4 posts tagged “cancer”

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They gave me this to put on my burns.  Actually, they gave me one and told me that I could buy them at Waukesha Memorial pharmacy for about 30 bucks.  As soon as Rita put in on, it was instant relief.  Not total, but enough that I was no longer wincing whenever my arm touched my side.  Protection relief is what it feels like.  Still hurts underneath but Relief none-the-less.   So Michael is googling it this morning and finds it on ebay.  I thought "i bet i could find it on amazon".  AND I have a 25.00 gift certificate for amazon.com so I searched it and this is the disclaimer I found underneath the product.  Sigh.  wtf?  (throws hands up in the air) I give up. 

Mepilex

they feel good.  do i take them off because in california they have been found to cause cancer?  wtf is DEHP and EtO? am I supposed to be scared of this warning?  do i ignore it...

Here's my burns. 
this part doesn't actually hurt. michael took these pictures this morning.  this afternoon, all the burns look worse.  now i understand what they mean by cumulative.  its pretty scary knowing that i have 7-9 more days of it getting worse before it gets better. 

Underneath

Note:  That is not nipple between my fingers.  It is burnt skin.  I cropped the nipple out.

i'm not going to put my nipple here, i just can't post a full breast picture, i haven't lost ALL my modesty.  it looks bad though, it is greenish/brown in color with a bright red tip.  hurts like hell if it rubs on anything.  i am wearing a compression type camisole with a shelf bra in it that i barely fit into because i am so freaking large, but i bought the largest size so i would have something to wear to hold them up and protect my nipple from rubbing.


here's the side.  it hurts so bad.  just look at the picture, you will feel how bad it hurts.
the green circle is where i am getting the boost.  paul redraws it on every time i go in.  oh, the good news, you can see  my armpit hair is starting to grow.  i wouldn't dare shave it though.  i did try shaving a few days ago with my electric razor, but even that hurt.  you can't see it too good here, but the burn is in a perfect square around my breast.
 

Side

here is the front.  you can barely see the mapping, but underneath my necklace and to the right of it is how white my skin is.  from my under breastbone down to the scar on my breast it is red, but it itches more than hurts.  i don't dare scratch it though, unless i want brief agony.  you ever get a bad sunburn and accidentally  scratch it in your sleep or whatnot?  yikes. 

Front

Radiation is SO much easier than chemo was.  (knocks on wood).  Ok I'm only 8 treatments in, but so far, no problems.  The biggest hassle is driving there every day but even that isn't so bad really, its only 15 minutes from here.  I haven't started photographing my boob yet, it really doesn't look much different.  There is no pain at all.  My skin is a little pink, like a mild sunburn.  I've not adjusted well to the "no bra" thing...its recommended that you go braless as much as possible, which is ok with me, but only around the house.  I am just too big to go anywhere OUT of the house with the girls flopping around.  Its not really comfortable having them hang either.  I'm going to check into reduction when I am all done with this.  Maybe I'll even get lucky and get insurance to pay for it. 

So I am 4 weeks and 2 days out from my last chemotherapy.  Take a look at my head.  I haven't seen the back of it till tonight.  It so bummed me out.

Back of my head

Its there, but its sparse.  I guess I'm not done shaving yet.  I was getting so anxious and excited about it coming back in, but its so patchy and it just looks plain stupid.  So here Nikki look, I know you think I wouldn't have lost my hair, maybe not all of it, but surely most of it.  I'm on such a pity party tonight after finally seeing the back.  Michael said, "You're hair was always thin"  ...not this thin.  Sigh

Michael decided to take me away for the weekend.  This is probably my last free 3 day weekend (i know, aww) lol, and the waiting and sitting around is just kicking our emotional asses.  So we decided to take the camper west and do some playing.  We are at Wisconsin Dells.  Here are some pics we took yesterday. 

We took the slow boat tour and I got some really fantastic shots of the dells (which are the sandstone formations along the Wisconsin River.  It was great!!!   So beautiful, the weather was perfect.  AND...we had started our day at Cracker Barrel for yummmm breakfast.  AND... we even went shopping at the outlets.  To wrap up a perfect day, we went to HoChunk and contributed to their future expansion.  We left the casino at 4 am.  Went to sleep at 5. 

We were supposed to golf today, but I think its going to be more of a veg out day.

I am keeping my eyes off the Komen Boards this weekend.  Trying trying TRYING to forget about cancer and treatments and Dna for a few days.