I am not crazy

Last night was the chemo brain web conference. Both David and I listened to it. Featured was an oncologist and a breast cancer survivor (who also suffers from chemo brain).

Most oncologists do not recognize this as a symptom of chemotherapy and I have quit talking about it to mine as he does not recognize it either. I do not fault him for it, it just is not a widely studied thing as of yet. However, the featured onc during last night's presentation is doing PET scans of the brain in patients who have received chemotherapy which do in fact show differences in the brains metabolism as people are going through chemo. It is like having a MUGA test done periodically (that is the test I get to see if my heart is functioning OK during treatment). If this becomes a standard practice, you can get a baseline PET scan and periodic scans during treatment. If your scan shows changes you could forseeably (is that a word???) choose an alternate treatment OR at least feel better in that yes you are suffering from chemo brain.

I need to tell you that tears ran down my face while listening to this conference...SERIOUSLY. I know and David knows that I am just not right but it has not been recognized by the medical profession. The cancer is gone, I am through the hardest of the treatments and therefore I should be back to my old self.....NOT.

What I feel is I would guess like someone who has a brain injury may feel (forgetfulness etc) or someone who has had a stroke may feel (know what you want to say but the words don't come etc) or someone who has alzheimers may feel (I did not put that there I KNOW I didn't put it there but yes I did!). I used to multi task, was a fabulous multi tasker and did my job very very well...plus kept up the house. Now I cannot even imagine learning a new job skill. Most ads talk about being able to work in a fast paced environment. To even think about it overwhelms me, I wonder how in the hell I could do it! That's what scares me the most. At home David and I laugh about it (once again thank goodness for understanding husbands) but in any other environment I just don't know.

Now I also am aware that my age and the fact that I am in menopause does not help these symptoms. And I am thankful for the chemotherapy, would not have done anything differently. I just feel relieved in knowing that SOMEONE in the medical field, and an oncologist at that, is recognizing this symptom.

Stats show that about 10-80 percent of the people suffer from chemo brain. AND, the worst cases seem to be those of us with breast cancer because of the specific chemo cocktails that we get (AC-Taxol then Tamox and Herceptin or drugs of the same sort). Some get better totally, some recover partially and others do not, they suffer with it always. After last night's web cast David said we will make quite a pair in the northland, one with chemo brain and the other with Alzheimers lost in the woods. But we wont care...kids just come visit us once and a while will you????

If you are interested at all in listening to the webcast (it is an hour long) you can do so my clicking on the link that I provided in a previous post, they will replay it.

So again, just having this acknowledged is a large help to me, I am tearing up as I type...frigging cancer anyway damn it to hell!!!!!!!!!! (Hey I think that's healthy isn't it to get angry once and awhile???)

Gotta close with something pretty. The beautiful wild flowers on our property up north.



Love ya all and Happy Holidays.