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A Practical, Uncensored Conversation About Breast Cancer


A Practical, Uncensored Conversation About Breast Cancer



"There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt."

Erma Bombeck

My Chapter

My story began with a tumor that I knew was cancer. Even with no family history and no "triggers," I walked into my first-ever mammogram knowing it was a cancerous lump in my left breast.
 
I documented my "journey" the only way I knew how - with humor, sarcasm and a hell of a lot of honesty.

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Paxman Cold Capping

"I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair."  - Bette Davis "You are the only person I know who kept your hair despite going through chemotherapy,” a coworker said to me the other day. It’s not the first time she said it. It still filled her with wonderment that I accomplished that, even though it was four years prior. It shouldn’t be that way. I cold capped during my six months of some pretty harsh chemotherapy. It is something that has been around in Europe since the 1970’s. In the US it first became approved by the FDA in 2015 and again in 2017. When I found out I would be having chemo due to a Stage 2 triple positive tumor in my left breast, I reached out to an oncology nurse friend. I was still reeling from the fact that I would even be having chemo. I asked her about this cold capping business. She told me it wouldn’t work. When I met with an oncologist I would later fire (for a different reason), he didn’t mention the option of cold capping. W...
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A Day At Chemotherapy

"We have two options, medically and emotionally: give in or fight like hell."  ~Lance Armstrong The prospect of chemotherapy can be daunting. We've seen so many movies of chemo patients who are bald, pasty gray, emaciated and throwing up. Chemo of today does not have to be that way.   For me and my Stage II Triple Positive treatment, I had none of these. I cold capped and kept my hair, managed to keep most of my color, didn't lose weight, and never once threw up. It doesn't have to be frightening. I had a four different chemotherapies during my day which already made for a long day. Coupled with that was the fact that I cold capped, it made the day about eight hours at the infusion center.  This is a play by play of how my chemo day went:  Lidocaine over port One to two hours before the appointment, I smear lidocaine cream on the port site. I was told to put it on this way: like frosting, not like lotion. It had to be a huge blob of white completely covering my ...
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