Chemotherapy is hard. There's no way to explain it. I tried to come up with analogies like being pregnant at high altitude and drinking Jaegermeister. I wanted to vomit: all. the. time. I felt like I was wearing a lead suit everywhere. I was so doggone tired every day, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. I wasn't sure I would make it and just when I couldn't go back for one more treatment, it was over and radiation was next on the list. In the interim, I had a PETscan. At this point, I was declared cancer-free. The node in my chest was no longer metabolically active for cancer. We had beaten it back with chemo. Victory was mine. 

 

My Radiation Oncologist was a pitbull, rockstar, force-o-the-universe. She was annoyingly meticulous and a bonafide control freak. She was exactly the person for the job. Following chemotherapy, they gave me a 3 week reprieve and then it was back to work, only this time, it would be every single day. Every day at 7:40am, I went to radiation treatment. It was a lot like going to the tanning bed. I was only there for 20-30 minutes. I rode my bike to treatment and then afterward, would ride around San Francisco, go to the gym, hit the second hand stores on the way home and turn in early. Radiation was also cumulative and by week six, I was wasted. I had second degree burns on my chest and the fatigue was indescribable. Everything was hard. It was as if someone turned up the gravity by a factor of ten. Radiation also makes your bones brittle so one rainy day when I was riding to treatment, I got my front tire stuck in a cablecar track and crashed my bike. As it turns out, I broke my rib. Broken ribs are one thing but tag on unbearable fatigue and a dwindling attitude and it tends to push you over the proverbial edge. I wondered what my new normal would be after this. I was burnt, tired, broken, bald and fat. I'd survived both cancer and cancer treatment but the starting point for the rest of my life was an all new low. 

 

I spent the next two years doing adjuvant therapies such as Herceptin which prevents the overexpression of the HER-2 Neu gene that contributes to the recurrence of cancer, and another drug Zometa which boosts the bones and decreases cancer recurrence by another 10%. I trained, grew my hair back, and had my right breast removed to even out my shape. Shirts just didn't fit right with one real breast and one fake one and I was done with breasts completely. No reconstruction for me. I'm light and lean and wear a shirt a size smaller. No one knows when I'm cold and I can do the sports guy chest bump with gusto. Breastless life is good.

 

Treatment left its mark. I went through menopause in 4 short months and let me tell you, that there is no hot flash like a chemo-induced, menopause hot flash. I swear, I thought my head was going to pop off like a rocket. The menopausal symptoms can be significant. I experienced severe joint pain and peripheral neuropathy, hot flashes, night sweats and the emotional misery of whether this was going to be my "new normal" for  the rest of my life. Since estrogen feeds my brand of cancer, hormonal replacement therapy wasn't an option (besides the obvious fact that it also increases cancer risk). However, after much deliberation with another rockstar medical professional at UCSF (Thank you Nancy Shepherd N.P.!), she placed me on a medication that treats those symptoms well without risking recurrence. It's used for something else but the side effects of the drug at low doses treat menopausal symptoms. And on the upside, improves mood.