Wig Shopping!!

Alright, this is going to happen. There will be no hair on my head. So what's a girl on TV to do?? Get a rug. Or three! Chris Steltz agreed to be my yes, no, hell no get that off your head girl. She was the perfect choice.

Six different people suggested the same woman for wig shopping. I don't know how many wig shops there are in Lancaster County, but when you ask 6 people and they all say the same woman, you know you're going to be fine.

This was Thursday, a day of total nausea. At first I was sure I was going to puke. But as the day wore on and the nausea just stayed I realized this is it. It's not like a drinking induced nausea (of which I am quite familiar). When you're hung over you can typically throw up and that provides some relief. Except that I hate the act of throwing up so much. Eugh! So a plus: you don't actually puke. Minus: that feeling just doesn't go away (despite every prescription Smithgall's pharmacy has for nausea.)

We hit the Classic Images Salon in Lititz with four things: a bottle of water, a sleeve of saltines, a camera and a sense of humor. That's all we needed.

This is how we started - strapping back the hair I still have. But let's be honest, my nose looks HUGE! The reason I love big hair is because a) I'm a total 80's child, and b) I've been dealing with this face long enough to know you need to tease up big hair to counteract that nose! Bald is not going to be good for me. No size earring can distract from that schnoz!

If nothing else, my boobs look good.

 

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 I feel like I've had some of these wigs as haircuts. Others were just fun to play around with. Let's be honest, we're not fooling anyone, but I did come away with 2 blonde wigs good for work and one sassy red one I'm going to wear out dancing or something (probably just to the grocery store, but I told myself it might dancing.) I think my face looks fat, probably because I weigh more. But this is what we have to work with ... and soon that face isn't going to have eyebrows or eyelashes either! Eek! At least I won't have to tweeze my chin hair!
 

Chemo Makes You Late

My best friend Jackie and her husband Ben just had a beautiful new baby, Noah. I'm assuming he's beautiful, I'm sure he is. I just didn't get to snuggle with him myself yet. I have to sniff him, cuddle him, hold his warm baby skin up to mine, then I will make my final determination. But I'm betting he's pretty darn wonderful. They've graciously offered to come to visit us, since he might be in Kindergarten by the time I get to visit him on Long Island. They arrive like 16 hours from now ... I. Cannot. Wait.


But think of what it is like for new parents. You have this little living breathing human being you have to care for and watch over. What's one of the biggest things new parents talk about? The importance of a routine. Jackie and Ben are doing it, with a little trial and error, she says. But establishing and keeping a rough schedule is important. So it is with cancer too.


I think when you have your first baby (again, I'm guessing and going off of what my girls tell me) every task is a little more involved. Getting dressed (you and baby), taking a shower (if you even get to), getting in the car (much more of an ordeal than just hopping in the drivers seat and throwing you pocketbook on the passengers seat) all take a little longer. Again, I'm realizing cancer is like that too.


See, eventually, when God lets me have babies, this cancer will have actually prepared me a bit.


Everything is an ordeal. The cancer routine is this:
14 day chemo cycle
Day 1: 3 hr infusion, shot, bloodwork
Day 2: 1 1/2 hour infusion, rescue drug
Day 3: shot
Day 4: rescue drug
Day 5: shot, bloodwork
Day 6: rescue drug
Day 7: shot
Day 8: 5 hour infusion
Day 9: White Blood cell booster shot
Day 10 - 14: recover


Ugh, I'm exhausted just writing it all out. Kristen, did I get it right? (Kristen is my keeper at Dr. Evans office. She's a good egg. She also said I didn't get an F that first day. I think she's just trying to be nice.)


So the routine starts on a Wednesday now. It was originally Tuesday, but we switched to Wednesday. Each Wednesday is a chemo infusion, every other Thursday is an infusion, with some chemo shots in between. The "rescue drug" is sort of an antidote to the shot to keep the side effects at bay.


Because Dr. Goldstein in Boston said we would we doing this for several months, I'm hoping to get into some kind of routine. Yet to be honest, I wake up every morning, sit up in bed and wait 10 seconds to see how I feel. Sometimes I lay right back down, sometimes I just jump out of bed (after the dogs remove themselves from my legs), sometimes I just sit there for a full minute trying to decided. Either way, Chris is laying next to me saying, "How do you feel today, Bubba? Is there anything I could get you that would make you happy?" He's a good egg too.


Wednesday's infusion was the longer one, supposed to be 5 hours. I had wonderful helpers Wednesday. The OAL wife pack of Lauren Essis and Tracy Carroll literally rearranged their days to help get me to and from my infusion and then to and from my second to last hair cut. Lauren picked me up and joined me for the first few hours of my drip. I can't remember the last time she and I got to just sit and dish uninterrupted. We both commented that chemo was almost like a small vacation. They run Benadryl through with the chemo infusion. (Kristen, why do we do that? I never asked because I like the effects so much.) Mainly, it makes me loopy. So there was a point where I could feel my lips were not making the words correctly anymore as I spoke to Lauren. This was the same point where she could see my eye lids weren't making it up as fast when I was blinking. She tucked me into my barcalounger and I fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later and Tracy was arriving to pick me up. She had a special guest with her, a Space Cowboy! Matthew wore the only appropriate outfit for a 5 year old to the Chemo room, his leather Marshall's vest, complete with badge over his Star Wars T-shirt. We tried to spice up his visit by trying on some wigs and head scarves. He is such a good boy and so wonderful to hang out with, he was the highlight of the Chemo Room.

But now the problem was the chemo, it wasn't dripping fast enough. It just kept dripping and dripping and dripping. It didn't seem like the bag was emptying at all. I told Kristen it's because my body is not stupid, it's knows this is poison and it just doesn't want it. We put it on the pump to push it in and it still was taking fooooorrrreeevvvveeeerrr. It got to the point I said I would just drink it to get it in me. Apparently that's not an option. So the infusion went from 5 hours to 8 hours.

This is where chemo makes you late. The Carrolls were forced to hang out with me that whole time. And the 3:30pm haircut I had scheduled came and went. Kara, my hairstylist extraordinaire, was kind enough to say she would wait after her shift. So now I've missed my appointment and she's staying late to take me. That would be kind enough if we could get there at 5, but because chemo takes forever, we got there at 5:45. It was another marathon day. And people who are so giving of their time to beginning with had to be even more giving of their time because chemo makes you late.

Kinda Blech

For those who live in Lancaster, today I felt like it looked outside. Dreary and a little gray ... but unlike the Lancaster sky, I did have some wonderful rays of sunshine today.

First, I'm wracking up an ok list of side effects. Massive pimples. Like, Congratulations, you just hit puberty pimples. The kind that live under your skin and are attached to every nerve in your body. Now this might be more than you think I need to share with you. But the funniest part about it is you could play connect the dots on my face and I'm sure you would come up with a legit constellation. The reason that's funny is because Mommy asked me the other day about the Cosmos part of the blog title. She just wanted to know if it was about the stars or the drinks. She's obviously been living too far from me for too long ... because clearly it's the drink! So just to punctuate that point, I found that cute clip art of a Cosmos - with heart bubbles no less! AJ, even my cosmo is bedazzled!!!

Second, I felt like an elephant was standing on my chest for most of yesterday. Just one good thick foot of an African Gray Elephant, leaning most of his weight square over my right breast. When I described to Chris where I was having the pain, he immediately insisted that the best remedy would be for him to rub in that spot for an extended period of time. Go figure!  :-) The elephant has moved to greener pastures today (do elephants like green pastures, I don't know?) so that's a relief.

The question now is was the elephant really my third problem ... good old gas. Again, this is probably more than you need to know ... but we're gonna get real on this blog people. I'm not holding back any punches. Listen, I know there's a children's book called Everyone Poops. I think there should be a supplement book to that one call Husband's Fart. (They don't really go over that in Pre-Cana and they should.) So I had intense chest and stomach pain Monday night and Tuesday morning. I had had a glass of milk with both of those meals. Other than Mom, I'm the only other grown adult I know who chooses a tall cold glass of milk over a glass of wine for dinner. So we think Dairy is going to be out for awhile. 

They way I describe these problems to my journalism friends, ie: the medical idiots, is that the chemo attacks fast reproducing cells. It's aiming for Cancer cells, but it knocks out some other ones too. Like hair, the lining of your mouth and the lining of your stomach and intestines. So even so good old fashion gas gets magnified when you have chemo. 

Last, my back hurts. I think I have a slipped disk in my next (self diagnosis based on no actual fact.) But Dr. Evans suggested several medical massages to remedy that. I like the plan. 

It's late and I'm beat. I'll introduce you to my rays of sunshine tomorrow. They sparkle more than Edward Cullen in a sunlit pasture! 

It's All About the Hair!

This post is unbridled vanity! Never known as one to shy from the camera ... or shirk attention ... I made my wonderful friend Ronda treated me to a fabulous photo shoot last week! With baldness impending, I "did my hair up good" and asked her to take some pics of my lucious locks before I lost them.

Some background: I think I probably look better with shorter hair. It's how I started my TV career and how I looked when I met my husband. (He says he fell in love with me DESPITE that short hair, but we'll never really know, will we?) But after a lot of "proper" TV cuts, I was desperate for Sexy Beach Hair! You know, the soft curls that scream, "Run your fingers through me! I was an uptight curl until the salty beach air breezed through and chilled me out a bit." That kind of hair.

After growing my hair for the last two years, I thought I was entering "Beach Hair" zone. Some days were good, some not so hot. I bought 37 products to get it to look just right (and by 'just right' I mean the 'it just fell like this and happened to look perfect but unkempt all at the same time' look.) It took me like 40 minutes to do in the morning. I like to think that I have better arm definition today because I was essentially doing bicep curls with the curling iron every morning. I think Chris liked it. I thought it was fun. It was more hair than I have ever had.

And now it's over.

So here's what my little Hair Fashion Show looked like last week:  (this is ridiculous, but I LOVE it!)

So hysterically fun!! This is on Lemon Street in the city, outside Charlie and Deb Smithgall's house. We were there interviewing them and Ronda is so good, she says come outside, I love the brick, it will look awesome ... and it does!

Now, I've picked the best, most flattering pictures. But in an effort to show you I don't take myself too seriously, this is one of the duds: The Mohawk!

And with hair like this, I would most certainly sit Indian Style and not god damn Criss Cross Apple Sauce! I hate that!

Just three days later, I cut it. It will be the first of 3 cuts so we get closer to the scalp gradually. Kara always does such an awesome job at Salon Artiff. Needless to say, my new 'do hasn't looked this good since I left the salon.

Bald Countdown

Word on the street is I have about 12 days till I start losing the locks.

Think of how quickly I will be able to get ready in the morning?

Paige, we should totally go on vacation now. My "getting ready routine" will finally be on par with the rest of the travelers.

Made an appointment for wig shopping. My sister, Ashley wanted to come with me at the end of March. Ash, I don't think we have that long. You're new job can be unclogging the shower drain of all the hair that's already fallen out by the time you get here.

Can I rock this look? The girl in the window at the mall did!



I'll give $5 to the first person who can guess what store this is at Park City. I'm good for it.



The Pretty Side of Cancer

Let's be honest, we're barely a week into this. I look fine. I feel fine. But the diagnosis and impending chemo makes people want to cheer you up even before you're not fine. Flowers do this beautifully.

I always thought it was a waste to buy flowers for a funeral. The person's dead. He or she can't enjoy them. Birthday flowers? Sure. V-day roses? No problem. Then there are Sick Flowers. Have I got Sick Flowers!!!

They are awesome. It's like I'm running a greenhouse. I've come home to a bouquet at the front door three times in the last week. I'll tell you, it's a lot more fun to retrieve daisies at the door than the dry cleaning.

My desk mate, Susan, shared her happy, upbeat spirit with Daffodils at my desk. For a day or two, they were completely closed; leaving us to wonder if she got duds. But then, they bloomed beautifully adding cheer to the old stacks of business cards, dust bunnies and boxes of Sponch I have building up on my desk.

The next day, Marcia treated me to a fabulous bouquet of Market flowers. They served as a wonderful accent to the red roses Chris gave me for Valentine's Day. (Side note: At work, Eric was reading an article listing the 10 worst Valentine's Day presents you can get a girl. It's the kind of topic that can bring our newsroom to a halt for a good 15 minutes of bickering. The #1 thing on that list: a Dozen Red Roses with Baby's Breath. Worst gift. Really?? Who the hell is writing that list. Roses are like diamonds, they never go out of style. We called bullshit on that list.)

My mom and her husband Bruce live in North Caroline and have a garden to beat the band. They're on the Official Garden Tour and everything. So it's no surprise they picked perfect tulips to help cheer me up. It's still a little early in the season for them, but I'm sure Bruce could be growing tulips this good in his yard within weeks. It was another bright and happy bouquet to cheer up my day.

I'm so thankful for all the kindness ...
         BUT THIS ONE TOOK THE CAKE!!

It's a Tennis Ball Menagerie from the LOVE ALL AROUND Tennis Team!!  These girls are the best in the world! And the fact that I have six tennis balls mingling with forsythia on my kitchen table makes me smile from ear to ear! Thank you, my amazing ladies! You've made me so happy.