“Anything is possible”

Six days now after my first Chemo cocktail and wooooooooof!  What a smack in the face or eye opener or game changer or whatever you think you would want to call it. I have no words but I MADE IT! So remember when I blogged right after the New Year saying something about macro counting, exercising, etc.  OK well scratch that. That shit went right out the window on day three. Here’s a brief recap of the past six days ... scary but true and it’s real talk.... Came home that evening feeling everything in my body. Could not be touched and the cat and dog could not come near me at all. Felt every inch of my body lit up like a damn Christmas tree of poison. Managed to sleep that night with some gummies from the grace of god but also woke up in a pool of sweat. Had no energy to change clothes. Felt like a triathlon transition station but it wasn’t. Next day, tired and awake. OK I can do this says ME!  Sucking down water, juice, and anything appetizing. Moving on, holy crap I feel...

The day has finally arrived .... Yeaaaaa Chemo Day!  I’m beyond excited and nervous to officially officially start this journey. Today is one day closer to finishing! Speaking of finishing ... if all goes as scheduled, I will finish in April.  Happy 40th Birthday to me! Total rager I’m having for sure.  I haven’t blogged in a week or so now so here are some updates (just waiting for my “chemo cocktail” ... it’s 5 o’clock somewhere right?). The Italian noodle biopsy came back reconfirming Classic Hodgkins Lymphoma. All great news! Nothing funky showed up. The week of steroids was rough. I mean 50mg!?? And with no taper!  Let’s just say I had a rough week or so with a major come down... it wasn’t easy and like I noted earlier, steroids are my arch nemesis.  Now onto the fun stuff.  What is a “Chemo Cocktail?”  It may sound refreshing or some what citrusy but it’s not. My official cocktail is called ABVT. Educational documentation below ☺️ A lot of side e...

Today was my CORE biopsy at Sloan. Tammy drove me in and of course I drove myself home (she had to pick her battles that day).  The procedure went really really well.  I was in and out in less than an hour and felt absolutely no discomfort during the procedure at all. They did numb the skin so I can’t take full credit of being a total beast with my tolerance to pain but supposedly I was with the best, Dr. Lee.  The experience being awake and seeing a biopsy happen to yourself is quite crazy. You basically see them doing an ultrasound on the node and a large needle go through the biopsy screen, take a sample from the node and pull out. Astonishing! I love donating to science. Dr. Lee said I could let her know if she was doing a great job or not HA!  I left with a biohazard ziplock bag of bandaids, ice packs and a stress ball. Fun stuff! Speaking of fun. Dr. Hamlin’s office reached out on Thursday letting me know that I had to start a 50mg steroid the Saturday after th...

Sloan Kettering keeping their facilities safe with weekly COVID testing for patients. Thank you for keeping everyone (including guests) safe and healthy for all appointments and visits. 

Le sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......  BIG MOOD!  I was really hoping for a start date on treatment of 1/12 but my specialist Dr.  Hamlin is requesting ANOTHER biopsy.  This particular biopsy is called a CORE biopsy (it's an outpatient procedure and I will not be put under).  According to Dr. Wong (who diagnosed me and booked this procedure with his team) is basically saying we need another needle stuck into my neck of NODES.  Honestly at this point, because my patience level is -64577755478  would rather take the yellow sharpie highlighter on my desk and stick it into my neck myself for a cell sample.  Sorry if that's intense but it's what I'm feeling (know your audience Stephanie).  This time around, he describes the needle and testing as something like a spaghetti like needle or linguine or some sort of Italian pasta looking thing taking more cells from the NODES to truly diagnose them.  In my head I'm like "didn't we already do this?" ...

Been a little quiet through the holidays on "blogging" ... What is the saying "New Year, New Me"?  Well for me it's New Year same me but I have a bunch of NODES in my neck.  So what are your New Year's resolutions that you actually stick to?  Mine is "Unsubscribing" to all email promos.  I've been doing it for years now and it's absolutely amazing!  Something simple to do every New Year's day (hungover or not) and something where the bar is not set too high where it's unattainable. Speaking of setting bars... I'm mentally preparing to keep myself busy during treatments but at the same time stay safe and healthy.  Obviously the first one is diet and exercise.  I plan on fine tuning my plant based diet (with some cheats of course because I'm HUMAN) and really make sure I hit my strength training three times a week (obviously the cardio training comes easier to me - god I miss swimming).  Again things that keep my mind busy.  M...