What do you say........

Euphoric

That's a pretty big word, but as I sit here and type this post I think it most accurately describes the feeling I have at this moment.  I almost don't know what else to say or what to do with myself.  This disease has consumed my life for the past eight and half months with such a strong and definite presence, its hard to believe that it is gone.

Just the same ole, same ole

I waited around yesterday Monday April 18th expecting to get the news of the pathology from the surgeons office and was disappointed when I didn't get the call.  So, today I went out and on the with my day as usual.  I took Brady to school, took something to Kevin at school and headed home.  When I got home Pat was up and I completely forgot that I meant to go to the store first (chemo brain), so I went back out.  Of course this would be the time when the nurse Jennifer from the surgeons office would call me.  I was standing in the checkout line at the Winn Dixie when I saw her number calling.  Well, I wasn't gonna not answer it, but was worried about how it would all pan out if it was bad news and I was there getting groceries all alone.  Jennifer told me the glorious news, no evidence of metastatic breast cancer and that the two lymph nodes they took were cancer free!!!  I started crying, Jennifer was crying and she said times like this are what she loves about her job.  Well, remember I wasn't alone......the Winn Dixie employees (many of whom I know by face) were all quite concerned as I was standing at the checkout crying, I told them the news and they all applauded.  Funny, it was just life going on as it always has.

Home

I called Pat from the checkout line with the good news and he was so very happy.  I loaded up the food and got home to my husband at the front door with the biggest smile on his face.  We are just still in disbelief.  The only thing that will make me even happier is to see and tell my kids this afternoon.  I thank you all and love you all for your support and prayers. I could not have done it without all of you.

An Update...........

Promises, Promises…….

I know I promised to do weekly updates and I failed miserably, sorry.  I can’t understand how I can’t seem to get things done when I have all the time in the world to do things.  I haven’t had any work again for some time so I have all day to blog, clean, do laundry, etc.  I can’t seem to do it all.  I did much  better at getting everything done when I was crazy busy with work.

First a little something to make you laugh

Things you don't want to hear during surgery:

Hand me that...uh...that...uh.....thingie.

Oh no! I just lost my Rolex.

Damn, there go the lights again...

"You know, there's big money in kidneys. Heck, shes got two of them."

Everybody stand back! I lost my contact lens!

Could you stop that thing from beating; it's throwing my concentration off.

Anyone see where I left that scalpel?

Nurse, did this patient sign the organ donor card?

Don't worry; I think it's sharp enough.

Now, I ask you for your prayers again....

This Friday April 15^th I will have my surgery.  After a lot of discussion and thought I am going with the lumpectomy.  Since I will have to have radiation and if I had a mastectomy I would not be able to have implants as an option to reconstruction.  The options for reconstruction would be flap type surgeries, that, to be quite honest, I don’t think turn out all that great.  My surgeon believes that the lumpectomy is totally doable and may not make any cosmetically poor appearance of the breast.  That being said, we are hoping for clear margins because if they can’t get clear margins I may not have a choice but to have a mastectomy later.  At the time of surgery I will also be having a Sentinel Node Biopsy and we are hoping for clean lymph nodes.  The chemo did a great job and the only thing left of the large tumor are three small areas that are 6mm each. I will go in at 10:00am for the wire localization (they put a wire in by ultrasound where the tumor is so the surgeon can find it) and my surgery is scheduled for 12:00 noon.  Barring any complications, I should be going home that afternoon.

YES, OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!

YES, of course I am scared shipless, I am afraid that I won’t wake up, I am afraid that I will be sick when I am done with surgery and have to stay overnight, I am afraid that the surgeon won’t get clear margins, I am afraid that my lymph nodes will come back with cancer in them, I am AFRAID!!!! But, I will be as brave as I can and be back to me soon. Please keep me in my prayers still and mostly keep my husband and boys in your prayers as they will be so very worried.

JUST IN TIME

LONG WEEK

Its only Wednesday and the week already seems long.  Yesterday was an extremely hard day.  My fingers, feet and legs were very uncomfortable from the neuropathy.  Walking around the house was a struggle due to the muscle pain.  Yesterday was also a "down" day.  For those of you out there saying "Keep you head up Beth, You can do it Beth, You're gonna beat this Beth" I know, but I am entitled to my pity party, feel sorry for me days and yesterday was one of them.  As I write this I can take joy in the fact that I am almost done with my hard chemo, however, I still have surgery (which is VERY scary), radiation (which is very overwhelming) and Herceptin till December.  I am also pretty tired of not having hair.  I would give anything to have to shave my legs if it meant I had hair on my head.

BETTER DAY

I started my post early this morning, so I was still not sure how I felt at 5:30am.  Today has been much better than today.  I did a little work, went to my Moms to move her answering machine for her and went shopping.  Since I have been home I started the corned beefs for tomorrow and I am currently baking a strawberry cobbler (found some frozen strawberries in my freezer).  When I am done with the cobbler I will make my Irish soda bread for tomorrow. I look forward to celebrating St. Patricks Day with Kelly, Jenn, Kevin, Brady and Abby. See ya.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!!!!

D-DAY

I am trying desperately to type in a timely fashion, but due to the HORRIBLE neuropathy and sores on my fingers,  it is taking a long time.  I was going to post yesterday, but Brady was home sick and I wanted to get some cleaning done.  This week is the final countdown of my heavy duty chemo. On Friday March 18 I will have my last Taxol with Herceptin.  Though I would rather have chocolates or a spa day, I am considering this a pretty decent birthday present.  I still have to do Herceptin till December, but this should be a piece of cake.  As I said earlier, my hands are suffering from neuropathy.  The chemo has taken its toll in a big way this week and my hands are VERY numb and I have alot of cracks and sores on my finger tips.  Also this week is my MRI.  The MRI should tell us how much the tumor has shrunk and what kind of margins the surgeon can get with lumpectomy.  It should also show what kind of lymph node involvement there is.  Today I ask you my friends to keep in your prayers two friends of mine.  I have two friends that are currently in question about their breast health. Thanks.

JANUARY............A BLUR

January was a blur, so I am going to try and catch up and blog at least weekly, hang on to that thought my friends.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

DECEMBER

December proved to be a busy month between treatments being every week and the holidays and other obligations.  Brady my youngest son is a member of the Bach Festival Youth Choir and had several performances during the month, which really helped to get us in the holiday spirit.  The first performance was actually at the Festival of the Trees in November.  The second one was Christmas in the Park, in Winter Park.  We had a great time at that one, despite the VERY cold weather.  We got blankets, wine and some food to eat and enjoyed the time with my friend Kelly, Jenn, Mehmet and Burak, as well as my brother and sister-in-law, Jim and Pam.  Oh and I can't forget Jenn's little guy Slade.  I don't have any pics of the concert in the park, but below is a pic from the Festival of the Trees, its of Brady and his best friend Abby, Kelly's daughter.

After a busy few weeks the week before Christmas seem to be peaceful and take its time getting there.  I was uber prepared for Christmas, all the shopping was done mostly online a month before, so I tried to enjoy the time with the kids and make the most of it.  It was also a little boring as my friend Kelly was in Turkey for two weeks.  I usually talk with Kelly most every day and that wasn't possible being half a world away.  Once Kelly returned on the 22nd everything seemed normal again, and then time flew.  Christmas eve was a busy day, we went to Kelly's to exchange gifts and see our friends and then off to my Mom's to spend some time with Grammy and Pop Pop.  We then rush home to do some cooking for Pam, Jim and Matt who came over for the evening.  Christmas day started out great, the boys seem to be pleased with all the loot they got and were surprised at the Ipod touches.  The whole day seemed to be great until about 4:30, then it hit me.  I got a slight "chemo fever" and was down for the count. Pat and the boys had dinner without me and I slept through till the next morning.

HERE'S HOPING 2011 WILL BE BETTER

December being over seemed to bring with it the hope that 2010 was gone and hopefully was bad news that came with it.  I started out 2011 with a slumber party, yep, a slumber party.  Though I was having some side effects, I was invited to spend new years eve with my friends Kelly and Jenn for a slumber party at Jenn's house.  Jenn was more than accommodating and we had a blast.  I rather enjoyed watching everyone get tipsy and silly.  While over at Jenn's house I called my brother and sister-in-law, Jim and Pam, who live around the block from Jenn.  Jim and Pam didn't have plans, so they came over and added to the fun.  We had food and drinks and the kids played and danced and I had a nice night.  At 12 we hooped and hollered and shot off fireworks. A good time was had by all.  We woke up the next morning and it was better than a bed and breakfast. Jenn had LOTS of yummy things to eat.  Eventually, we gathered up and headed home.

Onward

HERE WE GO AGAIN

I was so pleased that my first phase of chemo was over and was now on the cusp on starting a whole new regimen.  I was told by the Oncologist that this would be a breeze compared to the AC.  I would have 12 taxols at three week in a row spurts and then the fourth Friday would be Herceptin. Herceptin is special for tumors like mine that are HER2neu+. About 20 or 25 percent of breast cancers over-express the HER2 protein. Those breast cancers seem to be those whose growth is sometimes stimulated by this particular pathway, and Herceptin can interfere with this growth pathway. On December 10, 2010 I had my first Taxol with Herceptin and WOW that was interesting.  When you are given Taxol you are given a set of pre-meds in case of any allergic reactions or side effects.  They gave me Pepcid, Decadron (steroid) and 50mg of Benadryl. The Pepcid and Decadron went fine, but the Benadryl through me for a loop.  It was like an out of body experience and it was awful.  My legs were spasming and I felt so loopy.  My Chemo nurse Diane stopped my chemo and we waited a while for it to improve.  After about forty minutes the "weirdness" was manageable and we continued the chemo.  Diane contacted my Oncologist and requested for my dosage to be reduced for the next week.  Thankfully the Doc agreed and the next week was much better. In fact, I rather enjoyed the Benadryl as it made me sleepy and I got to take a good solid nap.

WE GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS

I have introduced you to some of my friends along this journey, new and old, however, the next group of friends that I will talk about are quite amazing.  For those of you who don't know, a few years ago I got interest in a hobby called Geocaching.  It sounds crazy, but you use a GPS to go out into the world to find Geocaches.  There are over 1 million worldwide and its is continually growing.  Geocachers have "handles" or nicknames, mine is foley44. Over the past few years of geocaching I have made friends.  I first met thelanes (Allen)  he lives close by.  Then one geocacher named imtomcat (Tommy) contacted me to see if I wanted to me he and his wife and we instantly became friends.  Flatouts (Vince and Janet) who are always there with words of hope and encouragement. Over the years I have met soooo many others along the trails and mostly at geocaching events.  At the events we eat, we talk, we have raffles and just enjoy the geofellowship of each other.  Two of my friends are Dale n Barb (Dale and Barb).  Dale and Barb started the Space Coast Geocachers Association (SCGA) and have a Geocaching store on Merritt Island and I met them for the first time at an event that they held. When I started my blog I put it out on Facebook and got immediate response from so many including all my geocaching friends. As time passed from my initial "coming out" I got lots of moral and Facebook support from the geocaching community.  I wasn't prepared for what came next.  I was checking my email and got an alert from Groundspeak (the Geocaching site) that a new event was coming up. I went to the cache page and found a link to a Facebook page as well.  The Facebook page gave it all away, the event was for me and my family and was the idea of Flatouts (Vince and Janet and Dale n Barb (Dale and Barb), I am still overwhelmed to this day.  They had special SCGA pink t-shirts made to sell, Dudewithjeeps (Dane and Anne) made BBQ sandwich's and they sold meal tickets and they had a large raffle of items. Oh, I forgot Barb made REALLY good chocolate chip cookies.  Below are some pics of the event.  These are some of the most amazing people that I know and I value and love all of them very much.  I am listing them here too, by there geonames of course.  Dale n Barb, Flatouts, Dudeswithjeeps, imtomcat, BeckiQuilt, Plunder Cats, Jackie and Bob, Bojab, kleetus, YankaBucs, 10ecmtgrl, cyclspin1, Beeortoise & LovelyLisa, Margarena, parkhoppers, familycachefinders, pjavellana, RonC, Ozzie321, kindbus, efrodo, jim32809, thelanes, KacheKlowns, SharrowFamily, Smeagol!, grubbsterscott, poosu, FirefighterSta24, War1man and Mimi, fegan, loxmudprincess, Clan Riffster, jerann, DRDM and Raider, skeletor10, Tony's Girl, Varelitt09, GrizzSteve, seastar255, the1acwright, The Jailbirds, stashseekers, loxahatcheekid, Sweetly_Broken, Possumme, kdog44.

Geocachers Galore

Riff and Janet

Bob and Paul

The Family

Me and Vicki



Tommy, Dale, Dana and Anne







A THANKFUL TIME

THE BIG SHOW

I love thanksgiving, it is actually my favorite holiday, event more so than Christmas.  So, needless to say, I was hopeful that because my last treatment of the AC was to be the week before Thanksgiving, I figured I would be in pretty good shape for the the big show.  The day before, I spent the majority of the day baking pies, cutting veggies and even cleaned house.  I woke on Thanksgiving morning feeling about as well as can be expected, a little tired, a little nauseous.  My mother in law sent me an Edible arrangement of fruit, so we made that and some homemade cranberry bread our breakfast.  Brady and I sat in front of the TV and started watching the parade and I got up periodically to work on the dishes for dinner.  All seemed to going well and I was looking forward to eating this glorious meal.  The meal, contrary to all past years, was just okay.  It was actually not up to my high standards and was disappointing.  Besides the food not coming out how I would have liked, everything tasted like crud thanks to the chemo. We ate and cleaned up and relaxed for a bit, then things went south really fast.  At about 6pm I started feeling VERY sick.  I had about a two hour episode of everything you can imagine (that's all I will say on that) and was done for the rest of the night. At about 9pm the doorbell rang...........Brady shouted up to me, "Mom, its Miss Heather", what??? Yep, my good friend Heather and her family were in town from Merritt Island for dinner with her husbands family and decided to stop by.   I hobbled out of bed and went downstairs, I really wanted to see her.  Ten minutes was all I could take, so I bid my farewell and went back to bed, it was soooo good to see her.

DON'T CHANGE THAT CHANNEL......MORE TO COME

WE GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS

I was fortunate that my chemo sessions were scheduled when they were because I was able to do the Komen race and the following weekend the American Cancer Society's Making Strides against Breast Cancer walk.  This was another early wake up call for the boys and I am pleased to say that I guilted the teenager enough to wake up and come this time.  We got up early, got donuts on the way (bribe) and headed over to Kelly's house.  The Making Strides walk was downtown and Kelly lives downtown so we didn't have to deal with parking issues.  A few weeks before the walk, Kelly and I bought some pink shirts at craft store to decorate for the kids and her to wear. The t-shirt said on the front " I'm in the fight for Beth Foley because....." and on the back said different things.  Kelly's said "She is my dear friend" Kevin and Brady's said "she is my mom", but by far the best one was Abigail's it said "because she is my future mother-in-law", this just a little hope that Kelly and I have for Brady and Abby. (he he)

So bright eyed and ready for the walk!!!

After an input of donuts we left for our event.  Just like the week before it was a sea of pink and that feeling of being treated like a queen for having breast cancer.  We walked around a little before the walk started and I ran into my Oncology nurse Frenchy at the MD Anderson tent.  Eventually the walk started and along the route were lots of people cheering us on and handing out water. We were doing great for a long time, but then the kids started to get tired, but we told them to suck it up and carry on.









AND THE SAGA CONTINUES........

MANGE

This is a touchy subject for most women.  I knew eventually it would be a part of my life, however, I was surprised how well I handled it.  Before my first chemo I had my hair cut fairly short. I thought this would be the best way to prepare for the inevitable trauma of the loss of my hair.  As expected, on day 14, Thursday September 30, I started to shed just a quite a bit, it wasn't too bad so I didn't do anything drastic, I was holding out for the weekend because that Saturday we had plans to go out to dinner with Kelly, Jenn and Burak (Jenn's boyfriend) to my FAVORITE restaurant in the whole world, Enzo's. When Saturday morning came I was shedding like a dog and was very tempted to take it all off, but Pat discouraged me and said I should wait.  I wore a scarf to help keep it all from coming out around the house and got ready to go out.  Well, this is officially the last time I used hair product on my hair, I sprayed at least 3/4 of a can of hairspray on my hair to keep it on.  We went out to dinner with my friends. When Kelly, Jenn and I went to powder our noses I had fun freaking Kelly and Jenn out by pulling tufts of hair out of my head, like it was a crazy trick, it was actually quite humorous.

G.I. JANE

So now we come to a life changing moment..........the buzz!!! After a great night out with friends, Pat and I went home.  We hung out for a little while and had a little wine and then I got up the courage to ask him to help me buzz what was left of my hair.  My hair was rapidly becoming annoying and even painful as it was falling out so I was more than ready to take on a whole new look. Well, he didn't want to do it!!!!!!! Ooooh was I MAD.  I still don't know why he didn't want to, maybe because he had too much wine, maybe because he didn't want to take part in it..........so, I went to sleep.  The next morning I woke up with enough hair on my pillow to make a small dog so I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Brady volunteered to give me hand.  OH MY GOSH, that felt sooooo good!!!!! We took it down to almost nothing.  Later in the shower I had a good cry. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't really feel up to it, now I wish I did, c'est la vie!! The picture below is me at my second chemo, with my scarf on, no hair. :(

RUN FOREST, RUN

Nothing too exciting happened over the next few weeks, except that at that point I learned that chemo was going to whip my butt for about a week after each session and then I would be fine. October 17, 2010 has two special places in my heart. It was the day my oldest son became 15 (nearly a man now) and the day of the Susan G. Komen run for the cure.  I woke up at about 5:30 in the morning with the intentions of getting everyone up and ready to leave by about 6:30.  Here is a little info for all of you without teenagers yet.....teenagers to not want to be woken on weekends at 5:30 in the morning.  On to the husband who worked till 2am and didn't go to bed till about 4...... nope, nada, nothing, not gonna happen.  I must say I can always count on the little one, especially if I am crying.  I went in to wake Brady with tears in my eyes in the hopes that I was not going alone today and of course he came through for me.  I could have just bowed out and not gone at all, however, a friend from high school was running in the chip race in my name and I felt so touched, overwhelmed and honored that I was not going to miss this.  When we got to the event site I couldn't believe how many people there were, it was like a sea of Pepto Bismo, how was I going to find David in this!!???  I post on Facebook on my phone and waited for a response. I didn't intend on actually registering Brady and I for the event but did it anyway.  Eventually we found David and hung out with him till the event began.  Now I must say I was not in any way prepared for what happened next.  The event starts out with a short "Survivors" walk, maybe about 1000 feet and I did the walk fighting back tears the whole time.  Brady found a boy he goes to school with and decided he would run the race without me so away he went and I started out on my own.  Knowing that I could never catch up to Brady or David took a short cut and made my way backwards from the finish line.  Being a scrapbooker I needed pictures of David and Brady doing there part.  After I got my pictures I continued on the race (walk). 

I AM A ROCK STAR!!!!!!!!!

Along the race route there were singers, local new celebrities and cheerleaders. The words of encouragement were overwhelming and still it was hard to fight back the tears. As a survivor I was treated like a rock star.  As I made my way past the finish line I was given a special survivor medal, beads and a rose.  The supporting racers were also treated extremely well, they had drinks, food and fruit galore.

David Harmon, my friend from high school, placed 50 out 1,170 chip racers, very impressive with a time of 23:47. Brady didn't run the chip race, but he finished with a time of 39:50, I was very proud.

Brady and I right before the Survivors walk, I was fighting back the tears, so proud and happy that he was there with me, he is my rock.

 

 





Brady and I at the end of the race.









I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccckkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!

In my last post, so very long ago, I mentioned several topics I wanted to touch on. I will start with a very interesting story.... Chemo Cat.

CHEMO CAT

On September 16, 2010 I had my first chemotherapy.  It was a combination of two drugs Adriamycin (aka The Red Devil) and Cytoxin.  Everything seem to go quite smoothly and I was pleased.  I even had a visit from Bessie a therapy dog at the cancer center. After a long day getting my chemo, labs and seeing my Oncologist I was quite exhausted and went home and crashed.  Zoey, the cat that belongs to Brady, was my little nurse the whole afternoon and night. Here is a recent picture of her, she doesn't say much, but is very sweet.

We all LOVE firefighters

I have a standing "joke" with my friends Kelly and Jenn that we are always happy to see the firefighters of Station One in Orlando.  We don't ever see them face to fact, just usually as they are passing by on their way to a call or to or from the station.  The thought is that they are firefighters, really cute and hot, well I guess they are, but I must say I am partial to Deputies myself.  The firefighters that I really like best though are the ones from the Pink Heals, Guardians of the Ribbon tour.  The day after my first chemo I was feeling great and Kelly and I met to go see the pink fire trucks in Winter Park.  Well, I had no idea how moving it would be and how compassionate and loving these guys were. They have several fire trucks that go to many states in the US to encourage and inspire women with or surivivors of breast cancer. You can actually sign the trucks with Sharpies and put messages of hope and support for those in the battle. It was such inspiration to see the trucks that I went again the next day with Brady and his friend Jared. Here is a link to there site and facebook page, http://pinkfiretrucks.org/,  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pink-Heals-Tour-Guardians-of-The-Ribbon/229440805236 ,please visit it to see the impact they make.  I have also posted below some pics of my visit.

The Pink Heals guys suggested that I sign the truck up high, so they insisted on helping me out.

METAL MOUTH AND MORE VINEGAR PEPPERS PLEASE!!

Within about a week of my first chemo, I developed the dreaded metal mouth.  Ironically, sour, salty and spicy things seem to taste the best to me.  Some of the best food I had during that time was Subs with LOTS of vinegar peppers.

Well folks this should get you started back into what has been my life for past few months.  More to come...