HEAD SHAVE DAY!

 

Mo -Carla - Diane

So my two friends, who are sisters (Monique and Diane), when I told them I was going to shave my head before I went for Chemo, asked if I would like to do a ceremony/celebration and we could do a big dinner fajita night and make it a festive event for the whole family and my friends.  BEST thing I ever said YES to!  It was soooooo much fun and made this experience the least grief ridden it could be!  Diane is a brilliant photographer and offered to take pictures of it all for me and Monique planned the food end of everything. I cooked the food up and we served a fabulous dinner!  I wish I could have invited everyone......just know you were all there with my in my heart and with your spirits.

The Vidalsix!

Then it was time for the main event....


Everyone wanted in on the action

 

 Saved the pink for last! Braided the pink....
 Take a close look and you can see the remnants of the pink hair dye disaster. This is Monique scrubbing it off my bald head! Finished product

                                                                                                               The Scar reveal....another story for another day!

My Bald buddies  Doug and Sandhu

                                                                                                   My beautiful painting from Sandhu! 

 

Thank you to everyone! 

 

MUgA Scan (Heart Testing)

MuGA Scan

It was a long day to say the least, I had to go to VGH to have a MUGA Scan which is a Nuclear medicine test to scan and take pictures of the left ventricle heart function. The type of chemo that I am going to be having has a high risk of decreasing this heart function and therefore they need a baseline to see what it was like before chemo starts. Believe me getting all these tests organized....a full time job in itself.  It took 3 hours in total most of it waiting around for injected dyes and solutions to mix into my bloodstream and then 30mins of pictures of my heart.  All in all, fairly uneventful, and so I took a little cat nap on the table!

***I just have to say that I have an excellent team of physicians and nurses who are caring for me, that being said you have to remember when it comes to your health or really anything for that matter you have to be the driver of your own bus and advocate for yourself.......ie. follow up with appointments for tests and things that you are told you are going to need or be having, medications, whatever, don't wait for them to call you all the time you are allowed to know what is going on with your health schedule!

I meant to take a picture of the machine, but forgot because I had to pee so bad by the time I was finished I only had one thing on my mind...getting to the toilet!!!!
I have to go again so I will remember next time.....so any of my VGH nurse/clerk/staff friends I will let you know when I am there so we can get a coffee maybe..:)

What is the "C" word?

To my dear friends and family and all who come here to be supportive......THANK YOU!  I hope you enjoy my posts whether they are positive or negative, because believe me, I'm not somebody to paint a picture of rainbows and cupcakes! For the most part, I try to stay positive and not dwell on the negativity of my circumstances, because after all that's what this journey is....a circumstance!

So, if you are reading this you have followed my link that I have posted somewhere or emailed to you telling you about my blog I am writing throughout my journey that I embarked on
September 27, 2012. 

So what is the "C" word? Well, for me it's one of my favourite profanities, I lived in Australia for a year and the "C" word is so commonly used you would think it was part of their vocabulary!  I just think it does the trick, when necessary, it makes a statement all by itself. 
In this case though, it is not meant to be a profanity, even though it seems like one, rather it could be a reference to Cancer, Chemo or even Carla!

So visit me often and leave me comments, just know that any comments/communication is uplifting and reassuring that I am not alone in this fight.

x0x Carla

Think PiNK!

 So I consider myself to be pretty daring but not so much that I actually coloured my hair permanently to a bright colour such as fuschia pink!! I have added bright red clip on extensions for fun but never permanent. So I had a "moment" on Saturday Jan5th to use the hair dye that we got for the girls a few months ago and go pink.....what the hell...it's just coming off anyway why not have fun.  So I started the process and got right into and discovered I had NO GLOVES for the project, so guess who decided to dye her hair fuschia pink with plastic bags on her hands?  Yes, that would be me.....needless to say I got it EVERYWHERE and in the upcoming head shaving photos I will highlight for you the results of not having proper equipment while dying your hair fuschia pink, or any colour for that matter!


So I cut all my beautiful hair off on December 30, 2012, seen below and never looked back!

Surgery Day

**I just want to thank all of you who sent me text messages the morning of my surgery. It was so comforting and I really felt so loved.

Well...where do I begin?  This was a BIG day!  I was excited and worried, but I was sure that all was going to be ok.
So the first step of my surgery was the guided wire which they have to place into the tumour inside my breast, and the clear dye that they needed to inject so that the surgeon could see where and what she was going to do.  Dr. Ross says "It's kind of embarrassing to get in there and not be able to find the tumour!" I agree put the wire in.
What they don't tell you is that you have the wire put in and it is this great jeezuz wire that they feed through a hole into your breast and into the tumour and then leave the rest of it hanging out of you!!! OMG!!!! I freaked out a little, the woman then announced I was going to have to now get a mammogram with this freaking wire hanging out of me. Are you kidding lady????  I had to get up and walk across the hall to have a mammogram so they could see the entry points. ** Just so you know the wire is put in by a radiologist and is done by ultrasound picture and you are locally frozen before they punch holes in you!
So this all happened before I even checked in at the surgery desk! 
After that it was pretty much smooth sailing, I got an IV and they got me "prepped" for surgery. Then it was hugs and kisses for Phil and off to the Operating Room.
Dr. Ross was in a great mood and came over to me while I waited on my stretcher to be taken in, and "clarified" which breast she was going to operate on. I laughed and said "My left one, I sure hope you know that though?" she laughed and then proceeded to put her initials with green sharpie on my left breast!!
It took just over 2 hours to do the surgery and I woke up in excruciating pain.....OOOWWWW!


I went home the next day, which was Halloween and naturally I put on all the kids makeup for their costumes and then went to bed and looked at pinterest.

Surgeon's appointment

Today was my surgeon's consult appointment.  I had an MRI on October 5th to check the status of the tumour and to determine that there was no cancer in my other breast. It was a long wait for this appointment from diagnoses day it was over 2 weeks, it just about killed me with anxiety.

The surgeon at this point holds the cards for what the next step in dealing with this cancer was going to be.  My surgeon was Dr. A. Ross, general surgeon.

Phil, myself and Marlene (my Auntie) waited in the waiting room for over an hour. Marlene and I sat and analyzed everyone who was sitting in the waiting room, and there was an episode with some odd folks who came in abruptly with an obvious need to skip the que. We laughed and murmered to each other and everyone looked at us!  It was all we could do to stay sane, it was an almost unbearable wait.

We all fit into the patient room comfortably and a lovely 4th year medical student (Graham) came in to start the appointment.  I had a physical exam, of my breasts of course, and he talked a little about what I already knew, which was almost nothing, and then we waited to see Dr. Ross. 
Dr. Ross was great, she was full of life, and talked with us for over an hour. She covered all the points:
Size of tumour? 7.6mm
What she was going to do? Partial mastectomy and removal of sentinel node(s.)
What was going to happen after?  Radiation therapy and tamoxifen (hormone drug/anti-cancer agent)
When can I have the surgery? 2 weeks
Believe me when I say we had sooooo many more questions, but there were three of us there and she answered every one of them . It was an overall good appointment and I felt really good about the future of this cancer thing.
She gave me literally a small briefcase of materials to read and her clerical assistants personal phone number that I could call anytime I needed. It was very reassuring and helped me breathe a little better.

"You have Breast Cancer."

**This is a back dated post just to give a little bit of a timeline for those who may not know the whole story.

September 27, 2012
Today I got "the call" from my family doctor Dr. Allison Ferg.  Allison has been my doctor for 15 years and delivered and cared for me during all my baby making days and graciously took our whole family into her care and practice after Vinnie was born 6 1/2 years ago.

I was on my way to work like any other work day, and my car phone announced an "incoming call from Dr. Ferg."  I knew right then, it was not good news.  I pulled over and took the call.  All she said was "get into my office in 15 minutes and get Phil here too."
I hung up and broke into hysterics, panic and shear terror.
I called Phil at work right away, he basically dropped the phone and raced to the office.
I had to call work and tell them I wasn`t coming in, my Nurse Leader was so good, saying "maybe they just need to retest it, have another look."   I thank you for that Krista, as it really was the only way I was able to pull it together enough to drive to Dr. Ferg's office that Thursday morning :)

I then called my Auntie, I am very close to her, and told her what had just happened and that I was on my way to Dr. Ferg's.  Grief stricken is the only way to describe the desperation in her voice.
It just made life so become so abundantly clear.

I pulled up to the office and Phil was waiting, he hugged me so tight in that moment, you just don`t even realize how life was about to change.
We were walked straight in to see Dr. Ferg she was actually not supposed to be in the office that day, but had 'popped' in that day to do paperwork and came across my results and called me immediately.
We sat in the office and she asked me if I knew why I was there and I said "yes, what is it?" she replied solemnly saying "You have breast cancer."