My name is Stephanie and I'm from Los Angeles, California. I'm a two-time triple negative breast cancer warrior and now a metastatic breast cancer fighter. I've been battling breast cancer since August 2017 and was recently diagnosed in August 2018 with metastatic breast cancer. I'm currently undergoing radiation treatment.
After my last Humor Beats Cancer blog during my second round of chemo in January 2018, I had completed chemo on May 17, 2018. I was recovering from chemo and side effects when three months later I had a follow up MRI that ended up showing an enlarged lymph node under my right arm, which is my good side. After an ultrasound and a biopsy, it was confirmed the auxiliary lymph node was cancerous. I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
It was shocking and unbelievable to myself and my doctors, but we quickly got to work on having surgery to remove the cancerous lymph node. After a month of recovery from surgery, my course of treatment was to do five weeks of radiation every day, 25 sessions. I'm currently on the eve of my last radiation treatment as I'm writing this and couldn't be more happier and relieved to be finishing radiation treatment. After recovering from radiation, reconstruction will be done at a later time in 2019. My journey continues.
Even through a difficult and exhausting time during surgery, recovery and radiation there still are humorous moments that happen. If they could happen during chemo, which was the hardest thing for me, funny moments were bound to happen to me during radiation.
I don't know if there's such a thing as radiation brain fog but I believe I have that. I'm actually laughing as I'm writing this. Most recently I've had a number of brain fog moments.
One day I was going to wash grapes for a snack. I took out the grapes and put them by the sink. I'm not sure what distracted me but I walked away. I didn't realize it was still there until I walked back to the kitchen and saw it there! Surprise! It was at that moment I remembered what I was doing.
Another instance happened when I proudly shaved my legs, a task I didn't have to do for many months during chemo, but I ended up shaving only one leg! Haha. I didn't notice this until the next day while sitting on the floor and I ran my hands along my leg and wow there was hair there. I said to myself, "I thought I shaved my legs?" Well I shaved one of my legs!
Last instance just happened when I freaked out thinking I lost my credit card while going to the store. I didn't realize I used a different card for that transaction, so when I went to the next store, I couldn't find the one card I primarily use. I looked inside my car and in my purse so many times, thinking it would magically appear. About an hour later while still sitting in my car in a parking lot, I called the credit card company. Only when I had just hung up with them when I realized ding ding ding I know where my credit card was, in my pocket!
I never put my card in my pocket and I need to remember not to ever do that. My new card came today and I'm still kicking myself for this blunder. I'm still learning to do things at that very moment or I will probably forget.
I still laugh at myself and I want to continue to laugh and smile during the toughest of times because that will help me get through these times. If we can't laugh at ourselves or at funny moments, it would be a sad world.