Author: Carmin
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A Lot Going On At the Moment
First and foremost, thank you all for the kind words and thoughts about my dad’s passing. For those who may have missed it, here is a link to the obituary. And for the many of you acknowledging that this is just A LOT for anyone one person to deal with, you are right! And that…
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Feeling cancery
After my very first treatment, a certain member of my family said “you don’t look very cancery.” To which I replied “and I don’t feel it either!” Well, I have to say that today was the opposite. I felt very cancery and it made me pretty grumpy! Probably having to wake up really early didn’t…
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Round 4 and What’s Next
Well, I’m coming out of Round 4 (my final) of chemo so thought I would give a little update. Day 2 after chemo (Sunday), I pretty much just slept all day. Given my inability to sleep before chemo, it actually felt good to drift off frequently. Day 3 after chemo has generally been my worst…
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Chemo Round 3 Update
I have a couple of longer updates and posts in my draft form, but I can’t seem to get them finished, so wanted to give you a quick update on how Round 3 of chemo went. Overall, I am getting used to the routine and the cycle of chemo and I have been handling it…
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Chemo Days
Just a quick note to describe chemo day. If anyone (say, any middle schoolers reading this) wants a video instead, the prep video from Northwestern is actually pretty good. But basically, I start off the day with labs. This is to make sure that I’m healthy enough to proceed with chemo. Everything so far has…
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Hair
So, my hair is definitely gone! The materials said it would start to fall out around the 14 days after the first treatment and it did. (And so my playlist has been updated to add a few hair-related songs!) One quick note: there is a thing called cold capping that many women are successfully using…
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Round 2 of Chemo (with bonus good news)
So good news to start out Round 2! My labs looked good and most importantly, it looks like the tumor has already shrunk noticeably. I had thought I was feeling it shrink, but I was going to defer to the doctor to be sure. But this is good news for two reasons: I meet with…
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FAQ (Updated August 4, 2024)
A place to come for common questions we are fielding (aka FAQ): I’m new here: What’s going on? I (Carmin) have Stage 2 breast cancer. I was diagnosed shortly before turning 51. For more details on the type, it is ++- (ER positive, PR positive, HER negative). My Mammoprint score was a High 1, so…
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Week 1 Update
Well, I am 8 days out from the first chemo injection (picture from my injection) and many of you have asked how it went, so wanted to give an update. Overall, the answer is fine. It cycles through a variety of aches and pains, but mostly it felt like a combination of the flu and…
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The missed food tour (and other bad stuff)
So while I’m still riding the high of getting the “less evil” chemo and being excited to get going on this, I figured I would note that yeah, there is a lot of bad stuff here too. Also, this post was largely drafted while waiting to start chemo today. So, who knows how my mood…