We all made it back to church today! MJ still has a little bit of a cough and stuffed up nose so I kept her with me instead of sending her to nursery. Other than that things are fine. This morning while I was getting ready for church, Blondie came into my bathroom to ask me something. I was getting ready to "draw" my eyebrows on so I asked her if she liked my eyebrows. She looked at me and said, "But you don't have any." Then she proceeded to watch me draw them on with a brow pencil and she thought that that was pretty interesting how I could use what looked like a colored pencil to draw eyebrows on myself.

Okay, I think my posts are getting pretty boring lately. I feel fine (other than a bit of a headache off and on) and the kids are finally getting over their sicknesses as well. I went to a ward baptism this morning and then spent the rest of the day doing a little bit of cleaning and running some errands.

Now onto some more interesting stuff! Lately I have been thinking about some things that I should blog about, but when my kids are around, blogging is hard to do. When I have my ipad out and I am trying to use that, MJ and Kay both think that it is a toy and want to play with it. Whenever I get on our desktop computer to blog from there, MJ wants to come over and sit on my lap and then she ends up trying to play with the keyboard or mouse and I am not able to get anything productive done. Sometimes I try and blog during MJ's naptime, but sometimes I would like to just lay down and relax while she's napping or sit and watch and kid show or two with Kay. Well, enough about my difficulties in blogging, here is what I have been wanting to blog about: my head gear.

It is amazing to me how cold my head can get with no hair on it. I'm not sure if men who have gone bald, or men who choose to shave their head just get used to it after a while or if my hormone changes has affected me as well. Sometimes I will walk around the house with nothing on my head, but when my head starts feeling cold I will quickly put a hat on to warm me up. I have several hats that I will wear around the house and several that I will wear if I am going out somewhere. Most of my "house hats" I do not wear out in public because I think that anyone who sees me in one of these hats will know that I have cancer - and it's not something that I like to announce to total strangers.

Usually when I go out in public though I will wear my wig. It's taken me a little while to get used to seeing myself in it, but I am fine with it now. Some people that I know that haven't seen me in my wig still have a hard time recognizing me at first. The wig is super easy to wear. I have gotten pretty quick at just throwing on my wig and making sure that the hairs are in place and then I'm ready to go. I don't have to brush or style my hair everyday - it just pretty much stays the same day in and day out. And it only needs to be washed every couple of weeks - super easy maintenance. I am fine with people seeing me bald, but I would prefer it be people that already know me and my story. What I don't want is to go out in public and have people - complete strangers - feeling sorry for me because they can tell just by looking at me that I have cancer. The truth is that I feel completely healthy at this time and don't want people that I don't know treating me differently because of what they see.

Now, there are also some downsides to wearing a wig. My biggest fear with wearing a wig is that it will blow off in the wind. It can be quite windy here where we live and there have been several times in the last couple of days where I have been concerned about this while walking outside between my car and a store. I also have this fear when wearing a hat - especially one of my wide=brimmed hats - but I don't feel weird putting a hand on my hat to keep it from flying away. I do feel weird about putting my hand on my wig to make sure it doesn't fly away!

One of my other fears is that one of younger kids will pull my wig off. This especially concerns me when I am at church in Sacrament Meeting and they are crawling all over me. I try not to take my wig off when MJ is watching because I think she might get it into her head that she can pull it off too whenever she wants. Then there's Kay who just likes to see my bald head and is always fascinated by it and my wig. In fact there have been several times where she has tried grabbing my wig and saying something like, "I want to see your bald head.

When I first was losing my hair, I always had the fear that I would forget to put a hat on when someone came to the door. I don't really fear that anymore, but I still like to have something on my head when people stop by.

I very rarely wear my wig around the house. Usually when I come home, I will go up to my room and take it off and put a hat on in its place. Partly it is so that I don't ruin it or get it dirty when I sit on the couch or cook in the kitchen or clean. Also, MJ has always loved to play with my hair and when I wear the wig around the house she will pull on the hair when I am holding her and I am afraid that she will pull the hairs out of the wig if she tugs too hard.

For bed I will usually wear a really light-weight hat made out of a knit fabric. I have found that a lot of times my head will get cold because of what my head is touching - like the couch or my pillow. Sometimes I will wake up in a hot sweat from being too hot (and the wonderful h ot flashes of menopause). Because of this, sometimes I prefer not to wear a hat to bed - but then I have the problem of my head being too cold on my pillow. I finally tried putting a fleece blanket on top of my pillow and that is much warmer to sleep on then my cotton/polyester pillow case. So lately I usually just sleep with no hat on and a fleece blanket on my pillow and my head is fine at night. Although sometimes I don't realize how cold my head is until I put a hand on it and feel how cold I really am.

Luke stayed home once more today and M&M was off of school so I had the majority of kids at home today. I feel fine and Luke was finally starting to feel better by the end of the day. I think he will be well enough to return to school tomorrow. I got some cleaning and organizing done today that I've been wanting to do for a while. There is just so much to do at my house always!! Hopefully one of these days I will be able to get on top of everything. (Probably not while there are kids in the house still though!) It's hard having sick kids because it completely changes what I can get done during the day. Usually it means I can't go anywhere and when MJ is sick and whiny, I can hardly do anything because she just wants to hang onto me all day long. My stomach muscles have been sore by the end of the day the last couple of days because I have had to carry her around with me so much.

Luke stayed home from school today again... His stomach was hurting him last night and he has thrown up a couple of times today. I'm not sure if it is the same sicknesses that he had at the beginning of the week or a new one. I feel fine once again. I think my skin got irritated by the bandaids that the nurse put over my port and/or she put the bandaids on way too tight because that area around my port was killing me in the shower this morning! Every time the water from the shower hit it, I almost wanted to yell out in pain! It also doesn't help that MJ isn't feeling well and flops her head around on my chest all day long - and sometimes hits my port with her head... My jaw is feeling much better today and the sore on my tongue is almost completely healed. It looks like the clove is helping once again.

Everyone went to school today! They all have slight coughs, but hopefully they are out of the contagious stage... My parents came over to watch the little girls for me while I drove to the clinic to have my blood drawn for the lab work. I mentioned to the nurse that accessed my port that last week it bled onto my shirt so she made sure to put pressure on the spot for longer than usual. She said that it was oozing quite a bit afterwards and she put some extra gauze and two bigger band-aids over it before I left. She said to mention to my doctor the bleeding as well as any nurses that access my port. My husband is wondering if it is the Avastin that is causing the extra bleeding since I've only had it the 2 nd and 5th chemo cycles snd I haven't had any bleeding problems before last week. It's something I'll have to keep an eye on. I got a call after I got home letting me know that my white blood cell count is low again - which was not a surprise.

MJ was asleep on the floor when I got home. My mom said that she had been pretty whiny while I was gone. All afternoon she just whined and cried and fell asleep a few times on my lap. Why is it that sick kids only want their mom? Usually it's not that big of a problem (except that you can't get anything done), but when I'm trying not to get sick myself, it makes things difficult. Hopefully MJ and Kay will get better soon...

My eyebrows are falling out. The outer half of each brow is almost completely gone. I've started trying to pencil them in a little to make them look more normal. My jaw is feeling a little better today, but it's still a little tender.

Today is the first day in quite a while that I haven't had a headache! Yea! I sent everyone but Blondie to school today. She has a horrible cough! So far I'm still feeling healthy, keeping my fingers crossed, knock on wood. MJ and Kay have bad coughs too and MJ hasn't been napping well. We have had more sicknesses as a family this winter then I ever remember before. The weird thing is that it has been a much milder winter than normal so you'd think there wouldn't be as many sicknesses going around...

The three elementary school kids stayed home from school today. I still feel alright, but DH stayed home to help out with the kids. I've been taking my temperature throughout the day and the highest it ever got was 99.6. One of my visiting teachers brought dinner over which was very nice. We haven't been eating too well the last few days because no one feels like eating much. M&M had a concert downtown with her youth symphony group during school and when she got home she was pretty wiped out. I'm hopeful that a couple more kids will be able to go back to school tomorrow.

I haven't been eating great the last few days because I have a small sore on my tongue and the right side of my jaw is hurting again. I'm not sure if I bit my tongue or cut it on something, but it really hurts when I am trying to eat! My jaw was hurting back in the first part of December, before my surgery. I've been using the essential oil, clove, on it again and I'm hoping that it resolves on its own like last time.

My scalp has finally started feeling better. It is very stubbly right now with some hair growth and the pimple-like sores are finally starting to go away. My head is a little flaky right now though.

Well, we all stayed home from church today. I think this is the first time that our whole family has stayed home because of sickness. I had a meeting before church that I went to and then I went back home and changed out of my church clothes and helped take care of the sick kids - all 6 of them. I feel like I am giving out medicine like it's candy. As soon as one of the kids started complaining about being hot or cold or a headache, I knew that their medicine had worn off and it was time to give out some more. I was feeling fine until it got into evening time and then I started feeling really hot and my stomach started cramping up. I had DH come and take MJ from me and I went upstairs to eat something and then took my temperature. It was 99.6. I'll have to keep an eye on it. I think my stomach was just cramping up because I was hungry. After I got something in my stomach I felt fine the rest of the day. My temperature was back to normal by the time I went to bed - another late night thanks to MJ. I've also had a headache all day but I'm not sure if that is from the chemo or the sickness going around.

The kids are dropping like flies. Luke woke up feeling miserable and then the girls have one by one been developing fevers as well. So far DH and I are fine. My mom's stake was having a Relief Society luncheon today with Sister Wendy Watson Nelson speaking and she invited me to attend it with her. I had been waffling back and forth on whether or not to go and in the end finally decided to go. I'm glad I did. She was a very entertaining speaker and it was enjoyable to get away from the sick kids for a few hours. Thanks to DH for holding up the home fort for me.

After we got the kids to bed, about an hour or so later MJ and Kay both woke up and didn't go back to bed until around midnight. I'm just hoping that I don't catch anything. Unfortunately our family keeps getting these sicknesses when my immune system is at its lowest. If my temperature gets above 100.4 degrees I am supposed to go to the hospital because my body is not able to fight off infection during my chemotherapy treatments.

M&M woke up sick this morning. I think it might be the flu. She has body aches, headache, fever, chills and an upper respiratory cold. She stayed home today which meant that I had to change my plans for the day to help take care of her. She just laid around on the couch all day... By that evening Luke was coughing up a storm so he may be next. I feel fine so far so if it is the flu and all the kids get it and DH and I don't then this will be a case where the flu shot has actually worked.

I had to hurry to the bathroom a few times this morning, but after that I started to feel back to normal. Hopefully my bowel issues are over with for this chemo cycle. I also didn't have my pounding headache today. This morning I took the girls with me to the fabric store and bought some patterns and fabric to make the girls' Easter dresses. Kay is super excited. She mentions Easter just about every day now and keeps asking me when it will be here. My scalp is super sore today! I have little red pimple-like bumps all over it and it's not much fun. I'm not sure what has caused it, but I'm hoping we won't have to shave my head ever again!

Still some stomach cramps today and I am almost at the other extreme now as far as my bowels are concerned. I also wish this stupid headache would go away! Usually ibuprofen will do the trick, but I hate taking medicine and usually wait as long as I can before I will finally take something. Took the girls over to my parents' house to play while I went to Huntsman for my lab work. Things were uneventful there and then I went back to pick up the girls and go back home. After eating lunch I noticed some brown spots on my shirt. At first I thought that I had spilled some of my lunch on my shirt, but after looking closer I noticed that it was blood. I'm not sure when or how it happened, but apparently the bandaid on my port moved off of my port and it had bled a little onto my shirt. The bandaid was also saturated with blood. I've never had that happen before. I'm not sure if the nurse didn't put pressure on the needle site for long enough afterwards or I did something to cause it to bleed a little, but it was kind of weird. I guess I'll have to keep a closer watch on it next time. I've been a little foggy brained today but not enough to incapacitate me or make me feel like I can't do my normal activities.

My stomach is still cramping up and I will sit in the bathroom forever not having anything happen and then once I finally decide to get up and do something, within a couple of minutes I'm having to run back to the bathroom!! I also still have my headache that doesn't seem to be going away. I feel like I've got a little bit of the chemo brain where my head is kind of fuzzy and I can't think straight. My scalp also HURTS today. I have red blotches on it and it just kind of hurts when I rub my hand on it. I'm wondering if it is my sensitive skin finally reacting to the shaving that we did on Saturday. I've had some more tingling today in my fingers and also my leg muscles just seem sore for some reason. I'm not sure if it's chemo related or not...

My hair growth must not have died off completely because my head is not completely smooth like it was on Saturday. It is a little stubbly here and there. My stomach has been cramping up some today and I feel backed up again. This is one of the side effects that I have a hard time controlling. Hopefully it will resolve itself quickly. The kids were off school today and we spent the day doing some laundry and not much else. I've noticed a little bit of tingling in my fingers today. Hopefully it won't get much worse.

Tired again today and another headache. I wish the headaches would go away! The whole family went to church today. It's nice having everyone healthy again. There are a lot of sicknesses going around the ward and neighborhood though, so hopefully we won't catch anything else! It feels weird wearing my wig with such a bald head. My head is almost too slippery for the wig so I've been wearing a wig liner underneath so it has something to grip onto.

Slept a little better last night. Had my husband shave my head today. We couldn't believe how much hair I actually had! He started out by putting shaving cream on my head and then using the razor, but it was taking forever that way because of all the hair. So we washed off the shaving cream and used the hair clippers first. It went much quicker after that and then he did a really close shave with the razor and shaving cream. My head feels so smooth and looks so shiny! Last time we did this we didn't do a close shave so I still had a little bit of stubble on top. My head feels a lot colder now though! Hopefully I will get used to it quickly!

I did not sleep well last night! I woke up around 2 or 3 in the morning and was freezing so I pulled the blankets up around me and then realized that I was cold because my whole chest was dripping in sweat... After that I was up about every hour needing to use the bathroom - I'm not sure if I drank too much last night before I went to bed or it is all of the infusion/saline drips finally running through me.

Side effects today are just tired and a little headache.

I forgot to mention that I got a call from the clinic yesterday letting me know that my CA-125 number has dropped to 37! I am almost down to the normal range!! We got a printout of my lab counts from the last couple of visits and they had another CA-125 number in there from a couple of weeks ago that they never told me the results of. My number was at 83 back on January 25th. (Normal levels are 35 and lower.)

Felt alright today. Mostly just tired and a headache. Since I noticed my hair falling out at the doctor's office yesterday, I made sure to wear a hat to bed last night. It's a good thing because this is what I found inside my hat this morning:
(This is just a simple knit hat that I made myself a couple of months ago to wear around the house and to bed when needed.)
I'm going to ask DH to shave my head in the next day or two so I don't have this hair dropping off everywhere and sticking to everything. When I get out of the shower it sticks to me and I end up finding little hairs everywhere. For those that are interested, here are a few pictures I took this morning of my hair and some of my scars. If you aren't interested in seeing them, you can skip this post! It's hard taking pictures of yourself, but I wanted to get some taken so I can document everything that has happened. I also wanted to document how much my hair came back in before it fell out again. I can say right now that I never thought that I would be dealing with the hair loss issue twice though!
Okay, these next couple of pictures are of my scars. I've edited them slightly, but you can get a pretty good idea of how extensive the incision was. Right now it's healing really nicely - just one small spot where I have a small scab still. Also if you look on the left side of the picture you can see a dark circle where my drain was for the liver part of my surgery.This next picture is of my port. You can see the nice incision with the bump above which is where the port is. If you look closely you can make out 3 small bumps that are in a circle. The needle is placed in the middle of those bumps. Above the port you can make out a line which is the catheter line that goes into my vein. Contrary to what we were led to believe, this port sticks out like a sore thumb! I can even make it out under some of my shirts... Also in the picture you can see up on my neck where they had a huge I.V. sticking out of me while I was in the hospital. That's the I.V. that was used for the blood transfusions I was given. I've also got several other little scars on my neck from who knows what that they did to me in the hospital!
So there's the show and tell for now. I just wanted to give those of you who are interested a chance to see some of what I have gone through.

I had the hardest time falling asleep again last night. Once I was finally asleep though I seemed to sleep alright. I did wake up with a headache though which isn't a good thing. Things were super busy at the Huntsman clinic today. We got there on time but ended up seeing the doctor an hour and a half after our scheduled time! We discussed the treatment that will follow my next chemo treatment. I will be coming back every three weeks for the Avastin infusion (an experimental drug offered through the study I am on). With the Avastin (aka Bevucizamab), I will not need to have the weekly blood tests and blood pressure checks which will be nice and I will only have to meet with my doctor every other visit. I will have a CT scan after my 6th chemo treatment and a mammogram or breast MRI every 6 months to screen for breast cancer since I am at higher risk for that as well with my positive BRCA-1 mutation. My blood counts were reasonably good today and I didn't have any problems with the infusion - other than the ones I typically have - blurry vision & foggy brain, sleepy feeling with the Benadryl.

We were in the infusion room for way too long today! With us starting so late they didn't get my chemo drugs started until 1:30 and we weren't finished with the infusion until just after 7:30! A big thanks to my parents who watched the kids for us! My mom came over just before 9 a.m. and then my dad joined her a little later (he wasn't feeling great yesterday so he wasn't sure if he would be able to make it to help out). My parents also gave M&M a ride to the local high school for a bad concert tonight (which we ended up missing because my infusion went so late). M&M called us on our way home to tell us that she was ready to be picked up. Luckily we weren't too far and were able to pick her up on our way home. We finally made it home around 8:40 and were able to eat some dinner and then get the kids to bed. MJ amazingly seemed to be in a happy, good mood when we got home so hopefully she is getting over the whiny attitude. After eating dinner my stomach started hurting a little and I started feeling really hot. I think it may be because I ate too much a little too fast! Hopefully I will be able to get a good sleep tonight and will feel better in the morning.

And on a side note I noticed at the doctor's office this morning that my hair is starting to fall out. I will probably have my husband shave my head in the next day or two so we don't end up with tiny hairs all over the house and my clothes and hats...

Luke came into my room last night and woke me up at around 5:00 in tears because his ear was hurting so bad. He said that he had been up until around 3 a.m. but wasn't sure if he should wake me or not. I gave him some ibuprofen and then put some hydrogen peroxide in his ear (he feels like there is some water stuck in it). Then I rubbed one of the essential oils on and behind his ear and he felt well enough to go back to bed. Thankfullly his ear was feeling better in the morning, but we put some oil on it anyway to hopefully prevent a call from the school later in the day. Hopefully one of these days the whole family will be healthy again!!

I took MJ in to get her 18 month pictures taken today. I had originally scheduled the photoshoot for the previous week, but with us all being sick I had to cancel. I was hesitant to take her with how grouchy she has been acting lately, but she turned 18 months almost a month ago and I wanted to try and get her in before my chemo treatment on Wednesday. Even though she didn't cooperate too well, we did get a couple of good ones that I was able to pick from. I think that 18 months is one of the hardest ages to get good pictures at a photo studio for.