Fall 2010

Hi everybody! It has been a long time since I posted. We have been great. The kids are busy with school and preparing for finals. Football and soccer season were a blast! Alex got to cheer for Aquinas on ESPN! Regan had fun cheering at both JV and varsity games.The soccer team won state again for the 8th year in a row! Noah played football and soccer and his teams both took 2nd place this year. This past weekend they played in the HIT tournament and took second in their division. Regan is also playing competitive soccer so we spend the weekends running from game to game. We have a little break now before basketball begins. Noah is playing for a CYO team....I guess Alex and Regan are too! The girls won't have to start cheering until the first week of December so it is a nice break. The big news is that Alex is officially a WILDCAT! We went to Manhattan for an official visit and soon thereafter she received her acceptance letter. She is very excited and ready to head to college! Next step is to figure out housing and the financial part of college. She would like to live in Ford so we need to submit our housing application soon. I have been feeling great. My last surgery was successful so my chest is healing nicely. I finished the reconstruction last month so I should be done with that part. Unfortunately I am going to have surgery November 30th. This time it is a hysterectomy. My cancer was estrogen feed to a small degree so when my ovaries "woke up" last month they decided it was time to remove the primary source of estrogen. I'm not real happy about this as I was just starting to feel like myself again. I should only be sidelined for 6 weeks this time. I have been working hard to get back in shape and this will set me back again. Alex tells me to quit saying I'm done with surgery as it seems to jinx me. Hopefully this is the last surgery! Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!!

Surgery finally over!

Well I think I am finally done with all surgeries for a while. I can honestly say I have had enough. The surgery was fine but the recovery has been a little more difficult than the last few. Thank goodness my mom was here to help keep things in order. I am sure she was very happy to return to Florida! I had my drain removed today so hopefully I will be able to sleep a little better. The drain tube ran right over my ribs across my back which made laying on my back very painful. The incision on my back is much larger than I anticipated and you can see the outline of the muscle they took. It is shaped like a football. The flipped the muscle and tunneled it under my arm to my chest. Now I have a rather larger bump under my arm that is the muscle. The surgeon says the muscle will atrophy over the course of the next few months. If it does not go down they have to shave the muscle. I refuse to even consider that right now. I get tired very easily and am trying to limit my activity. I am just so bored! On a much brighter note my wonderful husband bought me a new car today!!!!! No more minivan in the Bellerive house. It is a cream colored Ford Edge. They consider it an SUV but today I think they call them cross over vehicles. It is a 2007 with only 41k miles. I absolutely love it. Hope everyone is well and is enjoying the last few weeks of summer. Practices start tomorrow for all the fall activities and school is in just 2 short weeks!

Another surgery

OK so every time I post it isn't good news. This past weekend my incision site tore open again. I saw the doctor yesterday and they have decided to try another procedure. This surgery is called a latissimus dorsi flap. The procedure uses muscle, fat and skin from my back. It is tunneled under the skin and tissue to reconstruct the breast. It remains attached to the donor site which leaves the blood supply intact. It does not sound like a fun surgery. I will probably stay in the hospital 2 nights. My mother is coming tomorrow night and plans to stay for 2 weeks. She had this surgery done and insists on being here. This leads me to believe it will be a little more difficult than the past few procedures. Down time is 6-8 weeks so all the progress I have made at the gym is over. At least I should be back to myself by the start of school. Pray that this surgery is successful. I am running out of options to fix this!

Another surgery

Unfortunately I had to have another surgery yesterday. My scar broke open again and this time my Dr. decided to try another procedure to close it up. He went in and removed the implant and revised the capsule that the implant sits in. The plan was to relieve the pressure on the skin. Apparently the radiation treatment has left the skin on my chest paper thin. Any pulling tends to open the scar back up. We are hopeful that this works and allows the skin to heal properly. If not the next step will be to remove skin from my back and move it around to my chest. Hopefully this works and we can avoid another surgery. I am a little more sore from this surgery as I think he was a little more aggressive with the chest muscle. The kids are just as ticked off about this as I am. Alex commented "can't they figure this out and get it right!" We are going on vacation next week and we are not rescheduling! Now I am on two different antibiotics along with all my other medication. It is ridiculous the amount of pills I take daily. Oh well not much I can do to change it right now. The kids are enjoying summer. Alex is lifeguarding a few days per week. Regan works at Haynes 4 days a week and Noah plays basketball in a summer league. We still aren't done with the kitchen renovation. My surgery may push it back a few more weeks. We have the tile done for the backsplash on two walls. It is looking good! Have a wonderful Father's Day everyone!

Summer is finally here!!!

We made it through another school year and are all thankful it is over!!! Summertime is our favorite time of year, except James who prefers hunting season! We have been enjoying James' new toy in fact even Noah has now managed to ski on his own! Way to go Noah. As usual we went camping for Memorial Day and had a great time. The weather was beautiful for most of the weekend which is unusual for western Kansas in May. We have also been remodeling the kitchen with the help of James' brother and nephew, Peter & Stephen. All that is left to do is a light fixture and the backsplash. I will post pictures when it is done. It looks fabulous. My doctors visits have dwindled significantly in recent months now that my treatment has ended. Although I have had a small set back my mother reminded me today it really is no big deal. Before Memorial Day my scar began to open up and the implant was pushing out of the skin. They re-stitched my incision and I have been waiting for my plastic surgeon to give me the go ahead for the final stage of reconstruction. At my appointment today he made it clear that my final surgery will not happen. The skin is too damaged from radiation to cut into it again so I guess that is that. I was upset for a while because I feel like I will never get to close the book on this chapter of my life. But it is what it is so I just have to move on. It just seems like adding insult to injury. I have a check up with my surgeon tomorrow and my first follow up with my oncologist next week. Hopefully they will go as planned. I am so tired of all of it!!! On a more positive note....the kids have been very busy so far this summer, cheer camp, basketball, soccer camp...just like every other family with kids! I received the school newsletter today and it contained a lot of information for senior parents! Yikes...how did Alex get so old? Regan is working for James this summer and has her restricted driving permit. She and Alex have to share the car. Priority goes to whoever is working that day. Not sure what we will do when they both have to work. I have a feeling Noah and I will be riding bikes!

Spring 2010

So life goes on even with this stinkin' IV. Actually it has been a wonderful week. James killed a very large turkey and we all got in on the fun with the pictures. Regan didn't want to touch it, but we made her. She had a wonderful birthday party and lots of friends, hence the pile of shoes by our front door. Noah's tree is in full bloom so we decided that each April we will take a picture of Noah and the tree. It will be fun to watch them both grow. Alex went to her second prom. A friend in the neighborhood asked her to the Olathe South prom. She looked just as beautiful in her dress the second time around. My pocketbook is thankful she agreed to wear the same dress. Check out the new slide show. James went to Stockton this weekend to help plant 200+ trees. The weather has been gorgeous so we have all made excuses to get outside. Alex continues with her lifeguard training class this weekend and Regan went to driver's education. Noah had a soccer game tonight and they won 6-0. Although it is hard to score as a defender he told me he had an assist! He also commented on how much fun soccer is! Hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful spring weather!!!

Peace

IV continues

So the Dr. has decided I should continue on the IV medicine for an additional week. Everyone in the family has had to help with the administration. Noah helped out last night at a rugby match even! I wanted to see Alex' friend Ben play rugby so Noah and I went to the game but my IV was running and if we waited until it was done we would have missed the match. So off we went. Noah very discreetly helped flush the lines when the IV was done. I don't think anyone could tell what we were doing. Regan of course finds it disgusting. When she had to help she almost hyperventilated! A career in medicine is not in her future! Home health changed the dressing on Monday and put new caps on the line. The only problem with the caps, they are larger and heavier than the previous caps. So if I don't tape down the caps they tug on the lines more. I am allergic to tape so this has made my arm very irritated, and according to the kids rather cranky at night. I will admit last night I was rather irritated. But in my defense it was mostly because as usual Noah waited until the last minute to do his homework so he was up very late. James went hunting last night and killed a 22 lb turkey. Yeah!!!! I have waited a number of years for a fresh turkey. We have a fabulous recipe for wild turkey so we finally get to make it! Well my IV just beeped so off to flush the lines. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Nearing the end!

Hello all! It has been a while since my last post. I was hoping the title of this post would be "My Journey is now Complete!" But unfortunately it's not quite over. The good news is I am done with chemo! After 15 months I am finally done. I want to thank everyone who was able to join me for a drink to toast this milestone! If you missed out don't worry. We plan to host a BBQ this summer to celebrate! I had my surgery the week after chemo was complete and it was a relatively easy surgery. Checked in by 6:15am and was home by 10:30! The surgeon removed my tissue expanders (aka softballs), put in my permanent implants and removed my port-a-cath. My surgeon was very surprised at the small amount of damage done to my chest by the radiation so he was able to use both previous incisions. One less scar! Although I guess I was grumpy when I woke up from the surgery. Apparently I didn't think my surgeon had been generous enough with my new tatas! I actually think I was just done. I am tired of being the patient! The surgery was on Holy Thursday. The weekend was wonderful with lots of family around to celebrate both Easter and 2 members of the Bellerive family joining the church. My parents were here along with my sister and her family as well as some dear family friends and of course 40+ Bellerive's. It was a wonderful celebration. On Monday my mother suggested I call my surgeon as one breast was rather red. He of course wanted to see me. My intention was to get a pill and go on my way. Crate & Barrel was having a sale and I wanted to stop by. Well, of course things never quite go according to plan. After a quick exam he decided I had cellulitis, an infection in the breast. So off to the hospital we went. I was admitted and administered IV antibiotics. The antibiotics are very strong and can only be administered IV. I stayed the night Monday night. The antibiotics have to be administered every 12 hours so in between the doses I just sat. As you can imagine I got a little grumpy. This was just not supposed to be part of the plan! On Tuesday, Regan's 15th birthday, they decided that with the help of home healthcare I could go home and administer the IV myself. Unfortunately I had removed my port-a-cath during surgery so they had to insert a different central line. It's called a PICC line, or a "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter". They did this at the hospital on Tuesday. It goes in through my upper right arm with a catheter directly to my heart. As most of you know I never do things the easy way so they had a little trouble getting the catheter in the right place. My veins are pretty much shot from all the chemo so they collapsed. They were able to get it in with the help of nitroglycerin. So now both my chest and my arm are sore! Dr. Bellerive (James) and Alex have been doing a wonderful job administering my antibiotics 2x per day. Hopefully the drugs work their magic and we can save the implant. The alternative is more surgery so this damn well better work! To me it looks much better.

In the meantime, Regan injured her ankle in a soccer game the Tuesday before my surgery so she has been in a boot. She is very bummed out about not being able to play. In addition cheerleading try-outs are tonight so she has been rather stressed. I am sure she has pushed herself way too hard this week. This morning she fell down the stairs :( She says she saved the ankle and only put a little pressure on it. Of course the fall came before she put on the boot! She plans to go all out at try-outs today and hopefully be ready to play soccer next week. Not to be discouraging but I think that is overly optimistic.

Thank you to everyone for the food and all your thoughts and prayers! As I tell my children God has a reason for everything. If a door closes go look for the window, you never know what wonderful things you may find along the way!

Peace to all!

Almost done!

It's been quite a while since I have updated the blog. Not much exciting to tell. I am almost done with herceptin. Two more treatments should do it. I have my surgery scheduled for March 23rd but I may push this back. My last treatment is March 25th so I may wait on the surgery for a week. I want to have my port out at the same time and the nurse practitioner today said that it wasn't a big deal. I can have my port removed and then for treatment they could just administer it through a peripheral IV. My mom would like me to delay the surgery so she could be here. My parents will be celebrating their 50th anniversary on a cruise that week!!!! I had treatment today so I don't feel so great. Next week I am having an MRI done. I just haven't been feeling the greatest for the last few weeks. I am sure it is nothing but better to be safe than sorry. The kids are fine. Noah is into basketball right now and Regan and Alex are working on soccer. Try-outs aren't for about a month but they have been conditioning and working on speed and agility drills. Cheerleading is coming to an end for the season with the banquet on March 7th. I have been working on the end of year video which is a long process. That along with my parent's 50th anniversary gift and my construction projects have kept me very busy. Maybe by March our bathroom will be back to normal. In the morning you have to get ready among the tools! I will post a picture when complete. Happy Valentine's Day everyone. The girls are off to WPA this weekend so I will post pictures next week!

Ringing in the New Year

As we prepare to ring in the New Year we unfortunately end on a very sad note. My mother-in-law, Eleanor Bellerive, is preparing to enter the kingdom of heaven. She has suffered from Alzheimers for a number of years and recently fell from her wheelchair breaking her hip. She had a partial hip replacement on Dec. 26th but has since refused to eat. The family made the decision not to insert a feeding tube as per her wishes. Unfortunately it is only a matter of time now. Please pray for a peaceful journey for her and comfort her husband, children and grandchildren. We wish everyone a Happy and prosperous New Year.

Another treatment done

As the year comes to a close I have another few treatments under my belt. Only one more this year, December 31st and then on to 2010. By mid-January I will have completed one year of treatment:) All things considered it is not bad. I am now on Tamoxifen in addition to the Herceptin. At my last visit with Dr. Rabe she decided to put me on this for the next few years. Although technically my tumor was estrogen and progesterone negative, it was 6-7% positive. Because of this and my age she decided tamoxifen was the best course of treatment. I may have to have a hysterectomy later but that depends on if I start ovulating again. The chemo put me in menopause but I may come out of it in which case more surgery. Let's hope not. The herceptin treatment isn't bad the pre-meds are probably the worst. Today was Herceptin and I feel kind of sluggish. We are all looking forward to Christmas although we could do without this bitter cold weather. Makes it harder to get motivated in the morning. I have decided to work with a trainer to get back into shape. He is kickin' my #$% so far! I guess I didn't realize how much the past year took out of me. I will get back to where I need to be, it is just going to take a little longer than I thought. Noah has moved into basketball season and of course is loving it. Alex & Regan are gearing up for finals and have begun cheering for basketball. They spent the afternoon at the gym running the beep test to determine their fitness and endurance levels. They are both in wonderful shape, oh to be young! Have a wonderful week everyone and stay warm!!!

A new beginning

Hi all! I can't believe how long it has been since my last post. Well, no news is good news! So far so good. This week I approach the one year mark and thankfully I have been very lucky during my treatment. Although the chemo was not much fun, it is over. Radiation went well and now I have 7 more herceptin treatments. Once that is complete I can have my port removed and the final reconstruction done. I am looking forward to the end. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I am also moving in a new direction with My Gym. I have turned the gym over to My Gym Enterprises, the corporate arm of My Gym. I can't forsee anytime soon that I would be able to return and frankly my heart was not in it any more. The gym was not a profitable endeavor so it was clearly time to move in a new direction. I feel I need to focus on myself and my family. I am thankful that MGE decided to assume control as it allowed all my employees to keep their jobs. In today's economy that is a blessing. I am not sure what I will do next I just know that for the time being I will be in charge of the home front! I think everyone else in the family could use a little TLC for a change! I am excited to move forward and figure out what I want to be when I grow up! Have a great week everyone!

Radiation is over!

Finally after 7 long weeks my radiation treatment is over. My skin did surprisingly well. Although it looks like a bad sunburn on my chest and upper shoulder area in the back, it did not blister. It is beginning to peel and should heal quickly. Herceptin continues but that is nothing compared to everything else. I am still pretty tired but that should get better in the coming months. Football has begun for Noah and both he and James are loving it! Alex and Regan continue to cheer at soccer and football games. Regan did make the decision to quit gymnastics right before Labor Day. After 8+ years in the sport she has reached the end. Although she was sad for about 30 minutes she got over it fast. I think it was the right choice for her. She plans to go out for soccer this spring but for the first time she has her evenings free! Alex is playing soccer this fall and in fact is going to Des Moines this weekend for a tournament. Now instead of traveling for gymnastics it will be soccer...much more enjoyable to watch in my opinion! Homecoming is next week so the girls are looking forward to a busy but fun week! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Treatment continues

I am about halfway through radiation treatment and as the Dr. predicted the fatigue has returned. It is not quite as bad as it was during chemo but it is back. Mornings are pretty good but by early evening I am pretty tired. My skin looks good...a little red but overall it is fine. I have 2 Dr.'s appointment this week and another round of herceptin in addition to radiation daily. I am getting tired of the daily trips to the cancer center. School is going well for the kids. Alex and Regan have had homework daily, not a huge amount but enough to keep them busy. This week will include the first round of tests and quizzes. Noah hasn't had a lot of homework yet but I am sure that will change this week. Football is in full swing with 3 practices a week. Games should begin in September. Alex has her first varsity cheer event Friday with the Blue/Gold season Kick-Off. Not sure yet when Regan will begin cheering. James is starting to get hunting fever. He bought a couple of deer feeders this weekend and spent some time putting them together. We love fall between football and hunting it is our favorite time of year! Have a great week everyone!

Everyone is in school!

Noah started school this morning so now everyone is back in school! YEAH!!!! I love getting back into the routine. I saw the Dr. yesterday and all is going well. I am starting to get pink and a little sore around the area where my original tumor was. My energy level has been pretty good but the Dr. warned me that should begin to change around the halfway point of the treatment, Friday. Although it won't be anything like the fatigue from the chemo, it will get worse as the treatment progresses. The way I look at it, I just have to get through mid-Sept. then all will be good! Noah is busy with football right now and so is James. James helps coach. Alex starts soccer season this weekend and Regan still has gym 4 days a week. Cheerleading will probably start within the next 2 weeks for Alex and Regan so I am sure things will get busy. Curious fact....Regan has 3 other classmates named Regan and they are all guys! We thought her name was so original! That means there are 6 Regan's her exact age in our area!

Regan starts High School!

This morning I dropped Regan off at Aquinas for her orientation. The upperclassman greeted the freshman in Hawaiian attire and announced each freshman as they entered the school to cheers! Hard to believe I have 2 in high school. Alex went through orientation yesterday and received her schedule. No surprises but I have already requested a teacher change for both Alex & Regan. I also had to write a lot of checks. August is almost as bad as December with the additional expenses. The good part about high school is the school supply list, they don't have any! Each teacher gives a syllabus on the first day of class with a list of supplies. But for the most part it is just notebooks and paper. Noah starts school next week. Yeah!!!! I am feeling pretty good these days. My hair is growing back and my feet are feeling a little better. However, the daily trip to the Cancer Center for radiation treatment is getting old already! Only 4.5 more weeks to go. My skin is doing pretty good. It is starting to get red but hopefully it won't blister during treatment. Mom & Dad were supposed to come visit this week but my 92 year old grandmother fell and broke her hip so their visit is delayed. Have a great weekend!

Melting at a soccer tournament

We spent the day at Alex' soccer tournament in Raytown. It was close to 100 degrees and miserable. She and her teammates were just drenched! They played in the U-18 division and they did pretty good. Alex got decked a couple of times by girls that easily weighed 30 lbs more than her if not more. They have one more game tomorrow afternoon. We are heading to the Race for the Cure this morning for an early "run" to raise money for Breast Cancer research. I finished with my first few treatments of radiation. It goes pretty quickly and is just like a long x-ray. So far no skin changes but the radiation oncologist said this would start to happen at about the 10th treatment. So far no side effects to report. I did have another herceptin infusion Thursday and all went well. The pre-meds still make me sleepy during the treatment so I usually take a little nap. My feet are still very painful but wearing tennis shoes helps. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and stay cool!

Home at last!

We got back from vacation this weekend! It was so nice to have time together as a family. 2009 has been a difficult year so far but we all were able to relax and enjoy ourselves. Noah caught a bad cold so he doesn't feel the greatest but other than that we all came home fine...no swine flu aka H1N1! The girls enjoyed the cruise and made some good friends. They especially enjoyed the beach in Mexico. Our trip home was long with flight delays and misplaced luggage but all turned out well. Regan went to the ortho today and got her braces off. She has a beautiful smile now and commented "it was so worth it!" I had a Dr. appointment today and will start radiation tomorrow. Interesting to see how they shield the different parts of the body and target with lasers. The treatment will be everyday for 6.5 weeks. I should be done the week of Sept. 14th. My feet have been very painful lately. I was hoping they would start to feel better but so far they feel worse. Hopefully that will turn around. James is having shoe inserts made and I might try that to relieve some of the pain if it works for him. I do have more energy lately. Instead of one good day followed by a bad day I can usually make it almost 2 full days before the exhaustion wins out. I did great on the cruise until the last day. You would think all you could do on a cruise is relax, but not with an active 9 year old. We played ping pong, shuffle board, mini golf and rode the water slides with rarely a break in between. The lady in charge of checking out equipment knew Noah by name and didn't even make him check it out! Oh well I think he has helped me overcome a lot because he wants to play and doesn't understand mom is tired! Have a great week everyone!

1st Herceptin treatment

I had my first herceptin only treatment last Thursday and all went well. I did have a pre-med which made me tired during the treatment but I slept for a while and was fine to drive home. Felt pretty good, only a little upset stomach for a few days. I don't know if that was because of the treatment or our travel out of town for Hosea's wedding. My hands and feet are killing me lately and swell up quite a bit daily. I feel like an 80 year old when I get up first thing in the morning. My feet hurt so bad a limp around until I work the kinks out. It usually goes away by 9:00 am. James & I took Noah to World's of Fun this week since the girls are in Washington DC with their grandparents. There were no crowds and it was nice to have some one-on-one time with him. He rode all the rides he was tall enough for a couple of times. James and I rode a few rides but have decided we are getting to old for some of them. We can't quite handle the spinning and upside down stuff anymore. We are leaving on a little vacation this weekend. We are taking a 5 day cruise before I start radiation treatment on Aug. 3rd. I will have treatment every day until mid-september. I am currently working on building up some stamina. I usually have one good day and then a bad day. Trying to fight the exhaustion and get back to where I was before treatment started in January. This is going to take longer than I thought! I played tag with Noah tonight...dang that boy is fast! I am exhausted but as usual can't sleep. Enjoy the picture from the wedding this weekend!

Dr. visit tomorrow

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I updated the blog because nothing is new!!!! No chemo, no side effects just trying to get my body back in shape. I do have a summer cold but at least that didn't happen until after all the chemo. I am still very tired but I try everyday to accomplish a little more than the day before. I am sure I will start feeling more energetic soon. I have a Dr. visit tomorrow and will have an echocardiogram to check heart function. I am sure that will all be fine. I am also meeting with the radiation oncologist to get the radiation treatment underway. Later in the week I have a Herceptin infusion but the side effects should be minor...if not non-existent. I still have problems with my hands and feet but at least it hasn't gotten any worse. Looking forward to Hosea's wedding this weekend!