Breast Cancer Breath

You've heard of garlic or onion breath haven't you? The unfortunate onsumption of the wrong food choice which causes this condition has ruined a lot of first dates.

Well, now we have a new contender for the date-ruining crown: breast cancer breath. And, I'm guessing that if you are hapless enough to end up with breast cancer breath, you are going to miss out on a lot more action than if you had both garlic and onion breath combined.

According to this video, from Detroit's Channel 4 news, there is a new test that can detect early breast cancer, and all you have to do to get diagnosed is to blow into a breathalyzer.

Or, apparently, into a dog.

I have many questions after viewing this report:



In the video, they open by discussing this device that will detect early breast cancer on your breath, but oddly, they cut away to a scene of a woman and her dog.

This woman is allowing the dog to lick her in the face. Don't people who let dogs lick them in the face know what dogs do with their mouths? My own personal dog loves to find little snacks in the cat box, and then lick his own male parts as a chaser. I happen to know that he never brushes his teeth. The aforementioned onion breath would be a definite improvement over what he's sporting.

Anyway, after the dog spreads e-coli all over this woman's face, she asserts that her canine companion told her she had breast cancer.

The newscaster intones, "Carol Witcher says her dog, Floyd Henry, knew something was wrong before she did."

Carol explains, "He looked at me strangely and pushed and snorted my right breast, and pushed and snorted, and pushed and snorted," Carol says. "And, I'm thinking, something's not right."

I would have to agree with that statement. Something is not right.

Now, I do know dogs have remarkable senses of smell, but if a dog sniffing you in a certain area of your body is indicative of cancer, than I really need to get myself a colonoscopy and a PAP smear. Because, my dog seems a lot more interested in what is going on down in the vajayjay area than he ever was in my boobalicious area, even though I had a big old tasty cancer practically popping through the skin. My recently deceased Labrador, who would and did eat everything, from socks to onions to watermelon to drywall, and who could sniff a raisin out of an air-conditioning vent, never even tried to diagnose my breast. My current Greyhound is a bit more picky, but see above about cat boxes: I doubt he'd turn down a nice, meaty tumor. Yet, neither of these slackers ever looked at me strangely to try and tell me that I had cancer.

Naturally, the newscaster (who happens to be an M.D.) agrees with the dog's diagnosis. "Turns out, Floyd Henry was right on track. Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer."

This is when they cut away to a scene of a gloved medical professional putting a top on a tube-like device, as the newscaster says, "This breath test confirmed the diagnosis."

(Of the dog, I might remind you.)

Charlene Bayer, PhD, who is running this breathalyzer project, says eloquently in regards to the value of this type of evaluation, "The big difference is that you go in and get your breasts crushed, or do a radiological test. What this does, is you breathe into it, and we measure just from the breath."

They don't really describe exactly what they measure, do they? Chemical compounds, is as specific as they get. I was impressed that this researcher stated that breasts were "crushed" during mammograms.

Hmmm...well, they are squeezed, they are pressed, they are squished, they are, perhaps, even tortured. But crushed? Doesn't that imply structural damage, like a car in a demolition yard? Like a soda can on recycling day? Like the hopes of a 13 year old at a dance who ends up sitting in the corner all night?

I think crushed is a pretty harsh word for a medical professional to use, don't you?

I sure hope that kind of terminology doesn't catch on in Doctor-World. Or, soon we'll be having some pretty gruesome-sounding treatments, won't we? Can you imagine how they might describe, say, a barium enema? "Mrs. Silberman, we are going to jam a big-assed tube the size of a hose up your butt, inflate a balloon, and then squirt radioactive stuff to ream you out until you scream."

The story continues with Carol talking about her doctor's prognosis, "And last May she says, 'Carol, you are cancer-free.'" Then they cut to the dog again, as Floyd Henry nods in agreement.

The newscaster confirms this, "Thanks to the breath test and a persistant pooch, Carol's breast cancer is now behind her."

Then Carol plays the harmonica as her dog howls along.

Really.

Now, here is my question: if that dog could detect Carol's cancer, and it was merely confirmed by this new breath test, aren't we spending our research dollars incorrectly?

Frankly, if I was the boss, Cesar Milan would be in charge of this particular breast cancer research. He could send out his pack to sniff the racks of women world-wide.

Cesar Milan, The Breast Whisperer.

The breast cancer flag isn't pink

At least, on me. It's yellow, white and green. The flag of "where the heck are the veins?"

After my last herceptin:

A week later:

I've seen drug addicts with less bruising. My poor nurses, I think they must fight over not to have to poke me at this point.

Tamoxifen

Imagine, if you dare, a woman with PMS. But, this is no ordinary woman, and this is no ordinary PMS.

This is the mother of all PMS, and by that I mean you combine the PMS your mother had (you know, the kind that caused her to wake you from a sound sleep by hitting you with a hanger because you'd left your socks on the floor) with the PMS of a woman who is naturally upset at the state of her hair.

Which apparently refuses to grow in.

This combination doesn't make for your regular, garden variety PMS. This PMS is volcanic in its power. It is the Tsunami of PMS. If this PMS was electrical power, it could take the entire city of Sacramento off the national grid.

Let's pretend you take such a PMS and mix it with an annoyance, such as, say, a car running out of gas.

Add the fun fact that this car has a broken gas gauge so one can't tell when it's near empty. And that somebody's husband - who normally very kindly fills up the car each weekend to prevent the aforementioned running out of gas - forgot. Just this once. Let's envision that this car ran out of gas, causing the driver, who just might have had a right breast amputation and is in the middle of reconstruction and isn't allowed to (nor can) lift more than a couple of pounds, to have to turn a powerless SUV around a sharp corner to park it.

You mix this mother of PMS, add car problems, no hair, and a strained chest muscle with a tissue expander wrapped around it, and what do you get?

A Tamoxifen explosion.

Chemical lava flowed all over that long-suffering husband.

Now, maybe I know the person who had the above experience, and I'm sure if I did she'd want me to apologize for all the bad words the people around her might have heard as she stood in public on her cell phone and screamed about how a husband who really loved her wouldn't f'ing forget to fill the tank up, and how it was completely assholish to purposely leave his cancerous wife stranded miles from home.

Let me just say I think it's highly unfair that I (oh, okay, I admit it, it was me) went through eight years of perimenopause, with its intense one-day a month PMS symptoms, only to have it started up again chemically due to cancer. I was happy to have my ovaries killed by chemo. I was ready for my well-deserved old-lady rest, and I think I can speak for my husband in saying that he was ready too.

If I had to guess, I'd say he'd happily trade a little laxity in the skin to not have to be called names when he doesn't do me the courtesy of filling my gas tank.

My doctor warned me about the side effects of tamoxifen, an estrogen-blocking drug: cervical cancer, blood clots, hot flashes, headaches, weight gain - and mood swings.

What he didn't say was that these mood-swings would be on the level of a 7.2 earthquake.

Unfortunately, unlike real PMS, there will be no Aunt Flo to come and calm me down. This is a chronic, unyielding, continual condition.

I have to take tamoxifen for five years.

I could have PMS-type mood swings daily for five years!

That would be a real natural disaster for all involved.

But, it'd make a cool movie. It could star Ernest Borgnine and Roddy McDowall as men who have to navigate an upside down world - while Shelley Winters tries to kill them.

Stand Up 2 Cancer

One of the organizations I support is Stand Up 2 Cancer. I do that despite the fact that they use a "2" instead of the word "to" in their name. It's a worthy organization. I believe in them because they want to focus on "translational research" - translating promising research into medical practice. Their goal is to bypass bureaucratic hangups, something a school secretary can appreciate, and cut down on the amount of time research takes when progressing from discovery through clinical trials and out to people. Something a cancer patient can appreciate.

Finally, the reason I support them is my personal hero, Dennis Slamon, is involved.

If you don't know who Dennis Slamon is, and especially if you are HER2, you need to get the movie Living Proof or read the book, Her 2: The Making of Herceptin..

Here is a previously unreleased video with Minka Kelly, who starred in Friday Night Lights, discussing the impact cancer has had on her life. Being a person who ignored her mammograms, I can't say enough about early identification of cancer.

If only Josh Holloway would do a PSA for SU2C.

People I Have More Hair Than....

People who have more hair than me:

I threw that last one in there because I'm cancerous, not dead.

Josh Holloway goes a long way into spicing up any blog, if you ask me.

Chemo - it's not over until the last nail breaks

Have you ever had that dream where your teeth start to crumble and fall out? Little tooth shards are in your mouth, but no matter how many you spit out, your mouth is still full of little splintery pieces?

Even in a dream, there is something disturbing about a part of your body crumbling uncontrollably.

So, you can imagine my dismay as I tell you that this is exactly what has been happening to my fingernails for the past two weeks.

My nails began to weaken a couple of days after my final chemo, and now they are splintering half way down the nail bed, past the point where you can actually file or trim. When I do something extremely dangerous, like button a shirt, they disintegrate. What's left of these tissue-thin crescents tend to snag on everything, and when they snag, they crumble even more. I've been protecting what's left with band-aids, which is, of course, extraordinarily attractive, especially when I use the Dora the Explorer ones.

My nails are as soft and weak as Sacramento's real estate market.

During the entire four months of chemo, I kept my nails. I lost my breast, my hair, my eyelashes, my eyebrows, and my entire feminine way of putting myself together. I still can't dress in my regular clothes, I can't blow-dry my hair, I can't put on mascara, and I can't wear high heels. But, I could at least polish my nails.

And, now there is little to polish. Parts of my nail beds are showing that have never seen the light of day. Poor things, they are blushing pink at being exposed this way.

I should add that having nails this short is uncomfortable. Now I know why torturers stick bamboo underneath their victim's nails - it's a very sensitive area.

(Although, I never got the bamboo part. You'd think knives would be more effective.)

Because they are peeling and starting to resemble the color of an old man's fungal-infected toenails, I decided to polish my nail stubs black. Super short, black nails are kind of cute and punkish. Kara DioGuardi who, unlike Paula Abdul, never had to wear a cast after "getting her nails done" sports that look, so why can't I try?

I discovered something interesting. When your nails are this weak, thin, brittle, and ready to fall apart, the polish color sinks underneath to the skin below - and stays. I didn't know this at first. I removed my polish when it started to chip, like a normal person, and then I walked around for a whole week freaking out thinking my fingernails were actually turning black and about to fall off entirely, when it was really just OPI-dyed skin underneath.

Chemo: the gift that keeps on giving.

It's a dream come true.

The Road to Recovery

At my last appointment, my oncologist said to me, "Did you make it to the field trip you were planning on? Because, you really looked like you were white-knuckling it"

And he held his hands up in a claw shape.

He got it right on the mark. Dr. Blair is a smart man. I had felt like I was hanging by the tips of my fingers on a rock wall with a thousand foot drop below during those days. The field trip he mentioned was the Regional Science Olympiad contest, and I accompanied my son only three days after chemo, barely hanging on.

This weekend was the State Competition. My last chemo ended 16 days before and what a difference 16 days makes.

The competition was held in Fresno. For those not in California, Fresno is a pit (sorry Fresnoians, but you know it's true) 165 miles south of Sacramento. You drive smack dab in the middle of rural California to get there. This is the part of the state that you non-Californians don't know about and probably never will because it's pure farm/factory country with nothing touristy to do.

Hollywood, which is where everybody gets their idea of this state, doesn't want to acknowledge that real people live here - people with imperfect teeth, who can't sing or dance and who are uninterested in show business. They forget that not all Californians sell dope, vote for Democrats and build tunnels under streets for frogs so the critters won't get squashed by cars.

In fact, Hollywood has done such a good job of selling California as a place of hippie weirdos or beautiful people with designer clothes, that I'd forgotten myself that normal people live here.

Even though I am one.

Thinking a long car ride might be too much for me, we broke it up by stopping for lunch in an area that reminds me of Iowa or Kansas or somewhere that I've never been. We chose a diner/coffee shop where men in overalls were talking about their farms and how much they disliked the government as they bought each other coffee.

I bet they had rifles in their trucks.

The only difference between California and Iowa might be that half the items on the diner menu were Mexican. I almost went for the Huevos Rancheros but just decided on fried eggs since I can't taste anything anyway and why pay an extra buck when it's now meaningless to me?

Our plans were to go down on Friday, spend the night, spend all day on campus for the Science Olympiad, and then spend that night there and go home Sunday morning. Most of the other families were leaving after the awards ceremony, but I felt a 3 hour drive might be too much for me after 6:00 pm.

The difference between the two competitions was for me, night and day. I volunteered at an event both times, but this time I stood for 2 hours without thinking about cancer, and last time I ducked out and tried to find a place to sleep. This time I walked the campus and watched the events - and didn't think about cancer. Last time, I spent most of my time huddling on a bench, trying to muster the energy to get through the end. This time, I chatted with teachers and other parents. Last time, I isolated myself because talking used too much energy.

In fact, this time I felt so well that I...well.... I felt normal.

It was only during the awards ceremony that I started to feel exhaustion creeping in. It was in the 80s outside and with thousands of people in the MP room and no air-conditioning, it was pretty hot. Normally, I don't mind being hot but when you add hot flashes to sitting next to a thousand people, you have an entirely different hotness experience.

The excitement of the awards was also wearing. Our team came in second, time after time, event after event. Our biggest competition kept coming in first, and it became discouraging. My son was a medalist in every event he participated in so he personally did well - but sadly, his team ended up second in the state - so close, and yet so far.

Being a mother, I'd have gladly done three more rounds of chemo if he would have won. (Chemo: my new standard for torture.) He's been working extra hours every day for five months to prepare for this competition but as I well know, life teaches us harsh lessons sometimes. The kids from other schools have studied hard too. His team came in second and he will have to wait until next year, high school, to try again. But, all is not lost. He learned lots of science being on the team; he learned to be part of a group dedicated to success, and he learned intellectual team work. So, he really did come out a winner.

He just doesn't know it yet.

As for me, my recovery from chemo is not complete, but I've turned a bend and now feel like I can see the end. I couldn't be more amazed at how far I've come, especially when I read back to that post I made just a few weeks ago. Aside from bone aches and a strong need for 12 hours of sleep a night, I'm on the Road to Recovery, and it feels so good.

As long as that road isn't leading to Fresno, that is.