Today I really feel like complaining.  So this is my disclaimer… if you don’t want to hear a bunch of whining and complaining, stop reading right now.  Wait until my next post and then start reading again.

This morning in the shower I totally cried my eyes out.  This was the last time I washed my long hair.  Tomorrow I’m getting it cut really short.  Chemo is the next step in this process and it’s going to take my hair.  From what the doctors have said, losing short hair is easier than losing long hair.  I really don’t believe that losing your hair at any length is going to be “easier”.  Yes it’s just hair and there are so many things that could be so much worse, but this is really hard for me. 

I’m dreading chemo more than I dreaded the surgery.  If only surgery was the “fix all” solution to breast cancer.  Not only am I going to have to have chemo I’m going to have to have hormone therapy for 5 years once chemo is done.  So this is what it’s looking like right now:  Starting in September I will have chemotherapy for 18 weeks; it will be once every 3 weeks for 6 treatments.  During those 18 weeks I will also be getting a drug called Herceptin.  That will be given every week during that first 18 week period.  Once this is complete, Herceptin will be given once every 3 weeks for the remaining year (so I will be on Herceptin for 12 months).  Both drugs are given by IV so I will have to have a port put in (yay, another surgery and another scar).  After a year has passed, I will be able to have the port removed.  Hormone therapy will also be starting after the first 18 weeks.  I’ll be on a drug called tamoxifen.  The reason for this is because my cancer was being fed from estrogen and progesterone.  They want to make my body stop producing these hormones for five years.  All this is not final, because we are going on Friday for a 2nd opinion, just to be sure that this is the right thing to do.

Have I said how much I hate cancer?!?!  It has turned my life upside down and taken so much from me already and it’s not over.  It’s never going to be over.  Yes chemo and Herceptin are temporary, but who’s to say that cancer won’t come back?  My hair will grow back and I’ll physically feel better again; but let’s be real…  that will always be in the back of my mind.  I’ll be going to have tests and scans and they will keep a close eye on things, but that’s not going to stop it from happening.  I hate cancer.  It has taken over my thoughts and my life for the next several months.  I hate thinking about being sick and not feeling like myself or feeling like Dan and I can just go and do whatever, whenever because I’ll be too tired to go.  And maybe I won’t be too tired, maybe I’ll breeze right thru but I can’t say that now because I’ve never done this.  Everyone is different and everyone responds different, but I hate not knowing how this is going to go.  I know, I’m complaining about things that haven’t even happened yet, but that’s how I feel about it.  Cancer sucks.  I hate how I feel about it; I hate what it does; I hate that it could take my life at some point. 

So, sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I warned everyone upfront about how I was feeling.  This is really tough for me.  I know I’ll get through it, but every day is not full of roses.  It’s life and that’s just how it is.

— Holly Thompson