Positively Phoebe

Honestly, a lot of them have disappeared.  Which is awesome.  My butt seems to be doing loads better, which was one of my major pains since the treatments ended.  I still have radiation burns around my front and back, but they are at least starting to fade like a tan in the fall, finally.  Hot flashes are mostly under control with my hormone replacement pills.  My skin and hair seem to be headed back to normal.  A lot of the things that were bothering be have settled way down, which makes me so happy. The worst thing right now? Neuropathy!  Ughhh.  Lately, I wake up every morning and my hands just HURT!! It is a strange pain that is hard to describe, as it is unlike any other hand-pain I have had before.  Over the first hour I am awake, it goes from a sharp, stabby, almost prickly pain to a dull ache accompanied by horrible itchies.  Usually by the time I head off to work, though, it has subsided.  It is completely bizarre and I h...

Regarding most recently talked about issues, I am happy to report that: a) within DAYS of my butt doctor visit, and the subsequent cessation of baby-wipe usage and underpants sleeping, my backside seems to be back to it's normal self. b) on my last day of antibiotics, my UTI seems to be all gone - no more AZO and bright orange wee for me! So, where am I with lingering side effects you might wonder?  Or you might not, but I'm going to talk about it anyhow.  Because it is on my mind. 1. FATIGUE - I am pleasantly surprised to see that the fatigue I was warned about seems to be almost entirely gone.  Only on rare occasions now do I find myself confusedly tired for no reason before it dawns on me that this could be the reason.  Rare like less than once every week or two.  So that's awesome.  I have to imagine that my activity level helped tremendously with this.  From using the rebounder EVERY MORNING to working full days at my (very physical) job to...

When the nurse at that survivorship class I went to earlier this month first mentioned neuropathy to me, I was a little terrified.  The only experience I have with this word, and the disorder it defines, is my older brother who has it.  He is in all kinds of pain a lot of the time - so much so that he is permanently on disability.  I was scared that this was what was going to happen to me.  Since I needed to be an over-achiever and get basically EVERY horrid during-treatment side effect, I figured that I was probably doomed to deal with ALL of the possible POST-treatment ones as well.  Luckily, the neuropathy I was possibly going to experience was more of a tingly, pins-and-needles sort of a thing in my various digits and extremities rather than an all-over debilitating pain situation.  For the past several weeks, I noticed an occasional and minor numbness in my toes.  Not all the time and nothing severe at all. And then today that all chan...

Oh, well perhaps I should tell you the question first? Although it's the question EVERYONE has been asking ME lately, so maybe you already know it: "Are you feeling better, because you seem like you're feeling better??!" So.  As I said above, the answer is... I feel pretty good.  On the one hand, I honestly feel better/healthier than I have in years.  Eating good food, drinking filtered water and exercising regularly is pretty fantastic medicine. But as "normal" or "good" or whatever as I might appear to everyone, I still am struggling.  It's hard to know how to respond to THE QUESTION, though.  You want to agree with people when they tell you that you seem like you're doing so well.  You want them not to worry.  You want to not worry yourself . But the truth is, I do NOT feel normal.  Yeah, I feel healthier, more fit, more positive, and so on.  But I don't feel like the me I was before all of this.  (I'm pretty sure she...

Yesterday, I went to my "Life After Cancer" class.  Overall, it was informative, though little of the information presented was new to me.  Except for the fact that the recent numbness in my toes is likely a side effect of the Cisplatin I was given in chemotherapy, which I believe the nurse referred to as "coasting neuropathy."  Supposedly, this little bit of annoyance can begin around a month after treatment ends and last up to a year.  Joy!  Aside from that, though, there was just a lot of talk about "the new normal", coping with fatigue, changing diet and exercise habits, et cetera. While most of what was discussed was useful in a broad sense, I could not help but feel like I was not REALLY a part of this group.  There were 5 other cancer survivors in the class with me.  Four of them - breast cancer survivors (not sure about the fifth - it never came up).  SO, right off the bat, not only were their treatments different (and less inv...