"This is it, don't get scared now!" (Home alone, circa 1990)

Thursday is the big day! My last day of radiation treatment. I know in my last post, I wrote about radiation being pretty easy, I think I said "piece 'o cake". Well the last couple weeks have done me in. My skin is angry! Red, blistered, peeling, weeping. Disgusting, even to me, a nurse! The techs tell me whats happening to my skin is normal, expected, etc. Well, not normal to me! I feel sort of like a circus side show. It looks terrible! I feel fortunate though, part of the area being treated is still numb from my surgery, so I can only feel the pain of part of the burn (which is plenty at times!). 2 more days and I can mark radiation off this list! The kick-cancers-butt list.

Next week I have my repeat bone scan to look for the bone lesions seen on the CT scan I had back in April. I am getting a little nervous. I want so badly for the scan to be clean! I have never wanted anything so much. I am willing it to be negative, praying for it to be negative. I just can't accept anything less! My scan is on the 27th, and I have an appt on the 28th to get the results. I took the 28th off at work, and I hope it's a day of celebration! Ya'll please pray for me, that we get good news and can just relax a little bit. I feel like breast cancer will always be sort of a shadow, hovering behind us, but I just really want this scan to be clean so I can at least try to move on... just focus on living for a while. Be done with treatment, done with doctor appointments every week, done with all the weird side effects of all these treatments!

Speaking of side effects, last week I was sitting on the couch, probably watching some rot-your-brain-reality-tv show, minding my own darn business....... and my left big toenail fell off. Yeah, you read that right. My toenail.....fell....off. Just about the whole thing too. Left a tiny little sliver of nail. It didn't hurt, didn't bleed. Just popped right off. I went and showed Steven and he really wasn't all that surprised. I wasn't surprised that he wasn't surprised. The weird and wide-ranging side effects of surgery, chemo and radiation will seriously take a toll on a lady, seems like nothing is surprising anymore!

But back to the toenail.....So I did what everybody does. I googled it. Looks like one of the chemo meds I was on can cause major nail problems, even months after chemo is done. The drug can cause nails to turn green and then black and then fall off. Google shows lots of gross pictures of that very thing happening too. (mine didn't turn green, just fell off, for the record). So the next day, I went to the nail salon at where else, but Walmart. Even though there is a sign in sheet at the desk, one of the nail techs always calls out "What you need? You need pedicure? You need gel nail?" etc. And they have to be halfway across the salon too. So I answered back, as quietly as I thought I could get away with, "I need my toenail fixed". Tech: "You need pedicure?",  Me: "No, I need my big toenail fixed". again the tech: "You want pedicure, sit over there", pointing. (lord give me strength! geez)

Ok at this point, all the customers are looking at me, and I say again, a bit louder, "No, I don't need a pedicure, my TOENAIL fell off, I need it fixed". So then the tech comes over to me, starts speaking some foreign language, with loud exclamations, then another tech joined the first one, more exclamations, looking from me and my bald head, back down to my little short toenail shard, and then back at me, then again with the pointing to my toe, more unintelligible exclamations.. At this point, I seriously wanted a big hole to open up right there in the Regal Nails floor and swallow me up! It was quite the spectacle. Finally they let me sit down in a pedicure chair. I explained to the gals that I had to take chemo and it can cause nails to peel or actually fall off. (I'm sure they didn't understand one word I said, but I felt like I at least had to try and explain myself, right?) They decided to make me an acrylic toenail. It looks good and as soon as they finished 'sculping' it, I felt(sort of) normal again. But what a weirdo experience. I felt like I walked in there naked or something, with a fungal toe or something that needed repair. Holy cow. But all is well. I have 10 toenails again, even if one is fake. They are painted purple for anyone curious :)

So, ya'll keep me in your prayers for this scan. And I will update sometime next week. Still holding on to Jeremiah 29:11.

love,
elisha