Fast facts (if you don’t have time to read the full post): Today is full of milestones! Today was chemo number eight. We have EIGHT chemos left! We are at the halfway point! Today was also the last chemo of my 20s. I brought in some cupcakes to celebrate my birthday early, to celebrate Pride month, and to celebrate nurse Rachael’s 40th birthday. There is ONE more major thing that happened today, but you will just have to read the long version to find out. I head to Spokane tomorrow at 8 am to meet my plastic surgeon and learn about how much fat I have on me to make two nice boobs!

TO THE LONG VERSION!

My younger sister and I are only sixteen months apart in age. It was a typical sisterly friendship growing up: everything I did, she generally tagged along. We annoyed each other, got each other in trouble, fought, and defended one another. She was the third wheel when my childhood best friend would come over for the weekend and often the subject of our jokes and pranks. She was my friend and my enemy.

One of my favorite memories was playing this random game called “monster truck.” To play, we would have two of us (generally me and my best friend) climb into bed and cover ourselves in all the pillows and blankets we could find. We would turn off the lights, turn on the black light and lava lamp and disco ball (because my room was lit as fuck), and if it was Saturday night we would have the wedding mix on 98.3 The Key radio playing in the background. While we are buried in the bed, the third person would be down the hallway and then they would run as fast as they could and jump on us while yelling “monster truck” as loud as possible! The first couple of rounds would be fun and we would all laugh and scream until someone would get hurt, which was normally my sister. She would scream bloody murder and we would try to bribe her with something to get her to shut up. Then the game would end, we would get in trouble, and have to go to bed.

Ah, those were the days.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being a kid and the privilege we had of growing up relatively carefree. We weren’t exposed to a lot of loss or major disease until we were in our teens. Then, everything seemed to collapse by the time I was seventeen, but that is a story for another day. And now within two back to back years, we have had several cancer diagnoses in our family including both my parents and several of my aunts and now me. Being a kid feels so far away. I crave for a moment where the weight of the world as an adult would not exist. I don’t have cancer, my parents didn’t have cancer, my older sister had her mom, and my extended family are cancer free. What would that world be like? Where would our lives be? Who would we be if cancer had not come into our personal spaces? Fucking cancer.

It doesn’t matter now since we are here and on the journeys that were predetermined in our genes (well not one of my aunts and my mom) but I still sometimes wonder.

I wish I had known sooner that I was BRCA1 positive. Wishing that feels stupid at this point. I hate that this fate has been tied into my DNA my entire life. I have always been destined to have cancer because of my gene mutation. It was written in the stars, and genetically, which is pretty fucked. I mean, I can still get other cancers in my life that are not caused by gene mutations. Cells gonna fuck up if they fuck up and write their DNA wrong. But I feel personally attacked by my own body. I feel betrayed and hurt. But there is nothing I can do about that now. I won the genetic lottery. My dad is BRCA 1 positive. There was a 50/50 chance that me and my two sisters would acquire the mutation. I was one of them. My older sister’s mom was BRCA2 positive and she had a fucked lottery ticket from both her mom and our dad to acquire both mutations or one or none. She was unlucky like me and is BRCA2 positive. But today we got amazing news.

My younger sister got her test results back and tested negative for both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations!!!! She will never have to worry about breast or ovarian coming after her as it relates to this mutation. I mean, she can still develop breast and ovarian at any time in her life, but her risk level is significantly lower than mine. And today, as an older sister I felt grateful that the genetic lottery picked me. I never want this experience for her and I could not be happier that she can rest easy tonight knowing her body isn’t plotting to kill her in this way.

Like most things in my life right now, life is working in mysterious ways. She got that information today on her way to pick me up to take me to chemotherapy and it really changed how I felt about chemo today. I feared that today could be an introduction to something she might have to do someday and instead it became just an experience for me to share with her that will continue to bond us over time. I’ve talked about it before, but my sister was my mom’s caregiver during her cancer treatment. Unfortunately, that was during the pandemic so she was unable to go with my mom to treatment because the cancer center was not allowing visitors during that time. I felt like today was the last missing piece to seeing the full experience of a cancer patient and I am grateful it was with me. I wish she could have been there for my mom because I know my mom needed it more than me, but here we are.

Life works in mysterious ways.

I really wanted to make the last chemo of 20s special. In true “guac is extra but so am I” fashion, I made homemade funfetti cupcakes (NO BOX SHIT HERE FOLKS) and rainbow Lisa Frank-esque homemade buttercream frosting. Nurse Rachael is a fellow Gemini and celebrated her birthday this past Sunday, so I brought in custom gluten free and dairy free cupcakes for her to enjoy. I like celebrating life these days. You never know if you get another year around the sun you know?

DOPE PHOTO INTERMISSION BREAK!!!!

Okay, so chemo today was weird as fuck. Good news: I put a shit ton of lidocaine on Harry Porter and didn’t feel a thing when the needle went in UNLIKE LAST WEEK. Nurse Kristin and Hanan made sure that I had the cold spray and I had to look away from the needle. I gave blood like a champ. We were on to a good start! By the time we got to the chemo ward, I was alllllll the way in the corner away from cancer patient society. It was oddly hot and lonely. My nurse didn’t seem very chatty with me and we were both frustrated because my metabolic panel took FOREVER to come back. My liver numbers are really high from chemo, so that means I cannot take pain meds or drink alcohol. I meet with my oncologist next week to see how she feels about my liver. Other than that, my numbers are looking good.

It took like 30 minutes for my panel to come back to get cleared from chemo to start premeds so that was the first delay. The second delay came from my first chemo of the day. Taxol took like an hour and a half to be delivered from the pharmacy. It takes an hour to do taxol and then only 30 minutes for carboplatin. I should have been out of chemo by like 3 pm and I didn’t leave until 5 pm. The snack bar was low and when I did my laps; a lot of the nurses were MIA. It was a weird day. But I saw a couple of my favorites and got to give Rachael her birthday surprises! You know I love giving gifts.

But I made it. I made it to the eight week mark! It was the last chemo of my 20s. Tuesday I turn 30 and then Thursday I will have chemo number nine as the first chemo of my 30s. Cancer was not in my 20s decade plan or my 30s to be honest, but I will save those thoughts for another post. This one is already a novel! Oops.

I have my appointment tomorrow in Spokane to meet with the plastic surgeons to talk about reconstruction and see what size of breasts can be crafted from my stomach! Spokane means a Trader Joes run. Much excite. And now, it is time to prepare for slumber. Your girl is a tired potato.

Today’s song lyrics of the day are brought to you by Rihanna. Duh.

“It’s not even my birthday
But he want to lick the icing off
I know you want it in the worst way
Can’t wait to blow my candles out
He want that

Cake, cake, cake, cake
Cake, cake, cake, cake
Cake, cake, cake, cake
Cake, cake, cake”

– Birthday Cake, Rihanna