Being the only girl and the youngest in my family, you could say I was never starved for attention. I always enjoyed being in the limelight. Being front & center came naturally to me. As a little girl I was in dance school and couldn’t wait to be on stage at the end of the dance year for the recital, I was in all the school plays and easily made friends. 

  
Today I would say I am still pretty much the same girl. Although my love of the lime light has toned down quite a bit,  I still Love to make new friends, feel like I am easy to talk to outgoing and rarely hold back.

I started this blog for a few reasons and 1 of them was to be able to reach out and help other women who may find themselves in a similar situation as I did. Hearing the words “you have cancer” instantly changes your life. I’m not really sure what to compare it to or another way to describe it except it just plain old sucked to hear those words. To this day I am unsure when my exact anniversary is (although I know it today since it was just last week we celebrated 9 years!),  I really have to think about when Nates birthday is or even his phone number- but I will never forget March 28 and being diagnosed. I can play the phone conversation with the doctor back in my head in real time and the recall every detail of every moment after that day. Then came so many questions, uncertainties, my head became so filled with racing thoughts. 

It’s my goal to share my story with as many people as possible through this blog or any other avenue possible. To be able to help other women get through what I am going through. For me, it is just another way that I am beating down my cancer’s  ass and will help others beat theirs too! 

It does feel a bit strange at times being so open and feeling a bit on display. But, I am focusing on the good that will come from this. Answering another woman’s question about her hair falling out or how to deal with the mouth sores or something just as simple as how tell people you have cancer would be a privilege.  

As you can see (link below) I was interviewed by the Patriot Ledger last week and tomorrow I will be on the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund telethon. I’m a bit nervous to be on TV- that’s a totally new platform for me. Can’t be that hard right?!?!! Just show up with no hair, while I am very, very, very pregnant  and tell my story. Easy peasy…. I just keep saying to myself everything will be fine as long as I don’t go into labor and definitely pray my water doesn’t break when I am standing next to Big Papi for a picture! OMG- can you imagine if that happend😬. 

http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20150814/NEWS/150817423/11669/NEWS
I just want to say a HUGE thank you to everybody for supporting me through this blog, by doing so, you too are helping stomp out cancer!!!!!  Much love❤️❤️❤️
http://www.jimmyfund.org/events/cancer-fundraising-events/weei-nesn-jimmy-fund-radio-telethon/

Good news everybody… I am done with chemo! My oncologist said I don’t need anymore. Ever! And, made it through with about half my eyelashes- although I think they are falling out now- go figure,  and a about a quarter of my eyebrows! Until about 2 weeks ago, no hair was to be found anywhere on my body except in Pangea form, sporadically placed on the globe of my head. 

Chemo sucked! But it’s also has been my best friend for the last four months. I feel about chemo kind of like I felt about my parents when I was 14. I want to slam my bedroom door in its face and blame everything wrong in my life on it. When I know I can’t live with out it. It really does have my back and has saved my butt more than I want to admit. 

Looking back I want to say “it wasn’t that bad” but maybe it was… I really don’t know.  I’m not trying to be Mr. big tough guy here but there were times where I was confused if it was pregnacy symptoms or chemo problems. Nausea, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, constantly feel the need to tinkle, crampy, tired, irritable- just naming a few here. My oncologist told me numerous times that her pregnant ladies did exceptionally well on chemo, better than her regular breast cancer patients. What, being pregnant gave me some kind of superwoman power that reigned over chemo?  I assumed she was just helping me with mind over matter and feeding some of my own holistic medicine, after all,  who does exceptionally well on chemo therapy especially when pregnant? Wouldn’t this be the worst combo ever? It made sense to me to set up the infirmary in my bedroom and call for reinforcement.  But, the good ol doc was right. I think I did do pretty well. Don’t get me wrong I had my moments where I needed to be cotteled and tucked into bed like a little girl. But, whether it was the pregnancy, all the prayers or just plain winning at chemo lottery- I did it and its over! 

I would get my chemo on a Wednesday, lets call that day 1. 

Day 1, I would go home with a little fog on my brain. I really enjoyed that fog- it was closest thing to having a drink so I welcomed the much needed escape of reality and enjoyed the silly, annebriated like state it left me in. As the fog lifted from my brain, a slight tiredness and over all weakness rolled in and took its place, pretty standard for days 2,3,4. Then came the chemo cocktail hangover -days 5,6,7,8 ugh! The days I would brace for until the side effects started to fizzle out after day 8. Most chemo works pretty cyclical- what happens during cycle 1 should repeat again for the following cycles and that held almost true for me. 

For those of you that are reading this who may be starting chemo or are in a similar boat as me- everyone is different and has a variation of different side effects of treatment.  I truly felt my side effects were more of the uncommon ones and will go through them in a seperate blog post as this post is starting to get a bit lengthy. 

So now, my attention is on finishing growing my precious little bun in the oven here. And boy is it growing! This is me today at 36 weeks! 

 
I am zeroing in on eating clean, quality foods to help my body heal and recover from being beaten down not just from the chemo but from the pregnacy as well. I can feel the residual that has been left behind from the chemo as it has taken its toll on my joints, muscles and mental health. My body which was once my temple that was exercised almost daily, fed quality foods, avoided medications and use to have plenty of energy has been borrowed from me for my baby and highjacked from me by the cancer.  My baby is still sucking me dry – which I gladly give every ounce of myself for that little being to grow perfectly in there,  but I am ready to take back what the cancer has stolen from me…  I won’t mention the occasional pizza and bowl of ice cream here and there! But the ice cream I can assure you is organic with no HFCS and the pizza usually has tons of veggies on it. We will also ignore the french fries and watermelon combination that I just can’t seem to shake either😬!!! All of which seem to be a dietary requirement for me during this pregnancy. Everything in moderation right?! 

Bottom line… That’s a wrap for chemo!  Forever, completed, check, D-O-N-E!!! We are onto babyland!!! What I have been dreaming about for so long is finally coming true. We have just 4 hopefully short weeks to wait! 

Who’s ready to have a baby?!!!! 

Can you see it?!?!!!! It’s growing again! And it’s… jet black.

  
 About 4 weeks ago I had Golden Girls, old lady, white… and I mean WHITE hair. It was sporadic, thin and baby soft. I couldn’t help but think, if I let it grow, I would resemble a Gollum like creature. Since it’s not Halloween, we (meaning Nate and I) decided to start fresh and shave it all off, again. 

 I have to give Nate a shout out. Once again, he has exceeded all husbandly expectation. When you truly love someone, you would do anything for them. I am sure Nate never envisioned shaving my head as part of our ‘for better for worse’. But he did it always with affection and acceptance. I mean, I wouldn’t expect anything different from him… Especially since I scored on the best husband ever…. but really, it’s got to be a strange experience shaving your wife’s head eagle bald. Somehow he’s managed to be completely ‘normal’ about it (whatever normal is). 
Anyway, my hair is growing back and I couldn’t be happier about it. Now we wait and see if it continues to grow in black. I always wanted to see what I would look like with black hair. I always felt like I would be mysterious like with black hair. Short hair intrigued me too but prior to my diagnosis, I never had the cojones to cut it all off. Now, I’ve had short hair- which I’ve learned I’m clearly NOT a fan of (on myself). I have tried red hair, blue hair and lastly the bad ass no hair look. All of which have been ‘fun for now’, but I am totally looking forward to running a brush through some long thick hair again. That vision might not come to fruition till another year or so. In the mean time, I will pat my bunny, baby soft fuzz. No more bald eagle shaves, and hopefully Nate won’t have to ever shave my head again. Black, red, blue… it doesn’t matter. I’ve got hair growing and I’m stoked on it!  

Today in my blog I want to talk about sex. Specifically, the biological gender of my baby. What is it… Boy or girl? Any guesses out there?  So far everyone opinion sways way more to one side of the gender scale than the other. 

What determines the gender of a baby?

The sex of a baby is determined by the two sex chromosomes inherited from the parents. A baby will normally inherit one sex chromosome from the mother, and one from the father. A woman has two X chromosomes, so she can give either of her X chromosomes. The father can give either his X or Y chromosome.

So,  should I be buying pink or blue? First, I would like to say that I just hope for 2 arms for hugging,  2 cheeks to kiss, 2 adorable feet that I can’t wait to eat up. I have no preference of boy or girl baby- just a happy, healthy baby. 

But, isn’t it fun to guess? To put the good old wives tales to test and see if they really do pan out to be true. 

So what have I done so far? Not as many as I intended. I kind of got held up with some stupid cancer thing that got in my way and took up more of my time than I had planned. However, I did managed to do a few: 

The baking soda test

 I took a look at the chinease gender chart, 

My baby’s heart rate

skull theory 

How am I carrying

and lastly the needle test. 

Nathan, of course believes in none of this- he is waaaay to black and white for this kind of stuff. But that’s ok, we still love him and he laughs at me. 

What did the gender tests say? Well, they all kept coming back overwhelmingly the same gender. No discrepancies here. So, is it all sugar and spice or puppies and snails? Nothing has been officially confirmed by ultrasound or by a Doctor and I certainly have no idea what I am having but I have a 50/50 chance it a boy or girl. I am guessing here too!  So we will all just have to wait 5 more weeks and see what pops out!