Yoda Hairs, Peach Fuzz, and Summer Fun

It's Chemo day! And the best part of chemo day is the massage and PB&J I get to eat. I am so lucky to go to Valley View Hospital. From the valet parking and massages I feel like a rockstar. And recently I went to another hospital for my surgery consult and it was just so sad and depressing, and felt icky, everyone looked so sick and deathly. At VVH it isn't sad, or sickly feeling, which is really nice! As for the PB&J, well each chemo day that's my treat I have right before the chemo infusion. Man, there is just something about a PB&J, it's so simple but so good!

Anyways, so I have 8 weeks down and 4 to go! Right now I am going weekly for my taxol chemo treatment, and man has it been way better than A/C. Everyone told me it would be better, and they were right. Life is almost normal at times! 

Here's a quick recap of what Team KT has been doing the past 8 weeks. 

July 10th & 11th: 

• Weekend get away to Steamboat Springs to visit Matt Jost & Danika Friedley. This was my first weekend away from the house in a long time. It felt so good to have a scenic drive, be out of the house and to catch up with some old friends. They have a darling 2.5 year old so we had a low key weekend in their mountain town.  

• I was still pretty fatigued that weekend, but besides that and some slight difficulties regulating my bowel movements the symptoms weren't too bad.

Put a little gravel in my travel

July 16th-19th: 

• Wildflower Festival in Crested Butte. My sister's family came down from Boise and we rented a VRBO house in my favorite Colorado town and hiked, played games and hung out. 
• My energy levels were definitely coming back. I was able to do some longer hikes, a good crossfit workout at 9500 feet elevation, and overall be alive, awake, and apart of the group. 

July 24th-26th: 

• This weekend we had to stay in town because it was the Crossfit Games! We were glued to a computer screen all weekend while we watched our favorite athletes kick some ass. And we also watched our fellow Sopris crossfitter and friend, Mark Fischer take 8th place in the Masters. He's amazing! 

MF is AMAZING.

July 31st- August 2nd: 

• My parents came to Colorado and we spent the weekend playing in Ouray and Telluride. We hiked a lot, drove the beautiful highway to Silverton, and enjoyed some delicious Dairy Queen blizzards and Olathe Sweet Corn. 
• Feeling stronger and able to hike further! 

Telluride, CO-Bridal Veil Falls

Ouray, CO-Perimeter Trail

August 4th-6th: 

• Right after my chemo treatment my parents and I drove to Jackson, Wyoming and we spent 1.5 days playing in Grand Teton NP and Yellowstone NP. 
• My mom and I hiked over 11 miles one day. It was fairly flat, but it was definitely the longest hike I had been on in months, and I felt great! And we didn't see any bears but we did get to see a cool moose and beaver. 

Searching for Moose. Notice the bear spray my mom carried everywhere with her. And our cold weather gear- which felt amazing!

Sunrise Drive searching for bears in Grand Teton NP.

August 7th-12th: 

• On August 7th I had my 10 year high school reunion and that was so fun! To all those people that say they're not going to go to theirs, man up and get out there. You'll be so glad you did. And hell, I went to mine bald, so what's your excuse? :). 

• Saturday and Sunday we went to McCall, Idaho (a gorgeous resort town) and I went SUPing with friends, got treated to a pedicure at a beautiful spa, and had a good time bonding with my mom and dad. 
• We also found a fun little rope swing on the river which was so fun! There is just something about a rope swing that makes you feel like a kid enjoying the lazy days of summer, which was just what I needed. In that 3 hour adventure I didn't think about cancer once, and I cried so hard from laughing my abs were hurting and I couldn't breathe. This giggle fest with Ashley lasted for probably 5 minutes.

 

Nailed it! First time SUPing- thanks CF for handstand practice.

So grateful for these two amazing parents.

Payette Lake- McCall, ID

• And the other days I was in Boise I had a great time doing dinners with friends and family.

Girls night. Miss these ladies!

• Crossfitting with other friends. And taking my good buddy Nicholi to a Kaiafit workout at Lululemon. (If you are in Boise and feel intimated by Crossfit-which you shouldn't! But if you do and you want to try something, you should check out my boss's company Kaiafit!). Thank you South Boise Crossfit and Verdant for letting me get my fit on while I was in town! 
  
  

  

   

  

  
  

August 12th-16th: 

• I flew into Colorado Wednesday at 11 AM and had chemo at 1. At 6 PM our good friends Ben & Amy Neal arrived from New Hampshire. We spent Friday morning to Sunday in Crested Butte with them. 
• It was my first weekend camping and I was a little nervous not having the safety of my house and a hospital close by. Not that I have had to go to the ER at all, but I like knowing it's always close if something funky happened to me on the weekend. Thankfully all went well and it was great to be outside camping. Just like the rope swing, it just reminds me of summer! 

Mushroom Rock in Carbondale, CO

401 Trail in Crested Butte, CO

If you read my previous blog, you know I love foxes. This made my night watching 3  foxes play.

Summertime...and the livins' easy.

August 19th-23rd: 

• Tony's dad and grandma came to visit us in Colorado for a few days and it was so great to see them. She's 88 and so inspiring to see go on this huge road trip around Colorado and Wyoming. We had a low key weekend of catching up. Although it was a good trip, I look forward to spending another weekend, perhaps in 2016 with Rulon and Rose to get more quality conversations. It was the first weekend that I started to feel pretty tired, not sure if it was from the chemo or all my adventuring, or that "I'm summered out feeling", or a combination of it all.  But between Tony being sick that weekend and my fatigue, I didn't get to talk and catch up as much as we would have liked. 

That's a recap of the past 8 weekends, but the fun didn't stop  during the week. From Outdoor yoga with Audra, cribbage night with Amanda, dog walks with Jodi and Tobie, movie night with Carly, bike rides with Ryan and Chris. And so many other fun outings I feel so fortunate to be on a better drug, have amazing friends, and a great town that offers lots to do.

So life has been a little crazy since I began Taxol. But that's how we like it! Plus, it has made the past 8 weeks go by so fast. Even though I am feeling better and having fun, it's still chemo and I am still ready for it to be over. Overall though, here is a recap of the main symptoms and physical changes I have experienced during this treatment. 

Symptoms of Taxol: 

• Fingernails Ache- They just feel like they are bruised all the time and if I bump or squeeze them it hurts. It's nothing too bad, EXCEPT I can't freaking hook grip! So yesterday when we did Isabel (30 snatches for time) at the gym I really appreciated how important hook gripping is! If you don't do hook grip at Crossfit, you need to start doing it.TIP- I painted my nails with some "Hard as Nails" polish and it's helped! But it ddoes throw my hubby off, who hasn't seen my nails painted since our wedding 5 years ago.

• Grip/forearms ache- again nothing too bad, but sometimes annoying at Crossfit.
• Bowel movements a little off
• Dry mouth-still rocking the humidifier and ACT dry mouth wash, but stopped my salt and baking soda gargle.
• Shortness of breath
• Fatigue- but not too bad and nothing like A/C.
• Sleepy eyes 
• Blood always in nose and an occasional bloody nose. This shits annoying. I have had maybe 5 bloody noses in my life prior to chemo. In the past 8 weeks I've probably had another 5 actual bloody noses, where it's running. Nothing that lasts too long, but man they can be annoying, especially when you get one at your 10 year reunion in a very busy ladies bathroom of a bar. Good thing my "messy hair, don't care" mentality is in most areas of my life. Besides those running bloody noses, I have a continuous amount of bloody boogers and such in my nose. Anytime I blow or wipe it has blood. And no hair. So weird.

Physical Changes: 

• Losing your hair is not awkward. Growing your hair back- that shit is awkward. But also exciting. Within a few weeks of taxol I was getting what  I called "yoda hairs" on my head. They were quite ugly because they were all different lengths. I was so excited to have hair but thankfully I listened to my husband who said we should shave it so that it would grow in even. He was right. 

Sometimes I imagined my barbell was my lightsaber while I rocked the yoda hairs. :) JK..kind of.

• We shaved it one night and within two weeks it had come back a lot thicker and more even, what I then referred to as peach fuzz. It's still very light and extremely soft. And although it's even lengthed it's still patchy. I think I look better completely bald but I know I need to work through all the awkward hair stages I will have in order to get my regular hair back, so I don't think I will shave it again. This photo of my self is not the most flattering, but I wanted to share to those that will be in the same position as myself. (It actually looks better in person....I think. :) ). 

• On the flip side, my eyelashes and eyebrows have thinned. I thankfully never lost them during A/C but for some reason they aren't a fan of Taxol. On my lower lid I probably have 5 or 6 lashes, so not much at all. And thankfully I have very bushy eyebrows so even though they have thinned like crazy, they're is still a fair amount left. 
• And hair has returned to all the areas that us women just love to shave, lucky me. 

Crossfitting & Taxol: 

Life wouldn't be considered normal without crossfit in my life, and thankfully that has come back too. I am back to working out 4-5 times a week and that makes me so happy.  My cardio is still almost nonexistent, and running is still a bitch. But I feel stronger than I did while on A/C.

A few days ago we actually did a one rep back squat. I hit 195# easy. This is 65# under my 1 rep backsquat that I hit prior to chemo and cancer, so I have a ways to go but it felt good to get some heavy weight on the barbell and test some numbers.

Taxol affects your red blood cell count so I get out of breath easier. So my thought is, I am like the athletes that train at elevation and when I get off taxol, my body will be rocking it from having been pushed while on taxol. That seems fair, right? :) 

As I mentioned my fingers ache so that has caused no hook gripping (see my rant above) and certain other movements are a little tricky- like T2B.

Lastly, my gym still continues to inspire and motivate me. Tonight was a kick in the gut kind of workout which included burpees and running, enough said, huh? Well I was doing pretty good but I was the last one to go on the 400 M run. A handful of them had already completed this miserable run but when they saw I was headed out they didn't say a word and just came to join me on my run. I had already mentally broke and thought to myself, I will just walk a little bit on the run. But having them by my side, laughing and bonding over the painful work we just did helped motivate (and distract) me to finish the run without walking. Thanks Sopris Crossfit and all you kickass crossfitters!

Double Rainbow over the new gym location!