Feeling better every day!

We are keeping on keeping on here at the Kinchen house. I am so excited to have a bit more energy (sometimes even a little more than our little guy has in him!) and thank goodness finally in the home stretch with radiation recovery...not going to lie, there were some tears involved with my poor skin healing. Everyone says radiation is the 'easy' part of treatment. Not in my case. It all sucked. Radiation recovery was awful for me. A constant burning pain on a huge part of my body. So. glad. it's. over. I have a follow up appointment this week with my radiation oncologist to make sure all is well there. I started Tamoxifen last week and don't have much to note on that thus far. I was already experiencing post menopausal symptoms from my chemo treatment, so this stuff can't scare me :) My hormones are super whacky right now, so, of course now, MORE doctors appointments!! Ugh. Ob-gyn, optometrist, allergist, physical therapist, surgeon, dentist...the list seriously goes on and on as far as medical doctors go and don't even get me started on my holistic list of crazy hippie peeps around town!  I'll see Dr. Jim in a few weeks to check in and from there will be on a 2 month schedule then 3 month routine visit schedule with him for the next 5 years! It's a whole new world for me. I have never in my life even had a regular family doctor that I saw unless it was once/twice a year for a cold. At least I like Dr. Jim.

Last call for our Labor Day party RSVPs!! (Don't worry, we will have some cushion for you last minute undecided folks, but if you know you can make it, let me know!)
Jennkinchen2013@gmail.com

Love
Jenn

Well...maybe I am a little RELIEVED!!!

Turns out, I AM relieved that this cancer treatment is finally OVER!! I woke up today like it was Christmas. Extra early. Couldn't go back to sleep. Lately, I've been running again and thought that I would take an exercise vacay this morning. Sleep in. Relax. It's my last day of radiation treatment. Been a crazy year. I deserve a break.

But at 6 am when I was about to roll back over in bed, I thought, hell no. Today is MY DAY!! I am going to treat myself in the best possible way and the first part of that mission is to get my ass out there and hobble my tired out of shape self to the end of the neighborhood to see the pink clouds and the sun rise and THANK GOD FOR THE AMAZING DAY. So I did. And seriously, if you live in south Austin and see the crazy one booby bald lady trying to make it up the hill, don't worry, it's just me... and I'm going to make it. Don't feel bad for me, or pull over and ask if I need help, or even think, man, if she can do it, so can I. Well, maybe you can think the 3rd one (and you can also laugh and point a little bit if you want! haha. I am quite the sight out there!).

Jonathon, Aunt Stinky, Aunt Boog and my little monkey, Austin, came for my last and final radiation treatment. The therapists have a little celebration for the final round...they toss confetti and do a little 'woohoo!' I never told yall, but they do the same kind of celebration in the infusion room. The nurses ring bells and all cheer as patients walk out from their last chemo infusion treatment. I declined my last chemo celebration. I just wanted to sneak out of there like none of it ever happened. haha. I even went to my last treatment alone so no one had to decide if they should cheer or cry or both with me. Well, this time, I rallied my team and decided that we should do all of the above! I started ugly face crying before I even got a sprinkle of confetti on my head. Wanted to share the celebration with you because I felt like each of you deserved some confetti too!! Just cannot tell you how thankful I am for the day. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Isn't that sweet?! Austin and I say it all day long (he's usually thankful for the food and I try and point out some of the 'and our many blessings' parts). heehee.

WIN THE DAMN DAY folks.
Love
Jenn

I'll bet you're sooooo relieved!!

22 down...6 more radiation treatments to go! Everyone keeps asking me if I'm totally relieved that treatment is over. Well, I'm honestly not. I'm terrified. What in the heck am I talking about?? Since October my family and I have been through some tough times. Why in world would I not want to get to the end of this (whatever the end and this means? I have no idea)?!

The specialist I saw in Houston explained to me that many of her triple negative breast cancer patients are still anxious about the end of treatment no matter how awful it is...why?? Because there's not much out there in terms of medical maintenance treatments to keep the cancer at bay. Even though chemo didn't prove to be that great for me anyway, for some reason I felt kind of safe in that phase (umm...maybe a little less safe when the tumor started growing again. Ha!). Radiation makes me feel like at least I'm doing something extra to blast anything weird going on in my righty area, but when this is over, I'll be back to trusting my body to do the right thing and flush cells that aren't supposed to be there out instead of letting them take over like we found out happened in October with the breast and lymph node lumps. I'm having a hard time trusting that my body knows what to do! It sounds harsh, but I feel like it failed me. I gave my system an F and I'm having a hard time allowing all of the extra credit projects I've been working on (healthy eating, exercise, praying, weirdo hippie stress management strategies...) to get that grade up in my books. I'm working on letting go of this grudge I'm holding against myself for the incident with Righty. Trust in God. Pray. Be thankful for the day.

So that leads to the conversation about Lefty. Shouldn't I just cut that baby off too?! Maybe, but as all of my medical professionals have told me (and this is really hard to hear and to say out loud), having a left side mastectomy in no way is going to prolong my life. If I'm hoping that I will get more cancer free years out of that surgery, that has been disproven (is that a word?) time and time again (at least for people like me...there are many other people that this does benefit in that way!) Ouch. Statistically, I have the same chances of recurrence whether I have another surgery to remove my left breast or not. If I choose to have a left side mastectomy it will purely be for my peace of mind (and so I can avoid getting arrested for indecent behavior because I'm doing self breast exams all day in public. haha). We will revisit this topic at a later time. I know for now, if I had to have the surgery, I could make it through recovery, but since I don't, I AM TIRED and definitely would be exhausted with another surgery. Putting a bookmark here for now...

I had a heart to heart with Dr. Jim. We didn't chat much about cancer specifically, we chatted about what my job from here on out is...and that is to live my dang life. Every moment is precious. These moments cannot be wasted. Yes, cancer might come back across our path (I honestly don't know statistically what my prognosis is and don't know that I want to know), but so can many other things (like the time I almost ran my car off the road because I thought I felt another lump in lefty!). Haha. Seriously. Worrying about cancer, I almost crashed my car into a freaking light pole! I have to work on how in the heck I am not going to allow this to take away from all of the amazing moments I do have. That's quite a job. Between that and taking care of this little guy, I think I deserve a dang WIN THE DAY RAISE!!

A few more updates from Dr. appts:

- My white counts are a little low (not neutropenic. yay!) and my reds are much lower (not transfusion low. yay! but definitely anemic and energy level low). I am so dang tired. When I sit down, my body literally melts into the couch. Good thing Austin keeps me on the move because exercise actually is one of the only things I can do to kick those red cells into production. First step though is that I have to have enough red cells to carry oxygen to my legs so I can get off the dang couch! haha. 
- My vitamin D levels are really low (I have not had a good session in the sun for MONTHS!! It's sooo hot I've been getting awful heat rash bumps from just a few minutes outside and I have to cover up my radiation treatment area). Going on a prescription strength dose for a couple of months and then will re-check
- I will start Tamoxifen in 2 weeks for 5-10 years. The pathology came back the 2nd time slightly ER+ (2-4%). This is really low, but this means that a clone from the original tumor survived and grew that was ER+. Tamoxifen may benefit me in staying ER+ cancer free. Yay! Menopausal Jenn is just around the corner...thank goodness I have another drug reaction to blame on me being a wierdo! haha
- Because I did not qualify for the vaccine trial for the Her-2 protein study, my team is not recommending that I take Herceptin as a maintenance treatment. This has not been proven to have a benefit yet for people like me...another place to put a bookmark for now...P.S. I've tried to talk about this trial to a couple of people lately and I get all teary and upset. Why?? It kind of reminds me of when I was expecting a baby girl for months and everyone told me how I would be such a great 'girl mom' they really couldn't see me as a 'boy mom,' but then when we found out in the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy that I was actually having a boy, everyone switched their story...they really secretly thought that I would be a way better 'boy mom.' Haha. Everyone was super excited for me to be a part of the trial and thought it could have great benefit for me, but now that I didn't have the blood markers to qualify me, there's not much benefit it might have had anyway...hmmm...I'm trusting that this is the best thing for me right now (and am honestly thankful to not have to take another drug)
- radiation update...pretty red and a little flaky and itchy in some spots. They reduced my prescription in the auxilla (armpit) area because it was getting pretty red. My throat is bothering me a bit. Feels like a lump in my throat and kind of sticks when I swallow. This will all go away a bit out of treatment. We are in the home stretch...
 -Since I will not be taking Herceptin (which has to be administered by infusion), I am going to have my port removed in a few weeks. This is a pretty simple procedure that my surgeon does right in his office. No big deal. Will also have another follow up at this time regarding the lump in my left breast. Dr. Bob took a look at it again a couple of weeks ago (ok, I forced him to get the ultrasound machine out and look at it again. If I could get my hands on one of those machines, I would seriously be 'ultrasounding' myself all.day.long. haha) and he found no changes from the time of the biopsy. All good news.

Get out there and live your dang life today friends (thank goodness those ultrasound machines are not for home use, so I can get out there too!!)

Win the Day!
Love
Jenn

6 years down...

check out our ring bearer trying to catch a peek of the smooch

July 5th this year caught J and I in a bit of a fog...took us a while to remember that today was our 6th anniversary (we thought it was our 8th!). Honestly, after this year's ups and downs, I feel like we should get a 2 year credit on our marriage :)

This is the last wedding pic I'll share because they're all about the same...I pretty much had a Corona bottle in front of my face the entire amazing evening (at least from what I remember of it!) and J had that same look on his face too (the damn, I'm a lucky guy look).

Love,
Jenn

Happy birth - oh look, it's a cupcake!!!

Happy birthday Jonathon! Austin couldn't even get through the first verse, he was so distracted by the Lick ice cream in front of him...hahaha. Love this (and my guys)!

Keeping Austin Weird

Had so much fun with my mom and sisters (and sister from another mister-and mom-haha, Auntie Maaya) doing the Keep Austin Weird 5k this weekend. I finished a mile, cut across and waited for my crew to come back through and finished the last mile with them. Didn't want to overdo it. It was HOT (which is why Jonathon and Austin stayed home and watched a movie and ate ice cream instead), but the shots and wine helped me get to that finish line. haha. Reminded me of how dang lucky I am to be in a city I LOVE and spend time with my favorite girls (who put on all of the ridiculous gear I brought and rocked it all the way to the 5k mark in the hot as heck Texas heat).

Justice (aka the khajiit) tamed a velociraptor.

SHOTS!! Love Boog's face. This was mile 3...mom's elvis side burns were a little frazzled at that point and I only had 1 eyelash left...just my luck!!

We waited until the crowd went through and started the race in dead LAST place...but lots of weirdos were distracted by the alcohol stops, so we passed up at least 1/3 of the crowd before we got back around to the finish line!

A night with the girls was just what the doctor ordered and got all of us in gear to be a little more active leading up to the race...and we are working on a plan for our next race...maybe in the fall when it's not 200 degrees outside at 8 pm and I have to wear long sleeves to cover up my radiation field!!

Speaking of radiation...16 down...12 to go! I'm pretty darn tired. My skin's a bit 'burned' and tender, but nothing else too exciting to report. Makes sleeping a bit of a challenge because I'm still recovering from surgery on one side, biopsy on the other and then add in the burn and heat rash. AAAAHHH!! I got a kink in my neck trying to turn over in bed a couple of nights ago. haha. I'm ready for a vacay. Thank goodness I get a 3 day weekend because the center is closed for the 4th on Friday. yay! Have to keep reminding myself my body will heal soon. This is temporary. I am going to be okay!! Hopefully, all will stay on track and this phase will be over in a couple more weeks. 

If you haven't gotten an invite yet to our fun family and friends Win the Day party planned in Austin on 8/31 in your inbox...it's because I don't have your email!! Send it to me now please :) Need RSVPs by the end of July to get our bbq order in at Salt Lick and make sure we have enough bouncy houses and s'mores on the fire pit for everyone...yummmm...did I distract you from your task? SEND ME YOUR EMAIL or RSVP if you can make it!

Keep being WEIRD, we love you that way. 

Love
Jenn
jennkinchen2013@gmail.com