Holly

*Disclaimer: I swear in this post. Cancer makes you do that. (Wait....what was my excuse before then?)
*Names have been changed


I have mentioned before that one of biggest regrets during chemo was not talking to other patients more. I kept to myself, brought friends, and always requested a private room.  On my very last day of chemo I met Holly. I had actually met her about a month earlier, but hadn't really gotten a chance to chat with her.

Holly and I had a lot in common. Both 35, both single, living in Holland, and both had breast cancer. Her's was stage 2, mine stage 1. She even worked with a parent of one of my students. If we had met under different circumstances, we probably would have been friends. She was very easy to talk to, funny and it made me sad that we had only just met.

She finished chemo about a month after me, but after figuring out that we knew someone in common, we would get updates on each other. I heard all about her reconstructive surgery and when she finished radiation. I'm sure she heard all about my crazy curly hair. I hadn't run into our mutual acquaintance in a while and had been wondering how she was doing.

Last night I got the update. Holly was recently diagnosed with non-operable brain cancer. Of course I was told this at parent-teacher conferences and proceeded to have to spend some time in the bathroom pulling myself together. The total meltdown happened on the ride home when I actually had time to process everything. Note to self: sobbing makes you dizzy so you probably shouldn't have been driving.

I didn't really expect the news to rock me like it did. But I'm sad/terrified/boggled for so many reasons:
  -It's not fair that not even a year after finishing chemo for one cancer, Holly has another. She thirty-
   fucking-five years old! Not that anyone EVER deserves cancer but this is a total slap in the face.
  -How did it even get there? How did they not know?
  -Why didn't the last chemo zap it? (yes I know, it probably wasn't there)
  -How do you even face your own mortality that young?
  -Why didn't we keep in contact? How can I help?
and absolutely worst of all,
  -She's my age, she had my cancer, she could be me.

Rational Jenn knows she is healthy. She knows that all of her scans have come back clean. She knows that he doctor told her Tamoxifen is good to be on. It's that irrational Jenn that lost it. It's irrational Jenn that needed a breakdown of every symptom she'd had before her diagnosis. Irrational Jenn started fretting about every single ache and pain she's had lately and convinced herself it was bad.

I realize that this will not be the last time one of these meltdowns will happen, but they are not something I am looking forward to.

I am sending thoughts and strength to Holly, her family, her friends, her coworkers and everyone else in her life.

Cancer, you seriously are a little beeeyotch!

Remember when Felicity cut her hair?

I know I'm not the only Felicity fan out there. Remember at the beginning of season 2, how she cut her hair and the fans thought she was crazy? Well so did I!

Ok where am I going with this? Well, it's a great segue into my latest hair update. I know, I know, I've made so many promises these last 6 months about how often I'd post pics, but once a month (ish) is still pretty good!

I like to refer to my latest phase of hair as the "Felicity".

The picture doesn't do the curls justice. Plus, I am amazingly bad at taking a pic of the back of my head, but trust me, it's crazy curly!

Here it is with a side by side with Keri Russell. Try not to focus on how gorgeous she is, but on her curly locks. (Hard I know...)

Side note: not only am I impressed that I correctly put two photos in a blog post, but I actually combined two for a side-by-side shot!

People are shocked at how curly it is. Evidently nobody seems to remember that I actually had curly hair, I just spent hours straightening it.  It is, however, much softer, curlier and not as frizzy as it used to be. Ask me one day and I'll tell you I love it. Talk to me the next and I hate it. As of right now I'm going to keep it short for a while because that seems to be the consensus vote. (Thanks for the compliments by the way!) I am back to rocking my expensive Anthropoligie headbands every day which makes me happy.

At this point, most people who haven't seen me in a while don't have a clue that I went through chemo. Most just tell me they like my hair. I've seemed to move into the "she just has a short haircut" phase rather than "oh her hair is growing back in nicely".

There are still some awkward encounters, like when a former student yelled at me during a football game "Why did you cut off all your hair!?!?!?!" Umm......

So there it is, your monthly (semi-monthly?) hair post. And it didn't even take a reminder from Allie to get it! Jenn, for the win!

6 Months

So this week marks 6 months since I finished chemo. I know this sounds cliche, but it feels like yesterday that I was in the thick of it. Because it's been 6 months, I have a whole round of doctors appointments in the next weeks. I think that every 6 months I have to see all of my doctors and get new scans.

To say that I am nervous about these appointments is an understatment. I've had them on the calendar for two months and I don't think they've left my mind yet. As this week has gotten closer, I can feel the anxiety increase. I have no reason to think they will find anything, and I want so much to just confidently walk in there knowing nothing will show up. But, this whole process has made me believe differently. My mom said to me today "well, you're feeling fine aren't you?" I wanted to say "yeah, but I felt great when they found cancer the first time!"

I'm going to apologize now to anyone I snap at this week (my poor students....). It's coming from stress and nothing else.

Any prayers and thoughts you can send my way the next two weeks are greatly appreciated. I'll just be here trying to stay calm. :)

Money Matters

I feel like I've talked a lot about feeling thankful during this journey. Thankful for friends and family and their support. Thankful that, even during chemo, I never felt THAT bad.  But I heard a story yesterday that might have made my thankfulness hit an all-time high.

Another worker within my school district was diagnosed with cancer in May. This is her second round of cancer, as she beat it two or three years ago. I'm not sure what type she has, not that it really matters. She needs to undergo radiation, but has no insurance (she's not a teacher).  The doctors won't start her radiation until she puts a $3,000 deposit down.

When I started getting the insurance statements on my radiation I realized that each treatment was $609. It could be more if you had an x-ray that day or if you had to see the doctor. Here is a little math for you: 33 treatments at  $609 each is $20,097. 

I have saved all of my insurance statements since this journey began in December, but I have yet to add them all up. I could honestly be close to $100,000 in total between surgeries, chemo, doctors appointments and radiation.  With the exception of a couple of prescriptions and co-pays I have paid $500, which is my deductible.

I remember a day that my friend Jocelyn asked me about my bills and how much I've paid and then said "What do people do who don't have insurance? They just die, right?" Naive Jenn hadn't really thought of that, and just figured it got taken care of somehow. I mean come on, doctors really aren't going to treat someone with cancer? Oh silly Jenn....

We can complain that insurance is expensive, and I know that when my contribution to insurance went from 7% to over 20% in a year I was angry, but holy cow I have no problem paying for it now. I was the first one at the lunch table saying that we should switch insurance companies and go to something cheaper because "I never go to the doctor anyways." Yeah, the lightening bolt hit me on that one.

Between car and house payments, utilities, student loans and every other bill I pay every month I have no idea how long it would take me to save $3,000.  I know that entire time I would be freaking out that the disease inside me was growing and spreading and there was nothing I can do about it. I have no idea how she must be dealing with it.

So today, probably more than ever, I'm thankful for my insurance that has helped me get the best treatments in a timely manner and hasn't put me even farther into debt.

**PS I know I owe a regular post about hair and such and it's coming!

Over six weeks!

So, today is the first weekday since May 27th that I don't have a doctors appointment. That's a pretty big deal! I looked in my calendar and my next one isn't until July 30. It's SO nice to be able to just come home after work. I celebrated with a nap! :)

Here is my radiation certificate. Pretty proud of this one!

Not exactly the sunburn I wanted this summer...

Today, July 12th, is my very last radiation treatment. For the past 33 weekdays (I started the day after Memorial Day) I have had a 3:45 doctor's appointment (with the exception of some that were earlier in the day). I could make no vacation plans because then I wouldn't be there for my appointment. Most days I would have to go straight from work, which meant no relaxing on the sofa after 8+ hours of work.  I have had to lay on a board shirtless while radiation techs adjusted the giant machine around me 33 times.  I have what looks like sunburn all over my right breast and for a good week I couldn't move my right arm without pain because the burn had gotten so bad under my arm. But....

I have secretly loved radiation.  Despite all of the hassles, it has been a fascinating experience.

Let's start with radiation itself. It's so mathematical and exact. The techs have to make sure you are perfectly lined up each time (using tattoos and lasers) and they have numbers and angles they use to do this which go straight to this math nerd's heart. The burn has perfectly straight edges which just shows how exact my treatments are each day. I would ask a lot of questions (probably too many) about what all the numbers meant and I would spend each treatment counting how many seconds the machine ran to try and figure out how long my treatments actually were. (25 seconds on each side) I was always interested in how people with other types of cancer (like the sweet lady before me who has cancer behind her nose) got their radiation.

The doctors, nurses and techs at Lakeshore Area Radiation Oncology Center are awesome. They are warm and welcoming. They get to know you. They get excited for you and root for you. They remember every fact about you that you ever tell them. I guess that's kinda easy when you see someone 33 times, but still it amazed me. There is no other doctor's office that I would look forward to going to 33 straight days.

I realized after chemo was done that I didn't take advantage of getting to know others that were going through the same things that I was. I was kinda standoffish. I didn't want to own that I had cancer. I didn't want to hear people's stories because they scared me and were realities that I didn't want to face. Radiation has been a while different experience. Probably my absolute favorite thing has been talking to the people in the waiting room and hearing their stories. You trade stats, Jenn: stage 1 breast cancer, 4 rounds of chemo, lost my hair, 33 rounds of radiation. You see the same people most days which is nice. I sat next to a lady for 2 weeks before realizing that it was one of my friend's aunts! Once in a while a new person will start and you get to hear all of their stories. The funny thing is, I'm one of the few that lost their hair. Some never had chemo, others had a type that didn't make your hair fall out.

Some people stories are much sadder than mine. Like the lady who broke her leg and when she was in the hospital they discovered stage 4 lung cancer. Or the woman who had beaten stage 3 cancer two years ago only to have it come back even stronger.

Radiation was a total mystery to me 7 weeks ago. Now, I'm completely fascinated by it. So much so, that I may have researched what it takes to be a radiation tech.... :)

Two Roads

Someone asked me this question the other day: "Do you think people with cancer become nicer because they are grateful for the days they have?"

I thought about this for a minute and I decided that people can take one of two roads.

The first road is anger. I would be lying if I said I never took this road. This thing sucks, and I had it kinda easy. Most of the crying I did was angry crying. I was mad that I was in this mess. I was mad that people got to go on living their everyday lives and I didn't. It seemed like everyone had a baby or got pregnant, got engaged or married or had some other awesome event happen in their lives in the last 6 months.  Facebook was hard to look at sometimes.  I would NEVER wish upon someone what I went through, I was just purely jealous that I didn't have exciting things to share. (Sidenote: most of these things bother healthy single jenn as well haha)

But most days, I took the other road. I chose to be positive and be happy for others. I was thankful for all of the things people have done for me, and vowed to do the same for others. I wanted people to share the good things in their lives because someday I hope they'll still be around when I have big happy moments in my life as well. 

I have a feeling that the people that take the angry road realize that it's a pretty lonely one and, when you already have cancer, loneliness is NOT something you need.