Chemo #2

Chemotherapy treatment number two is over and done!  I'm feeling great right now and am ready to watch the National Championship game.  I will not make it until the end, but I don't think I would have made it to the end if I were as well as could be.
Today I met with my oncologist, Dr. Stephen Davidson.  Dr. Davidson confirmed what I had already been told, that cancer was found in my lymph nodes.  Absolutely not the news I wanted to hear.  No cancer was found any where else in my body save for the few nodes closest to my right breast. That is a good thing.  This new news doesn't change our chemo and surgery plan.  I will press on with 6 more chemo treatments and then I will have a double mastectomy. The new element is radiation.  I had hoped to avoid that but at this point it is a given.  However, we won't evaluate how much and how long until closer to time.  And I don't know exactly when it will begin but I do know it won't happen until after my big surgery.
It was a setback and I took it pretty hard.  I had time in between the Dr. visit and my chemo treatment so I went to Chappy's to eat lunch, sit alone, and process all of this.  I was feeling pretty drained as I got up to leave when I bumped into my childhood friends Tim and Jennifer Head.  Tim and Jen wrapped their arms around me and prayed over me and I immediately felt the weight lifting.  God was good to put them in my path.
My second chemo treatment began with an interview with CBS/WAKA.  Reporter Catalina Trivino is following my cancer journey and she and I are both so excited about the education component in all of this.  Get your mammogram.  Follow up with you GYN. Be aggressive with your personal health.
Do you realize that 1 in 6 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer?  ONE IN SIX!!!  Someone reading this blog right now, someone who thinks it can never happen to them, will get diagnosed with breast cancer.  ONE IN SIX.  The odds are not in your favor.  But we can beat this.  We can prevent it. We can catch it so early.  But none of that happens if you don't become your own best advocate and get aggressive about your health.

My chemo today was so much easier since I had the port implanted.  I have taken to calling it the "portal to hell" but I tell ya, it made things soooo much easier.  So much.
I was deeply thankful for my girlfriends that came to chemo with me today.  Stephanie Peavy got the party started and hung right through the media interview.  She brought me hand sanitizer and tissues:) Then Melissa McDaniel showed up with a book of Bible promises and a beautiful scarf (props to LATP and KM too).  Then Trudy McFarland showed up with some fresh cherries.  Yum!  They could have all come empty handed, the best part was their presence.  Gosh the time really flew by.
Ok, about my hair.  On Saturday it started coming out a little.  Sunday a little more.  But today when I woke it was really coming out in massive amounts.  You see the picture of me above, I look normal but my hair is much thinner than usual.  I don't think it will make it to Wednesday or Thursday.  Then I'll shave my head and put on a wig, scarf, baseball cap.  Whatever the occasion calls for.  More about the hair later. But here is a sample of of what happened today when I ran my fingers through my hair.