, nervous, bored, stressed (yeah, pretty much all the time) so i will go crazy if i have nothing to twirl!
anyway…on monday i went to the hospital to have a portocath inserted under my collarbone where they will administer the chemo instead of shooting up my arm all the time. mom, billy, jess, christina, and sue (billy’s mom) went with me. all the nurses were laughing at my posse i brought, but i am glad they were there. apparently i was really out of it after surgery and i don’t really remember much.
the portocath is rather uncomfortable and i’m still getting used to it, but they said lots of people complain the most at the beginning and then you don’t notice it. i think so far the hardest part was talking to mom and christina and billy on monday night about all the stuff the nurse had talked to them about when i was in my “twilight”. we were talking about what was to come later on down the road: chemo, hair loss, wigs, surgery, reconstruction, infertility…WOW, this is just the beginning.
we go tomorrow to talk to the surgeon and the oncologist and get the “gameplan” on what the schedule for chemo might be, and what else we need to do before we start it. LOTS and LOTS to talk about still.
all in all my attitude is “bring it on!” i’m ready to kick some serious cancer butt! and i have so many people praying for me and supporting me…it has been great. thanks for the love! :)