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Today is Erev Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  It is a time for celebration, reflection and joy.  Boy could the Brown and Gersten families use some joy and good news this year!  I think I will smother my entire apple and challah slice in honey to ensure that I have a super duper sweet year.

Last night was a bit tougher than the night before, but not terribly so.  I think that I fell into a deep sleep, and tried to roll onto my side.  That is nearly impossible because these drains and pain just won’t let that happen!  I forgot how much I hate sleeping on my back.  Even through both pregnancies I managed to not sleep on my back.  It is also really annoying to remember to take all 4 meds I need and then have to space them out.  Apparently you can’t take Percocet too closely to my antibiotic or I will get nauseated, then there’s Ativan and Lexapro.  I’m a pharmacy with drains.  The good news is that I was able to get up alone and not wake Zack up this morning.

I might have overdone my movement yesterday, it’s like forgetting you can’t do something and then try to reach and instead have alligator arms that don’t let you get the glass.  Yea that happened a few times, even with my drinking glass.  Every day a little better, every day a little stronger.  The drains are getting less and less, so I hope Tuesday I get some of them out.

I’ve been called a Rock star during my entire treatment.  I don’t feel like one, no one would ever want my autograph.  I am just a 35-year-old mother and wife who is 100% completely honest on how much Breast Cancer sucks donkey ass and changes your life.  The whole reason for this blog is to be open and honest with you all in the hopes I help someone.  So you can think of me as a rock star, I just consider myself honest.  And funny.  If anything, I think cancer made me funnier!   So who knows what will happen to my blog when I am finished with it (Don’t worry I am not stopping), but hopefully I can use it as a too to help those suffering get through this a little better.

With that I bid you adieu.  It’s Sunday football and I am not going to watch.  I have terrible 80’s movies on my DVR instead!

xo,

Jessie

Hello, literally from the other side!  Surgery was on Wednesday, and today is Saturday.  Time flies when you’re having fun or are on Percocet.  So far so good, I am in pain but today is much better.

The surgery itself was about 7 hours, and my parents and Zack had a party in the waiting room.  There was a bag of chips to choose from for every different cuisine.  Thank you to everyone who came to keep Zack and my family company wednesday,  I would have been there but I was a little tie-up.

The actual procedure went extremely well.  Dr. Dang only had to takeout TWO lymph nodes to test, and both turned out to be NEGATIVE!  That means that it never spread, thank GOD!  Dr. Slate said his surgery was a bit longer than Dang’s, but that’s because there was more tissue to take out on the right side. All in all it went perfect and it is behind me now.  I am now left with expanders that I am pretty self conscious about.  Oh well, we will all get over them because I am alive.

Thursday was so painful, that I literally felt like a bus had driven over my chest and then I was punched on the sides.  During surgery they give you two nerve blocks to numb the pain on your sides, it definitely worked but wouldn’t want to imagine pain without that.  I could have had another Thursday, but the pain wasn’t exactly in the right spot to cover it, so I said no to it. I had a great team of nurses at the  hospital, it was my first stay at Cedar’s and hopefully last!  I was on the 8th floor, apparently that’s THE floor to be on.  I felt super special.

Now that I am home, it is pretty difficult with the kids.  They want to climb on me and hug me, and I can’t for a while.  I know this will take a toll on everyone involved.  Thankfully we have a few people the kids love to watch them aside from our family.  Vacation for everyone after this is over!

Thank you to everyone for the calls, texts, messages, food, dessert and flowers!  Seriously I have the most wonderful friends and family, and friends who have become family.  I love you, and you know who you are.  You are my life, my Frank’s, my friends.  If it wasn’t for all of your support I’m not quite sure I’d be in the mental state that I am now, which is OK.

Much Much Much LOVE!!!

xo,

Jessie

P.S. Happy Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

Well shit, I made it to the end.  Lets just hope I really do and wake up tomorrow after surgery.  Morbid aren’t I? To be honest I am losing my shit with nerves, and have been trying to keep busy all day to not think about “it.”  It being the massive surgery that will be cutting open my breasts and scooping them out like a cantaloupe.  Graphic, love it.

But in all seriousness, tomorrow is a huge milestone for me and our family.  I have made it to what I hope to be the end of my treatment.  We won’t know until next week if radiation is needed, and I pray to GOD nightly that it isn’t.  That would be another 6 weeks of treatment and delay the rest of my surgeries for another 6 months.  I just hope and pray that tomorrow goes smoothly and there are no complications.  And that I don’t yell at my mother while she’s in the hospital with me.  Love you mommy.

Today I ran a bunch of errands after I saw my therapist.  A girl can’t go into major surgery with a janky looking pedicure, right?  Then I took my boobs to lunch, they wanted dessert but I said no.  We had some quality time at Tender Greens, just talking about the good old days.  I had some weird stares, but I’m used to that now.

For the rest of the day I am going to try to relax and enjoy the day.  I am not going to dwell on the fact that my life forever changes tomorrow, because in fact it forever changed on May 3rd.  I get a new set of boobs, ones that I have always wanted minus the cancer and expander part.  I want to squeeze my two little minions as much as possible, give them baths and say goodnight to them.  The hardest part of my day will be telling Asher that the doctor is finally fixing mommy’s boo boo.

Again I thank you all for following along on my journey.  This is not the end of Cupcakes and Chemo, but I will probably take a break for a few days after surgery. Feel free to text, email, carrier pigeon or Facebook message me to check in.  Visitors are welcome, as are CUPCAKES.

Love to you all, yes even you.

xo,

Jessie

Well, surgery is this week on Wednesday. I can’t believe that it is finally here. I mean i can but can’t at the same time. What a whirlwind these past few months have been!  The summer of shit 2016, that’s what we call it around these parts!

I went to my first, ok 7th Herceptin infusion all by myself today!  I am a big girl now!  It was pretty fast, I was in and out in a little over an hour.  While getting ready this morning, I had to ask Zack if it was cold in the infusion center.  I’ve only ever been there with a cold cap, so I really had no idea if it was cold!  I brought a sweatshirt.  Also, I have 10 more Herceptin infusions to go, there are a total of 17.

It was pretty quiet in the infusion center today, so I had my choice of chairs.  I chose to sit in the private room, I got all fancy and shit today.  Anyway, my blood counts are back up and high enough to have surgery on Wednesday.  If my white counts weren’t high enough, then no surgery for me.  Now I just have to worry about this ear problem and pray that I’m not getting a cold before then.  Musinex to the rescue.

In other news, I am so glad that I went with Penguin Cold Caps for my treatment.  I heard horror stories about women using the new caps (I won’t say the company name to badmouth them) and their hair was literally falling out in the infusion center and they were basically BALD on the tops of their heads.  That would A. freak me out and B. piss me off that I spent so much money to only wind up losing my hair. I have no idea how that got the FDA approval and Penguin isn’t.  I have my hair to prove it!  They really need to go for the approval.

Lastly I met up with my friend who had her surgery two weeks ago after my infusion.  She gave me a robe that she used for her drains, and I will pass it along to our other friend once she’s had hers in a month.  It’s like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, except for Cancer and the drains.  I crack myself up I swear.

With that I wish you a wonderful weekend.  Zack and I get to get rid of the kids for a day for some peace and quiet before surgery.  YAY!  Love them I do, but crazy they are.  Eat, Drink and be Merry folks.

xo,

Jessie

That pretty much sums up my day.  I had my two big appointments with my breast surgeon and reconstruction surgeon today.  I love them both, and mom and I were pretty pleased that they saw us early.  Otherwise we would have had to bum around Beverly Hills for two hours.  Shit that meant no Neiman’s today.

My reconstruction doctor was more in-depth with his information, as he is the one that I’ll be seeing much more of in the next year or so.  My breast surgeon gave us the run down of what to expect regarding her part of the surgery, making me feel very calm and ready to go.

I am really happy with the team that I chose, to be honest I didn’t interview more than them but I’m ok with that.  They came very highly recommended by a fellow family friend who is a plastic surgeon.  I trust him whole heartedly.

Dr. S the reconstruction doctor, basically covered everything from this soap that I need to use the night before and day of surgery, what to expect from recovery, how flat chested I will be when I wake up (I won’t be), and how long it will be until the process is completed (pending radiation the second surgery won’t be until next summer).  There was so much more that we went over but I won’t bore you with that.  Lets just say that I feel comfortable, but sad that I can’t pick up Dylan for 6 weeks.  I also can’t use a big tote for a while, so I guess cute little handbags are in my future for a while.  Silver lining folks, silver lining.

He also put some preliminary marks on my chest to see what the scars will look like.  Not gonna lie, they will be bigger than expected.  I say I don’t mind now, but when I am over and done, will I change my mind?  Probably not because I will be ALIVE.  All in all it was a very good meeting, I don’t have a choice but feel ready to go.

Tomorrow I have my first infusion of Herceptin alone, and I get to drive myself there.  I have come so fucking far in 4.5 months that I can’t believe this day is here.  Chemo is done, and now just this one infusion for another 6 months or so.  I can do it!  It’s crazy how fast this has gone, now if only my eyebrows would grow back this fast I would be happier than a pig in shit.  I think I can use Latisse in a few weeks, thank God!

Lastly, thanks for all of the birthday wishes for Asher.  We all had a great time at California Adventure.  We ate our hearts out, went on rides and met a ton of characters- specifically Lightning McQueen his hero.  It was also a celebration of sorts for me, knowing that I did it (chemo) and was able to get through a day at a theme park without collapsing!  Having the disability pass certainly helped, so thanks for that Disney!

Until tomorrow.

xo,

Jessie

Well I had my first pre-op appointment today with my internist, it went well and I am cleared for takeoff.  Get it?  Take off as in my boobs. HAHA.  I even got a chuckle out of my doctor for that one.  Yes, cancer has made me even crazier.

I have my last two pre-op appointments on Thursday, and will be there literally all day long.  Tomorrow is a week from surgery, time needs to fly!  I am so anxious that it’s kind of ridiculous at this point.  Ativan is my friend, my very good friend when I sleep.

Tomorrow is Asher’s birthday, and we are doing something special with him.  Dylan will be with my mom so it’s just the 3 of us, making it even more special.  There aren’t many times these days that he gets special time alone with mommy and daddy.  I hope he has a great day, I can’t wait to see the day through his 4-year-old eyes.  I’m a little worried about my energy level, but the good thing is that there’s plenty of caffeine and benches if we need to rest.

I have been running myself ragged the last few days, and I think it caught up with me today.  I am pretty exhausted and my legs are aching.  I really hope that I’m not getting sick, because that would be a little risky for surgery next week.  So I will just keep saying it’s from the Herceptin and nothing more. That’s all it can be, right?

Have a great night, and I’ll report back after our adventure!

xo,
Jessie

What a weekend!  It wasn’t that we did a lot, it’s just that this was the first weekend in a long time that I felt ok to be out and about.  It has been over two weeks since my last chemo and slowly I am feeling back to normal.  The good news is that I never have to feel that way again!

We had a new nanny start yesterday, so far so good.  I think she will be a keeper, fingers crossed please! Zack even went out to dinner last night to celebrate my mom’s birthday.  It was so nice to feel like a human and go out for an adult dinner, with no children whining!

This week starts the beginning of surgery prep.  I have three pre-op appointments and a lot of other stuff to do.  I think that I will be at the doctor more than I will be home this week!

Anyway, that’s pretty much all I have to report for this weekend.  Sorry to be brief but it’s a good thing that I don’t have much to say!

Have a good week.

xo,

Jessie

It has been two weeks since my last chemo, and in another two weeks I will have surgery.  I can’t decide whether I would like to go forward or backward in time.  I think that I would like to get this shit over and done with, so let’s just fast forward to September 28th at around 5pm, mmkay?

Today the Triple C Club met, it was a good meeting of the girls both figuratively and literally.  Love all the boob talk.  One of us has had surgery, and I am so glad that she is over and done with now!  What a relief.  I’m next, then our last member has hers in October.  When we are all done, we are celebrating.  Hardcore.  Maybe the early bird special.

On another note, people always ask how I am doing, and I appreciate them asking.  I never get sick of people asking or asking specific questions either.  But what I am sick of is acting like I am ok.  I am not ok, and that is actually OK.  It is exhausting putting on a happy face, which I generally have, but I am tired of just brushing it off and saying that.  When people ask now, I respond with I am getting better every day.  That’s the truth, I am getting better daily.

I might be healing a little slower with cuts on my hand, or walk a little slower, but every day I get stronger.  Every day I get better.  Every day is another step in my recovery to the new Jessie.  I can’t say I am going to be a BETTER Jessie because I rather liked me as a person, but a new me.  So when you ask me, if you do (if you don’t that’s ok too, no guilt here) just know that I am OK even if I don’t respond with saying I am great.  Honestly what do you expect, I just had 6 rounds of chemo!

xo,

Jessie

I got myself all tootsed up for an appointment with my oncologist, I even put on makeup and a cute jacket.  My mom and I decided to take Dylan with us because we needed to do other stuff afterwards, so to Tower we went.

I go up and check in for my 11am appointment on September 13, and I apparently had no appointment.  Oops.  I schlepped my mother, baby, stroller and diaper bag to an appointment that was not there.  I guess I must have a serious case of chemo head, right?  I was a little confused why she would want to see me two weeks from my other appointment, but didn’t think to ask.  I have an appointment on October 13 so I guess I entered it wrong in my phone.  It wasn’t all for not though, I got to see Paige and Steph and they met Dylan.  I ended up seeing my doctor though, but it was in the elevator going down.

So instead we went to the mall to get some post surgery apparel.  Love me some oversized button downs that I will never want to wear again.  Thankfully H&M had some cute stuff today.  Dylan also really loved the cafe at Bloomingdales and hates tuna.

It wound up being a really busy day, so much so that I had to come home and take a serious nap.  Good thing the kids were occupied because I hit the pillow like it was lights out till morning.  Every day is a little better, and every day a little stronger.

xo,

Jessie