I had my Avastin infusion yesterday morning.  No lab work needed to be done so it was a relatively quick appointment.  The only hiccup was when the nurse came to deaccess my port.  The two of us were talking about books that our boys were reading and she pulled out the needle and after a few seconds she glanced down and noticed that there was blood pouring out of my port!  By the time we noticed there was a problem it was all over the front of my shirt.  She quickly put the bandaid on it and then applied pressure to my port.  After a minute or two it had stopped and the nurses put a big piece of gauze and a large bandaid over it.  The nurse who had deaccessed me said that she had never seen a port do that before, but another nurse said that it happens every once in a while so she didn't seem too concerned.  I wonder if the Avastin is causing my blood to take longer to coagulate.  I will have to mention it to my doctor the next time I come in.

Here is a picture of my shirt when I came home.  The nurse felt really bad and offered me some hydrogen peroxide to use there at Huntsman, but I didn't want to have to go home with a wet shirt so I declined.

This morning when I took the bandaid off I noticed that the skin covering my port was all yellow - I'm not sure if that is bruising from the pressure on it yesterday or if it is blood under the skin.  I will just have to keep an eye on it.

The new antibiotic that I am on for the sore on my side makes me a little bit nauseous for about 30-60 minutes right after taking it.  Thankfully I only have to take it twice a day and I just have another day and a half left of it.  The hole is finally starting to close up so I just stopped wearing a bandaid over it a day or two ago.  Hopefully my skin will recover quickly from wearing a constant bandaid on that spot. I need to call the dermatologist to schedule a follow-up appointment for sometime next week.  It still feels like there is a little bit of a hard spot under the skin so I won't be surprised if they want to cut me open a little more to remove it all...

I feel like my hair is getting shaggy again.  I'm still debating with myself as to how long or short I want to keep it.  DH likes it the length it is right now and there are definitely benefits to it.  It looks pretty crazy in the mornings when I wake up so on the mornings where I have to drive Blondie to orchestra before school I usually put a hat on my head.  This morning after I came back home and took the hat off, Kay saw me and said, "Whoa Mom!  Crazy hair!"  Here's a picture of it this morning:

Haircut!!  Yesterday I got my hair cut.  It seems totally contrary to what I would want to do, but my hair was getting way too shaggy and unkept looking.  Now it actually looks like it has some shape to it and like I meant to have my hair this length.  I think I need to play around with it a little more and see if I can get it to look like it has a little more volume on top, but on the whole I like it a lot better.  Most of the hair that was cut was on the sides and back.  Now I just need the top to grow some more.  I still haven't decided what length I would like to have in the long run, but right now this is a super easy hairdo to fix in the mornings!  And I didn't know that there were so many choices as far as style goes for short hair.  I need to look more closely at how other people wear their hair and figure out what style I like best for me.

The person who cut my hair was surprised at how even my hair has grown all the way around.  I guess a lot of people who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy have had it come back in clumps and not evenly.  I have been pretty lucky as far as that is concerned.

Here is some evidence that my hair is getting quite a bit longer:

Isn't that some awesome bed head?? 

Picture updates of my hair:

This first one is with my hair standing straight up after my shower.  I wanted to show this one because you can't tell how long my hair is after I put mousse in it and force it to lay down on my head.

I have quite the bed head in the morning when I get up.  This morning my son saw my hair after I got out of bed and he said, "Whoa Mom!  You're hair's getting really long!"  I'll try and get a picture of it one of these mornings.

So here are some advantages to having very short hair:

- I haven't had to use a brush in a LONG time.
- You save money on shampoo and conditioner.
- Hair dries almost instantly after showering or swimming.
- Hair never gets in your eyes.

My hair is at a length now where I'm not sure what to do with the hair around my ears.  If I was going to keep my hair at this length then I would just trim it around my ears but I think I still want it to grow out more so I am hesitant to do much cutting.  Right now I try and get the very front hair to come down the side of my face and then I try and sculpt the rest of the hair around and behind my ears.  The problem comes when I wear my sunglasses because it moves the front hair back as well and then it looks funny and sticks out to the side.  It's so funny how there are different problems at different lengths!  At least at this length I don't have to worry so much about my scalp and ears getting sunburned!

Okay, here are some updated pictures of me.  For a while I was only wearing my wig to church and would wear a hat most other places (or go without anything on my head).  June 17 was the first time I went to church bareheaded since I started losing my hair in November.  It felt good and weird at the same time.  I much prefer not having to wear anything and I think I look alright with my hair the length it is right now.  It has been weird trying to make out the color of my hair.  At times it looks like it has a frosty look to it - but I'm thinking that is a combination of some silver and blonde hairs that are coming in along with the brown.  I am at the point now where I need to put some mousse or gel in my hair or it has a fuzzy look to it.  Other than that it is really low maintenance!

Fuzzy hair right after a shower:

With a little bit of mousse in it:

Wow my new wig was itching my head today!!  I wore it for a couple of hours this morning while I was out and it was driving me crazy!  I almost just took it off, but I didn't have any hats with me to throw on my head.  Hopefully soon I will be at the point that I don't care anymore!

My eyebrows are about halfway back right now.  I still need to pencil in a few strands - mostly on the outer part of my brow.  It got me to thinking about how our eyebrows and other hairs like that know how to stop growing.  We typically don't see people with eyebrows or eyelashes or arm hair for that matter that is really long.  How do those hairs know to only grow to a certain point?  Or do they fall out and get replaced when they reach a certain length?  They certainly are different from the hair on our heads for some reason...

Here are some pictures taken of me this morning.  I have not penciled any eyebrows in at this point so you can see what I have now, plus the hair that is growing in on top of my head:

I have an update to add to Tuesday's post that I will cut and paste at a later date.  On Tuesday while I was preparing dinner (and trying to decide whether or not to go to our Relief Society activity), the vision in my left eye went kind of weird - like I all of a sudden had something partially blocking my view or it was blurry.  I couldn't even describe what it was like.  I wasn't too concerned at first but thought that if it continued I would stay home from the activity.  About 15 minutes or so later while I was finishing up my dinner my eye finally went back to normal and I haven't had any problems since.  I just want to document the issue in case it ever comes back (and I think I experienced it once before a few months ago).

Got a lot of sewing done today. Hopefully I have given myself enough time and I will be able to get them all finished in time for Easter. The weather is nice again so I have been trying to get the kids outside more and they are pretty good about watching the younger kids.

I tried taking a bunch of pictures of myself today so I can document my bald head and no eyebrows, but I'm not too happy with how most of them turned out. My eyes were looking super puffy today. I'm hoping it is a side effect of the chemo and not a permanent look for me. So anyways, here are a few of the better ones. I took some with no hair and eyebrows, then I tried drawing my eyebrows on so you can see me with the bald head and some penciled on eyebrows, then I took some pictures of me with my wig on. (Oh, I finally found an eyebrow pencil that I think I like - but it is still hard to get my eyebrows on symmetrically!)
I actually have two wigs now. I bought a shorter wig about a month ago. The company that I bought the first one through had a really cute one on sale for really cheap so I decided to try out a new look. My thought was also that it would be a cooler look for when it gets hot out and it will be an easier transition from a wig to my natural hair once it grows in long enough. I haven't worn this one enough to figure out exactly how I want to style it. The coloring in these pictures is not quite right, but it gives you an idea. (The first wig has some red color in it and the second wig is a little more blonde.) So here is a picture of the second wig:

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.