Karen , I’m pleased for you that your oncologist has come up with a different solution for you and you can carry on with the treatment, fingers crossed for you that your head hair grows back quickly.
Lori and Kate , thanks for the info regarding the saline expander, I wonder, as your not having radiotherapy Lori but you are Kate, how do they decide who does and who doesn’t have radiotherapy. I know they said I would have radiotherapy after surgery, so I just don’t know. I know he did say that radiotherapy could affect the reconstruction, which I wanted doing straight away at the same time as the mastectomy. I think that’s why he said they would go with the expander filled with the saline, but I don’t know if was saying they would put the expander in, but then not do anything with it till after radiotherapy. Im sure I will find out nearer the time, and it’s a lond way off yet.
Kate I hope the rain holds off for you until after your coffee, the last thing you need is a frizzy wig. I think I was really tired for the first 3-4 days after the first session, I suppose it’s our bodies way of coping with it. Hope you get your get up and go back soon Kate.
Lori , good luck today x
judy xx
Judy
I don’t know how they decide who needs radiotherapy or chemo for that matter as before surgery chemo was not on the cards for me, rads was 50/50 but after surgery chemo came back into the discussion and rads was a definite…think its something to do with the grade and stage they find when doing the path tests after surgery. Plus what they take out on mx and how close to the skin the tumours are if you want/need to keep skin brings rads back into the picture I believe…
Rads can affect the reconstruction which is why the saline one is an interim one for me, once I’ve had rads and the skin has all settled down I’ll go back to my (lovely) cosmetic surgeon and he’ll make it all right again with either a new ‘prefilled’ implant or a tummy tuck to get the contents for a new boob (sounds ideal from my friends perspective ‘pert new boobs and a tummy tuck’). The saline implant has been used to expand the skin and chest muscle to allow the long term solution to be done with minimal new skin/muscle required but that’s not to say its easy!
I’m fine again today, think the constipation must have been making me sleep more too! Luckily the magic medicine I got yesterday has solved that problem and I’m now off to put my wig on and venture into the rain! 
Hope you all have a good day - think you are the only one with sunshine today Angie, enjoy it while you can! 
Kate
x
Karen - It’s good to hear from you and that treatment is back on. Can’t wait to see how long it takes for your hair to grow and what it’s like. Something for us all to look forward too.
Kim - What a nightmare hun… Im with Angie Id be on the floor.
Angie - Take it easy, I have always worked for myself and know you can be pushed without realising it.
Judy - Well done for stopping smoking. Great feeling eh.
Philomena - So glad the anti sickness tabs work. Did they not give you these before treatment? I got given Emend before and after my treatments.
Kate & Lori - Will be following your expander stories as like Judy i’m having surgery after treatment. In the begining they were discussing lumpectomy on mine. However, I am so scared of it returning i think i would prefer MX to lessen the risk and I have always only been an A cup.
One more thing. Remember that stubble I hated on my head. Gone. Woke up this morning waited till everyone had left the house and locked myself in the bathroom armed with bic and OH gillette. Really decided that either was going to kill or cure. I worked from back to front and then back again, I was so scared and gentle. After rinsing copeous amounts of shaving foam it looked like a freshly cut diagonal striped lawn. In desperation I trawled through the bathroom cabinate and came across my teenage sons brand new, for xmas, electric Philishave with “do not touch” written on the box. Paybacks a bitch innit Wes. Te He.
morning all.
Primrosehill, Emend is not given here in Norwich on first treatment, although I know in many hospitals it is protocol. I think everyone should have it. I’m also with you on the shaving of head, the stubble seems to treat my pillow like Velcro? So will be getting my husbands electric razor out to finish the job.
My chemo dementia has kicked in nicely again, for the first few days after the FEC I m talking gobbledygook, getting better today but have written it down in diary just to make sure I don’t make any major decisions after future cycles.
Good luck girls xx
morning all.
Primrosehill, Emend is not given here in Norwich on first treatment, although I know in many hospitals it is protocol. I think everyone should have it. I’m also with you on the shaving of head, the stubble seems to treat my pillow like Velcro? So will be getting my husbands electric razor out to finish the job.
My chemo dementia has kicked in nicely again, for the first few days after the FEC I m talking gobbledygook, getting better today but have written it down in diary just to make sure I don’t make any major decisions after future cycles.
Good luck girls xx
Morning Angels,
Well up at the crack of dawn and arrived at the surgery before they’d even opened the doors. So bloods done. Just got to wait to see if everything ok. Can’t believe it won’t be. Reading all your posts about saline expanders, anaphylactic shock and complicated drug regimes makes me feel I’ve got off pretty lightly. At least when I went to see the nurse today she said there was a message to say my GP wanted to see me ‘for a review’. Other than surgeon who did my op and consultant oncologist’s registrar pre chemo this will be the first medical professional I’ve seen (other than all the wonderful nurses who get you through the sh*t of BC). I’m not seeing GP till next Tuesday - they tried to give me an appointment for tomorrow at nine but saying as I’ll be in the chemo suite with them trying to find somewhere to stick a cannular at about half past I thought perhaps better not. How are you today, Kim?
Well done Judy for kicking the habit. I gave up about ten years ago after trying for the previous twenty. Was a book by Allan Carr (?) called the Easy Way to Stop Smoking which did it for me and now I’m almost evangelical about it. That was probably the best book I ever read and the best tenner I ever spent. They used to sell it along side the stop smoking aids in Boots. Can’t reccommend it enough. Enough preaching for today!
Well ladies, now that we’re all settled into our newly clippered, shaved, bewigged, bescarfed, or behatted bonces should we try a new topic. I’d like to know if there is any food that tastes normal or is it just me? So far I can still enjoy tomatoes, beer and cake but most of everything else tastes either wierd, salty or of candlewax - hasn’t stopped me eating though -just not enjoying it as much! To make matters worse, chemo seems to have changed wine into water when I’d rather it was the other way round!
Wishing everyone gentle treatments and minimal s/es,
Moira xxx
Just read some of the recent posts that have appeared as I slowly typed mine up. I laughed out loud, Sandie, at your bit of retribution. I’m going to stick with the stubble for now in the hope that some of it will hang on in there to help give me a head start at the end of chemo. Actually wearing nicely tied scarf at the minute. Quite proud!
Moira x
Morning Ladies
i’ m feeling ok at the moment just have a woozy head and feel a bit sickly. Hopefully it will stay like this. Re the fiasco with my cannula yesterday, after they finely got one in and the nurses had gone away, the lady sat next to me said "those 2 always have trouble puttin them in, if I were you I’d sit over the other side next time and somebody else will put it in for you " so I will give them a wide berth next time.
Judy - Well done on quitting the smoking. I gave up a 20 a day habit 20 years ago, my oh also gave up a 40 a day habit. The money that we normally spent was put away and paid for a wonderful 6 week trip to Australia and New Zealand fior the rugby league world cup.
Scarves - One of my Asian colleagues sent me a lovely present of 2 fancy caps that are worn under hijabs and a beautiful fine cotton lilac scarf highly decorated with gold, I think I will have to pay a visit to Bradford for some more as they are so much cheaper from the Asian stores.
Food - I find that for the first 2 weeks i’m not really hungry most likely because nothing tastes of anything really, I’ve tried chilli, curry and made hot and sour soup but it just tasted bland. Last week my taste came back and everything tasted pretty much the same, but I can’t stomach milk or coffee at all. I was also eating everything in sight which wasn’t good. This morning my taste has gone and I’m back on toast
Reconstruction - I had a WLE so don’t need a reconstruction however 5 years ago my sister in law had a reconstruction made from a tummy tuck, it looks brilliant, it gave her back so much confidence that she modelled for the 2012 calendar for on the bright side, a charity for breast cancer. Check out www.onthebrightside.org.uk there are some wonderful stories and pictures. Karen was miss February and she has a number of pictures in the gallery 5.
Good luck everyone who has treatments this week.
Kim z
good afternoon ladies fec cycle 2 day 1
ive been done again, must say it was much better than the first one, easy when you know how?? i mentioned that i felt sick last time and the pill fairy appeared with emend 
Go fairy- go fairy ! i dont feel sick at all yet, so pleased about that. Got the metal mouth taste though, almost instant. Apart from that, just fine so far.
Kim - I bet there are some beautiful scarves in the Bradford shops, exquisite, very pretty fabrics.
Moira - I know what you mean about food, ive found ice cream, yoghurt and micro chips with red sauce taste the same but i did eat a lot of tasteless rubbish before i found this out!
Philomena - yep, ive got a communication problem, although some might say its normal, but ive been talking gobledigook too, tis the language of chemo land !
Primrose hill - loving the payback !! 
angie xx
FEC - T Cycle 2, day 6
Hi Ladies, well we had summer in Glasgow yesterday (1 day!) and in typical fashion I took full advantage. Lunch in town with hubby then a few vino’s in the garden with friends - slept for 11 hours last night - sounds like a few of us doing lots of snoozing! Still feel great albeit quite tired. I find I can have a pretty normal day in terms of getting out and about as long as I follow it up with a quietish day not doing too much - seems to work for me
On the subject of food, I just want to eat anything that i can taste - lots of sweet things that i ordinarily wouldn’t eat. I’m piling on the weight though so will have to take care…currently thinking about cake!!!
Good luck to those with treatment this week and hope everyone else is doing well
…oh and got a random letter this morning with hospital appointment to see an Onc consultant who I have never heard of - no explanation as to what the appointment is for and no mention of it at treatment last week…this is the sort of thing that totally does my head in. No explanation and they expect you just to turn up…off to phone them now…and get some tea and cake and calm down
take care
Pauline xx
Glad it went okay today Angie and that your feeling good so far.
Pauline, go get a piece of cake and worry about your weight after the chemo.
Kim I think the losing tithe taste of food is a thing with chemo, that gets worse the more cycles you have, I must say I’m not looking forward to that but it might stop me eating. Gonna check out your sister in law, in a moment… That sounded really pervy, but I didn’t mean it like that.
Sandy, you crack me up! Isn’t it great when you can get one over on your kids.
Kate, I hope the rain didn’t effect your wig and that you managed to get through the coffee.
Pauline - I had the same thing to see a consultant at the breast clinic on May 14th with no explanation. Going to do my usual and completly stick my head in the sand until then. 
Food - I have a recipe book from Macmillan cancer support For People Affected by Cancer written by Brian Turner. It is great and each recipie has little symbols for those that suit your needs at any particular time. Including: suitable for loss of taste or smell, sick or nausea, dry or sore mouth, loss of weight or appetite etc. Ive just made parsnip and coconut soup with enough to freeze (if there’s any left) for my next chemo as I can’t taste anything for the first 5 days either. It gorgeous and has ginger, garlic and coconut for calming sickness and for taste. Other books include: Healthy Eating and Cancer, Eating Problems and Cancer and the Building up Diet. Call 0808 808 00 00 and they will send them out. Lv n hugs. Sandy. x
Good afternoon ladies
What a lot of activity on here today that made me laugh whilst in the kitchen preparing shepherds pie for dinner! I had to laugh at the number of odd tastes that are coming to the fore…my favourite seems to be chips and tomato sauce! Never used to have tomato sauce with chips (I was a mayonaise girl!) but for some reason its my favourite right now! In fact last night I had scampi and chips with tomato sauce…oh hum whatever takes my fancy!
My tastebuds haven’t really changed as such just what I fancy eating and if I fancy something there is no tempting me with anything else but luckily my OH is just going with the flow and joining me in most things (but not the tomato sauce with fish for some reason!). I have gone off coffee totally, just don’t fancy trying it even but tea is still good so maybe I just don’t really like coffee! I have fancied lots of salty foods and salt isn’t something I normally have much of so maybe its my body saying I need more salt??
My wig survived the coffee shop visit this morning and no-one looked at me odd so maybe I’ll be okay in it afterall! In fact the ex-colleague I was meeting (who hasn’t seen me for 2 months) said ‘Wow you look great’ - think if he didn’t know I was on chemo he’d think I was just skivving work and his wife is my bosses boss!
Great news Angie that the pill fairy decended with magic pills, hope they work a treat and you have no sickness/nausea at all.
Hope all you cycle 2 ladies get through with minimal SE’s
Kate
x
Kim, that onthebrightside website is fabulous, truly inspirational. Your sister-in-law must be very proud. Off to make dinner now - fishcakes, brocolli and er ketchup?
Moira x
hi kate and angels
- the magic pills, and all the other sick drugs are not entirely effective it seems 8 hours on, although i havent been sick, its just the nausea. i had emend,also a drip one, got a sticky patch on my neck that gets changed every 3 days and dompridome too. i think i’m just going to have to give up and accept it.
ive just made up the spare double bed with piles of pillows and cushions, furry throws, kingsize quilt, moved a telly in got drinks, dimmer lamp and other bits - because my other half reminded me that last time i spent the first two nights in the recliner chair, so now i have back up if i cant lay flat, how did i forget that?
so sorry to be moaning, i so wanted to feel ok this time, early days though.
angie xx
Judy - love the new pic very exotic
Sandy - love how you got one over in your son. I’m going to try to shave my head with Tony’s electric razor tonight… thanks for the recipe book tip, I’ve been on Macmillan site and downloaded the book, the soup recipe does sound delicious, I’ll have to try it. I’ll try to give the dessert a miss though, far to high in calories
Moira - I agree on the bright side is inspirational - we are very proud of Karen and how she coped with BC. One of my brothers friends asked if he minded other men looking at pictures of his wife naked he replied ’ no I’m very proud of her and just glad she’s alive
Angie glad the pills are working.
Kate - I’m glad the rain held off for you wiggy outing, and that nobody gave you odd looks.
Food - I’ve had a fish finger and tomato ketchup sandwich for tea which was yummy. Tomato ketchup seems to be a recurring theme.
Kim x
Hi Angie
Sorry you’re having a hard time of it , have you tried nibbling on ginger biscuits, toast, crackers about once an hour. I find that it takes the nausea away fir me.
Kim x
Oh no Angie, sorry to hear the anti-sickness isn’t working. Contact the unit and get some different ones again - there are loads of different ones to try so don’t just put up with it!
I wonder what is in tomato ketchup that we’re all fancying??? There is a cafe near here that sells fishfinger sandwiches Kim - maybe I’ll be popping there sometime soon!
Kate
x
I really enjoyed my shopping trip yesterday and like you Kim I bought a few different coloured scarves. Bloods taken today ready for the poison tomorrow 
I’ll ask about Apepitant tomorrow. Thanks Philomena.
I’m having reconstruction after treatment, but haven’t been told much about it yet. I don’t even know if I’m having rads yet as consultant told me I was and the registrar Oncologist said it wasn’t definite.
Food wise I have eaten most things but struggled more with drinks. I started drinking coffee again this week, but before that went off hot drinks completely. I have enjoyed pineapple juice and barley waters though. I’ve also had a sweet tooth this week.
Sandy - your bbq story made me laugh. I still can’t get rid of the velcro head, but amused my husband greatly when he walked in to find me shaving it again with my ladyshave. Perhaps I should follow your lead and use my son’s new electric razor.
Mel - I seem to get tired at around 2:00ish each day, though I’m not sleeping too well at the moment.
Judy- I love the scarves. They really suit you. Well done for stopping smoking.
Karen - I’m glad you got your treatment sorted out. I hope it goes well.
Kim - I’m glad your SEs are manageable but hope you and Angie feel better tomorrow.
Hi angels
went to hospital today . had blood test and it was ok so it’s all systems go for cycle 2 on Friday. Actually met my real live oncologist! changed all my anti sickness tabs as I was so sick last time. Also mentioned I have a pain in my hip so now I’m having a bone scan. haven’t had any scans and thought I’d have to push for it but he just offered.
Angie now I’m having cyclizine and ondansatron from the start which worked eventually for me in cycle 1. This is on top of emend (aperitant) for 3 days, and lansoprozone for heartburn. Also this time I’m having steroids for 5 days instead of 3 ( I’ll be buzzing!). Domperidone didn’t work for me and neither did emend on it’s own, but onc said if i still feel sick take the domperidone as well. I’m going to rattle, but I cannot go through another 2 weeks feeling that bad. Don’t give up, phone the unit and tell them it’s not working. everyone is different, and there are other drugs you can try, and also they can up the dose much more than you start on. I found I could only eat things like plain pasta and mashed potato, or soup. salty things seemed to help, and i absolutely couldn’t face anything dairy or sweet or acidic at all, like fruit. on day 7 I ended up in hospital dehydrated. I’m hoping I can get more fluids down this time. Don’t put up with it- demand help!!
Judy your scarf looks fantastic.
Sandy I’ll have to try the soup as I can do soup!
Kim I had a WLE as well but have lost about a quarter of breast, which i know is minor compared to many of you brave ladies. I’m hoping they can do something for me when all this is over- fat transfer has been mentionned. apparently they take it out of your bum and put it in your boob, which I suppose is good all round!
pauline which talika thingy did you try - the eyelash one or the eyebrow one, and did you use it on both? I’d like to get some but don’t want to buy the wrong one.
love to everyone and sending the sleep fairy to you all
mel x