[loricar3]

Thank you all on this post and on the other. Gerri, I was surprised to see that your cancer is very much like mine. But I'm very happy about this. I did go ahead and update my profile on this website, so I'm getting the hang of it.

I have lived a pretty "clean" life all along. I don't eat red meat, I've never smoked, I don't drink. I try very hard to hydrate every day. I also exercise between 4 and 5 times a week. Since my lumpectomy I've been able to walk but will add back aerobics with light weights today and see how that goes. If it works, great, if not, I'll walk. Physically I feel very good.

I was shocked by the cancer diagnoses as no one in my family has ever had it. My parents are still alive. No cancer. The clean living...well cancer doesn't care about all that apparently.

The only surgeries I ever had were a Tonsilectomy at age 10 and a DNC 14 years ago. But I did really well with the lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy. I was encouraged by that. My left arm feels great. I worked on raising it so much that it is better than the no-surgery arm now.

I'm not a big medicine person at all. I only take a tylenol or motrin if I really need it, so all this chemo and medicine talk flipped me out and put me on a new planet for sure. Then my oncologist was talking about a medicine to control the medicine. Yikes.

I saw my oncologist on Tuesday. She was tough with me, but I needed that. She said that I would be making a huge mistake if I didn't include chemo as part of my regimen. I was pretty upset, so I didn't commit right then. Instead, my husband and I went home, and I "slept" on it. Then I committed the next day and set all the appointments for all the "stuff".

I'm VERY encouraged to hear that people were able to work during treatment. I work out of the house, so that will likely help a lot. My other job...mommy job starts at 2:30 each day, and we'll see how that goes. My boys are very active and we're trying to keep their lives as normal as possible. So homework still happens and activities do too. I hope that we can continue to make that work. I'm learning how to ask for help.

My boys know that I have Breast Cancer. They know that I will loose my hair, and they've been very cool about it. Kids don't seem to care about things like that. They also know that it grows back, so no big deal. (I'll keep telling myself that--I can learn a lot from them).

Thank you again for all the good information. I'm learning, and I have a feeling that there is ALOT more to learn.