1. Some days you are the bug, and some days you are the windshield. There will be days you feel like the bug (squashee), but pretend you are the windshield (squashor)---to yourself and everyone else. If you need to "go bug", do it, just hibernate for that day, then get back on the road with a clean windshield...and keep on truckin'. Attitude really is everything...with or without cancer.
2. I have forgotten how to clip my own toe nails---really, pedis are on the red marker list. Not sure whether it is a sanitation issue with the various nail bars (Note: to MD Anderson, put in a clean/blessed mani/pedi bar in your huge facility, your female patients will love you for it) or whether a relaxing leg and foot massage can cause a rogue blood clot to dislodge, but I will be the one with bandaids on my toes for the foreseeable future.
3. Your daily beauty routine is much shorter with no hair. I see why men get ready so quickly. I wish my leg hair would just get the message that it should just fall out. Guess there is so much area to cover, it will take a couple of treatments to get all the way down stream. My eyebrows are hanging in there, eyelash thinning, but still present and accounted for---these are makeup free zones, too. My skin/face has never look better, chemo is the new chemical peel---just works from the inside out (kinda of a scorched earth thing)---another time saver when it comes to creams, lotions and expensive face goo. It is 15 minutes tops, and I am out the door.
4. There is a special bond with others that have gone through cancer, regardless of type or sex. It is a different kind of support....they know what to say, what to do, what to ask. Surprisingly, a male friend said it best. He told me that I would get thought this, that in a few years, the word or fear of cancer would not be something that I thought about everyday, and that life would be more precious, and that you would learn to enjoy every moment. Thanks, Mikey.
5. Radiologists should not be allowed to perform any procedure that requires stitches, particularly if it is visible with your clothes on. After two surgical procedures with over 36 inches of stitches that aren't seen (and would not be ugly, if I was that kinda girl), to have the mantel decorated by the radiologist who installed my chemo port is a crime. I look like I was in a bar knife fight---neck and mid pec-area, left side. The port is like a bottle cap just under the skin, so there is always a faint bruised look, with lots of stitches. After some random chest nerve pains, around my heart area (mild panic when it first started, now I am use to the strangers in the night--or any other time), and the repeat nerve issues when "popping the top" on chemo day, they have determined that he planted the port on nerve endings. Bleh! and my insurance said that I paid a lot for this...can I request a refund? I will use my refund to get rid of my turkey neck. Good grief, the lack of big boobs and hair have made that the eye focus in the mirror. Gobble, Gobble, ya'll.
6. Stores (even Amazon) don't sell temporary tattoos any more...everyone must be getting the real thing these days. Shows you how old and prudish I am. In an effort to make light of my chemo port, I have visited the usual suspects---WalMart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Sally's looking for the tattoos that stick on and wipe off with baby oil....seems like only yesterday the racks were full of them. The only thing that was available was Winnie the Pooh, Cars, and Tinkerbell. It wasn't the look I was hoping for... I was thinking a rose--or barb-wire. Sally's Beauty referred me to Magic Needle, the big tat shop on 1960 in Atascocita....drove there, but just could not make myself go in. (Bug/wienie moment) I could just see them trying to upsell me a tat for my bald head, telling me that once my hair came back, no one would know. I am figuring that while specifically not on the list, permanent tats would be likely a red marker item.
7. Laughter is really the best medicine. Whether a snicker, giggle or full blown belly laugh, I look for humor everywhere. Kathy and my mom, Katy, (90 year old) send me a "happy" before every treatment or procedure. This time it was a shoulder and back warming pillow, and a Sex with Cancer magazine....snicker, snicker, giggle, giggle. Sent a quick email to both, acknowledging the pillow and giving my sister credit for the mag. Mom called a little while later to claim credit for the mag...she stole it from the Doctor's office. Can't decided which part made me laugh the hardest. The Mag--Mom--or petty larceny.
8. While everyone's journey is different, and like the drug commercials on TV, side effects may vary, chemo is not as bad as you imagine. The stress of having chemo is probably worse than the actual treatment.
9. Do not wear your wigs to cook in, crawfish boils, or around open flames. It will spoil the look, or at the very least pick up cooking odors. Good user tip. Besides that wigs, can pinch the snot out of head and give you a headache, even when you are not cooking. Of the two wig outings---Dominque is the fav---with most people telling me I should wear it all the time.
Either my friends think I should have a chronic headache, or my hair looked like crap before I started this journey.
10. And finally, while the distance between MD Anderson/Woodlands and Kingwood/Atascocita and MD Anderson/Woodlands and Camp Allen, is roughly the same. Ed swears we have better drivers (read: faster) on this side of I-45. There is something about spending the day and night before chemo with your grandson, Eli, and a couple of licks from Cali, the grand-dog, that makes the medicine go down so much easier, even if it at 7:00 in the morning.
News flash: Flamingo count 2 - wing salute!
great post krazy k- I really liked this one. :)
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