I am making this a positive thing

Although I wont take my last Femara tablet until I see my oncologist on Monday, just to be sure there are not any last minute positive studies that will show Femara forever will prevent any future return of cancer cooties, I am making this a positive thing - as much as I can.

Breast cancer treatment puts you into menopause. My breast cancer treatment started on August 1, 2007 and my hot flashes began shortly there after. Tamoxifen continued them. Femara continued them. I am not sure I remember life without hot.flashes. This is now January 5, 2013 which means its been 5 years and 5 months of hot flashes. They can be convenient on a cold winter day but not really. No never really. Hot flashes suck.

So now this cancer treatment cliff has a positive spin - no more hot flashes.

There are other side effects from Femara:

• dizziness, drowsiness, weakness, tired feeling;
  
• hot flashes, warmth in your face or chest;
  
• flushing (warmth, redness, or tingly feeling);
  
• headache;
  
• nausea, constipation;
  
• bone pain, muscle or joint pain;
  
• numbness, tingling, weakness, or stiffness in your hand or fingers;
  
• pain in your hand that spreads to your arm, wrist, forearm, or shoulder;
  
• night sweats; or
  
• weight gain.

I don't think I would miss any of them, come to think of it.

I can't say that I have had all of these but I really wouldn't miss them. I will confer with my oncologist and see how much better I might feel physically without Femara. Its the mental thing that is still getting to me.

Up, down, up, down, up, down

No that isn't a seesaw. That's my internal body temperature - thank-you-Femara (or what ever its generic name is these days). I asked my oncologist about it. Most people get hot flashes. I don't. It gave me the inability to regulate my body temperature. This means I can go from normal to boiling hot to freezing cold and back in the space of about five minutes without moving or changing anything or turning a fan on and off.

I am overjoyed to be coping with such a minor side effect (not) in that at least I am not freezing cold all the time. My husband tells me I am a lizard because I am always cold. I tell him when I married him his job was to keep me warm. But now, I bounce wildly from one end of the temperature spectrum to the other. An example is yesterday afternoon I was driving home I alternately had the heat on, the AC on and the window open. That was in a 30 minute time period.

But in the spectrum of cancer side effects this is relatively mild and I only have another 15 months to cope with it. That's okay, its getting progressively worse as time goes on. By then I'm sure I'll be vacillating between the South Pole and a preheated oven. I can't wait.

But one thing I can wait for is my lovely day I have scheduled. I will get off my lazy but and go to the gym in pursuit of deflabbiness. After that I have a quick meeting and then will come home and attempt to productively work from home before I have a medical misadventure scheduled. Another needle under my knee cap. Now I know its not that bad. I had the other knee done in June and it was relatively pain free. I did have a lot of pressure in my knee after and had to sit there for twenty minutes to make sure I wouldn't pass out or something. Its just the idea of a needle under my knee cap. Ick! Its like fingernails on the blackboard.

When was the last time you saw a blackboard anyway? They have gone to obsolescence. Generations of children will grow up unable to irritate their classmates by running their fingernails down the black board. But I digress. Both the ideas of fingernails on the blackboard and needles under the knee cap make my spine tingle.

But I digress. I will take my over/underheated body to deflab at the gym. Later I will approach my needle misadventure with my inner wimp (who is accompanied by my inner size six person) by telling them about my needle phobia and they will attempt to distract me (which they are pretty good at) and I will plan on spending 20 minutes with a book on ice before proceeding back home. I can be such a wimp at times. But I have learned to put my wimpiness to good use.

Hot flashes can prevent breast cancer

Now that's a breakthrough - not for me! I only am enjoying hot flashes as a result of my chemopause and medications.

I had a hysterectomy six years ago and they left one ovary because it looked find and there was no reason to put me in menopause unnecessarily and I would go through it later, naturally. Well, along came breast cancer and chemotherapy. Chemo for breast cancer has a way of shutting down ovaries, sometimes permanently, and causing hot flashes. My poor little ovary was shut down. And I have had hot flashes since my second round of chemo in mid August 2007. They were worse when I was on Tamoxifen. Now they are slightly better on Femara but I still get them. If they will go away when I am off Femara, I only have to wait two more years. Gee, thanks.

But since I have hot flashes am I at a lower risk of breast cancer? Probably not since I already had it. These little nuggets of knowledge don't always help that much.

I jinxed myself

Yesterday I said everything was feeling okay. I jinxed myself. Well by the end of the day yesterday, my back was killing me, my arm was feeling funny, and I didn't sleep well last night. Wah! I took a pain pill last night and tried to get comfortable to sleep.

There is nothing more infuriating than going to bed and listening to your spouse fall asleep in less than five minutes and an hour later you are still listening to him. Then I woke up around 3 and was awake until 4 and then around 5 and then I got in another tiny snooze. Add in a few hot flashes and a headache and I feel just ducky today. I think I will just go with the 'I'm fine and ignoring everything but might be a touch crabby'. But I'll go work by myself for the day so I don't have to risk being a crabby co-worker.

Actually though it is Friday and the weekend is approaching. I am working today and meeting a friend for a walk. This weekend is also the local big Greek festival. I will walk over this afternoon and get us some dinner - the lines after 5 pm go down the block but if I sneak in early, we can enjoy it at home. We are going back on Sunday for lunch with a friend. Tomorrow we are actually going to attempt to be social and go to a party in the afternoon. I have to fit in some weeding as the weeds are taking over my garden. Unfortunately the weather may not cooperate.

Maybe I'll take a nap before going to work today.

These pesky hot flashes

Normally, hot flashes occur when women get the 'privilege' of going through menopause. However, us lucky cancer people get the 'privilege' of getting hot flashes for other reasons as treatment messes with our hormones. They (being the doctors and nurses) tell us that hot flashes are normal during chemotherapy because this interferes with normal ovarian status - basically it shuts them down. Then they stick you on Tamoxifen, which causes hot flashes as well. Then when you are through treatment, you can get the privilege of going through menopause with hot flashes again normally.

Now for someone who is always cold, hot flashes can be useful on a ten degree day in January but they are very annoying during a heatwave (I mean who needs an internal heatwave during a heatwave?). They are also very annoying when you are nice and comfortable sleeping and all of a sudden you feel like the oven was cranked up to 450 and you are sleeping in it? You wake up! So much for a good night's sleep. (And we know lack of sleep causes general crankiness and crabbiness so it is clearly not a good thing to go without.) Another question is if you are outside on a cold day, and get a hot flash, can you get hypothermia at the same time???

When will these end? Well, let's see, I have another year at least of Tamoxifen and its little personal heatwaves. Then I may continue on Tamoxifen so they may continue. Or I might switch to another form of hormone therapy for another three to five or eight years, which may or may not have this pesky side effect. Or, if I don't continue to have hot flashes, when menopause occurs naturally, I get to have them all over again. I can't wait. (Maybe I'll start spending time in Antarctica during the summers.) Can you tell that I was woken up last night by a hot flash? (And then my back hurt so I couldn't get back to sleep.) Not that I am crabby or anything but time will tell. I will just continue to 'enjoy' this 'privilege' for the coming years.

A friend sent me a rebuttal to yesterday's topic of Wal-Mart. Apparently, they have tried successfully to convert the American consumer into being greener. Well, that is all well and good but if you read down to the end of the article you can read about the discrimination and wage lawsuits they are dealing with.

This morning my big adventure is to go to physical therapy (or physical terrorism as I have heard it called - does it hurt when you bend this way? or if I do this?) In some ways I am looking forward to this but am reserving judgment. Also today I have to go to work and to do some volunteer work. I will be busy all day. I have a list of things I must do today as well (because I have chemo brain and keep forgetting them so I have to write them down).

Yesterday I had a job interview. I am not sure how it went. I will know if I get a call for another interview. But I did get to get together with friends for lunch which was nice. Now, time to get moving instead of procrastinating on the internet all day.