Breast Cancer Warrior: My Unresearched but Maybe Somewhat Helpful Guide to Dealing with Postpartum Chemotherapy

The adage “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry” seems pretty applicable when you’re going through a tough time. I think that’s why I tend to lean toward humor whenever I’m faced with a challenge, and it’s typically worked well for me over the years. I realize at the moment I’m going through a double-challenging time. Postpartum can be chaotic and overwhelming, and coupling it with a cancer diagnosis and treatment is, quite frankly, a lot. Still, thinking of the “best medicine” of laughter, I can keep myself feeling relatively normal-ish.

There are some side effects that are sort of tough to tell if they’re from the chemo or from being postpartum. I swear it would be super helpful if there was a how-to guide on the market, like a So You’ve Been Diagnosed with Breast Cancer at the End of Pregnancy and Now You’re Dealing with Chemo after just Having Pushed a Watermelon-Sized Human Out of Your Body: For Dummies.

via GIPHY

It could answer so many questions! Usually my BFF when it comes to quick searches for kid issues and teacher prep materials, Google has been fairly inadequate in addressing issues about my particular cancer diagnosis. Note that I do know Google is certainly not the end-all research tool; I do teach college composition, after all. However, I also know from my work as a teacher that, tragically, most people won’t look much beyond the first page of a Google search result when conducting research, especially casual research to answer immediate questions.

If I find others in my same scenario and compile their insight, maybe I can create this guide. Until then, I’ve decided to go ahead and be my usual somewhat silly self here and share some of my ponderings from treatment during this unusual time. I’ll add where my searches have led me astray, and my own random conclusions:

When your hair is falling out, how can you tell whether it’s that postpartum hair loss or the Taxotere kicking in?

Google’s Search Results: Articles about postpartum hair loss, mainly, as well as a surprising story about a woman who went completely bald postpartum. Mayo’s site about chemo-related hair loss was thrown in, too. (And, of course, some links led to ads for exciting hair implants.)

My Unscientific Answer: If you can make a legit wig (or meal) for your Cabbage Patch Doll with the hair you pull out casually scratching your head, then it’s probably the chemo. If it’s some stray strands falling out with a brush or in the shower, then it’s postpartum. Maybe? I do remember being unhappily surprised with the amount of hair I lost after my second child. 


Scarf and shades = 1960's movie star vibes?

 When you’re dealing with haywire emotions, how can you tell if they’re from the chemo/cancer or from  postpartum hormones?

Google’s Search Results: Lots of links to postpartum depression screenings and women’s blog stories about PPD. Helpful certainly in some scenarios, but not what I need.

My Unscientific Answer: If you grew teary-eyed over that stinkin' adorable Pampers commercial and spent half the night cuddling your new munchkin, it's the "baby blues"; if emotions affect your ability to cope/parent, they may be linked to postpartum depression. If they seem tethered to an extreme annoyance/frustration with cancer, my money's on the chemo.

 Was that bizarre acne attack that I had the week after chemo caused by the chemo itself or a weird combination of postpartum hormones, stress, and the steroids I was given with chemo?

Google’s Search Results: A combination of posts from women dealing with postpartum acne and people who underwent chemo sharing their home remedies for acne. The phrase “natural ingredients” is tossed around quite a bit.

My Unscientific Answer: Jury’s still out on this one. I’m also not sure what fixed it-- the prescription one of the oncologists gave me or my own combination of products I gathered at Walgreens. What I do know is that my face cleaned up quickly but was dry as sandpaper last week-- and the frigid winter air is probably only partly to blame. I do long for spring, though.

Is that horrible neck and hip pain I had the weekend after chemo 100% related to that Neulasta shot that stimulates white blood cell growth in my bone marrow, or was the pain amplified due to the weird hip and spine issues I had during the last trimester of pregnancy? (And, if so, can I have that super helpful D.O. adjust me again?)

Google’s Search Results: Fairly helpful this time around, showing me a list of side effects from Neulasta, including people who experienced hip pain and neck stiffness to varying degrees.

My oncologist and nurses (ah-ha! A trusted resource!): You can go ahead and try an adjustment, but the bone pain will likely still continue to some degree. This seems to be due to the depth, location, and cause of the pain. 

My Unscientific Answer: I’m thinking this is related to the shot mainly, but I’m sure the way my hips and pelvis shifted during pregnancy didn’t help. Just before I was adjusted in December, the doctor showed me how one of my legs was actually two inches shorter than the other due to my pelvic bone’s movement during pregnancy. Intriguing! It certainly explained that gangsta preggo limp I'd developed.

While maybe not terribly credible, perhaps this can be a starting point for others in a similar situation (or simply a little lighthearted, free therapy). I’ll always value laughter and the strength it can lend. Although not directly connected, I’ve always seen a tie between the adage of the importance of laughter and Bible verses about how we humans aren’t of this world so we have to be greater than it. Even if we have a body that feels weak and awfully mortal at times, we also have a soul that can be much more durable than that. So laugh, don’t cry (well, sometimes-- tears are therapeutic, too), and be stronger than you think you can be.

Breast Cancer Warrior: Buying Chemo

There is a setting in my vehicle for driving in snow and ice. When I flip that switch, the SUV slows down.You can feel the wheels pulling more cautiously at the road, feeling tentatively for traction and taking the time to confirm that they've secured it. It feels more sluggish to drive in this setting. The car doesn't really want to move faster than 40MPH, and, to be honest, that's about as fast as I'd want to go on slick roads anyway. I felt that way during the first week after chemotherapy. It's like my body was moving more sluggishly, more tentatively through its environment. Hopefully, like with my vehicle's features, it was with a purpose-- my body calculating what it needed and working to gain the upper hand against cancer. There was now an official war waging inside my body between an intense drug cocktail and the existing tumor invasion, and a large part of my energy had to be shifted over to battle.

"What are the advantages of doing chemo?" I'd asked my oncologist the week before. "Can we just do surgery? Can't we just cut the tumor out and skip chemo?" It seemed simple in my non-medical mind: cut out the bad piece and things would go back to normal, right?

He explained the issues with trying to remove a large, growing tumor, and how we would need to reign in its growth before surgery. "That is where chemotherapy comes in. With an aggressive tumor, we need to do the chemo first to stop its spreading. There is also the possibility, if the tumor shrinks enough, that you would need a less invasive surgery."

Chemo scared me. Whenever I pictured "chemo patient" in my mind, I imagined a bald, frail, sickly person. I wanted to be strong and present for my kids, my husband, my friends, and my students. How could I attend to all my responsibilities if I wasn't at my best condition? It was tough to mentally wrap my mind around slowing myself down. I wanted to live at my normal pace. I don't like being still for long. I typically don't even like spending an entire day at home.

A lot of my fear about chemo was a fear of the unknown. I would have to face my fear, especially when the MRI confirmed the large size of the tumor: 6cm by 3.5cm by 6cm. It had grown quite a bit since the earlier estimate at the biopsy the month before, and I was starting to understand what my oncologist meant about it being "aggressive". We had to rage war against this thing, stat.

Another fear was of simply putting a bunch of drugs into my body. As I joked to my husband the day before chemo, "I eat a ton of veggies and I don't even drink soda. Are these weird chemicals going to send my body into shock?" The only "prescription" I'd been taking for the last few years was a prenatal vitamin, for Pete's sake. Now I was just supposed to pour a bunch of hardy drugs straight into my veins? Wouldn't my system be overwhelmed? Would it go into some kind of lock-down? Would it send out the missile defense? Was there a secret self-destruct button some understated organ like my liver or kidneys would push when they tasted Taxotere?

I realized that I had to shove my worries aside. We can let our fears get the best of us, but that only leads to other negative emotions. I could instead focus on the positive. Bringing something fun to do, trying to get a laugh out of my oncology nurses, and joking with my ever-entertaining husband would make chemo a less frightening environment. I took a few deep breaths and felt at peace that, even though I was walking through a tough time now, everything would work out eventually. Family and friends were praying for me, I was praying for strength myself, and I had a team of physicians who listened to me diligently and answered all my questions. Between God and the medical staff, I felt like I had a pretty powerful team on my side in this cancer battle, which encouraged me and minimized my dreaded fear. I was ready to go to war packing that hardy and brutal ammunition known as chemotherapy.