Category: Cancer
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This is the time of year we usually plan our spring break road trip. Me, Mom, Viv and my copy of Historic Hotels of American hitting the road. Last year, we canceled at the last minute as COVID was closing in and states were closing down. This year I hoped to do a localized…
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The timing of the fourth round of chemo, just a few days before Christmas, sucked. I was the sickest during the height of home bound festivities. Chemo day itself is not hard. After chemo is hard. Like the unexpected (and rarely talked about) challenges after childbirth, the after affects of chemo are less known, wildly varied, and…
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Tomorrow is chemo round three and I’m sleepless on steroids and dreading it so here is a picture of how my husband arranges the kids’ treasures after a pandemic Autumn walk. At least when he leaves a mess on my desk he does it correctly.
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The thing about chemo nurses is they will cheerily ask “So, what did you do this weekend?!” like you didn’t spend it: having diarrhea being constipated feeling nauseous feeling dizzy taking nausea medication that makes you dizzy counting hives having bloody noses counting pills, writing it down and then immediatly forgetting what you've taken being…
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(This is my favorite photo of exhaustion.) I’m in the infusion room right now and all the nurses are talking about the next phase decisions coming down from their organization leadership. So far I’ve overheard chat about—-surgery and electives are going to be stopping, procedures that might have been overnight admissions are now only proceeding…
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So the best fix for mouth sores from chemo and the pain of thrush, also caused by chemo, is a prescription mixture called Magic Mouthwash. It wasn’t provided in advance, or even mentioned by my chemo nurses. Typically around 50% of chemo patients experience canker sores, mouth sores, mouth pain and/or a thrush infection. Many…
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I have breast cancer. It’s an aggressive type, fueled by my own hormones, and like a constellation it has traveled in a great arc from my breast to my sternum, out to my arm and up past my clavicle. I won’t go in to the story of how I was diagnosed, why it wasn’t caught…
girl at large 