Call me a moron

Let's start at the beginning. I forgot to blog yesterday. Completely forgot. It slipped my mind completely. But I do have an excuse, we had a small college reunion here yesterday afternoon and I was busy getting ready.

I also am a moron because I lost one of my favorite earrings yesterday at the party. I am still scouring the house  as we speak and hope it will turn up but not very optimistic because it is a small stud earring, but relatively valuable and sentimental as well because my husband gave me the pair.

Next on the list on Friday morning I thought I had a refill on my Tramadol (breakthrough pain medication) but when I went to refill it, the pharmacy told me that because the law changed (and I was supposed to know that how?), it can no longer be automatically refilled because it is one of those kind of medications (meaning it has 'street value' - all good drugs have street value. So I called my pain management doctor and begged to have a refill called in on Friday so I didn't run out over the weekend - this would have made me very cranky for said party.

Usually on Saturday afternoons, my big project is to refill our pill bottles and make sure we are both set for the week. I didn't do that yesterday because of the party. This morning I got up and my first task was to fill our pill boxes. This is when I realized that I don't have enough Lyrica to make it through the week. In fact I have enough for 2.5 days. This is a problem. Lyrica withdrawal is nasty. I did it once before and it was two weeks of hell.

I get Lyrica through mail order because of the cost. It is expensive. Normally it takes at least a week to get a mail order refill. Crap. And its Sunday. So here is my plan:

Step 1 - switch from 2 tablets daily to one a day. That will get me to Friday.
Step 2 - called my pain management doctor again and made another begging phone call to ask for two months supply to mail order AND a five or ten day supply to my local pharmacy for an expensive bandaid to carry me over.

But I won't have an answer until tomorrow to see if I can keep my fibromyalgia under control and avoid Lyrica withdrawal...

I NEVER mess up my meds. I always have a week's cushion built in so I don't run into these problems. 

Yes you can call me a moron for all of this. But I can also blame chemo brain, fibro fog and what ever else I have.

And if you happen to find the earring I lost yesterday, please feel free to let me know.

Unemployment after chemotherapy

In May 2007, two weeks prior to my breast cancer diagnosis, I was laid off from my full time job. That is the last full time job I have worked. I was a rocket scientist and decided I could job hunt between surgeries and while going through chemo. I ended up returning to a part time job I had held before - lucky me, they had an opening.

Now it turns out I am not alone. New research (because we always need new research) shows that women who undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer are much more likely to become unemployed. (They didn't tell us about that little factoid when we were making treatment decisions.)

"Dr. Reshma Jagsi of the University of Michigan Health System and her colleagues studied 2,290 women in the Los Angeles and Detroit areas diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2007. They spoke with more than 1,500 of them four years later.

About 1,000 of the women were under 65 and interviewed both times, and of them, 76 percent had paid jobs before they were diagnosed.

The women who got chemo were less likely to still be working four years later, they reported in the journal Cancer. The researchers found that 38 percent of the women who got chemo were jobless four years later, versus 27 percent of the women who skipped chemo..."

"The findings don’t surprise breast cancer experts. “For the vast majority of patients, side effects are manageable and they can improve after, but some patients don’t feel fully functional for the long term,” said Dr. Jennifer Litton, a breast oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston."

In my case, I worked two part time jobs for a total of about 30 hours/week for a few years after chemo and radiation ended. Since my rheumatoid and fibromyalgia diagnoses I have cut back to one part time job for 15-18 hours/week. Sometimes that is even difficult.

Even with out RA and fibromyalgia, I am not sure I would be able to do my previous jobs again. As marketing director for a medium sized non profit, I was multi-tasking, putting out fires, and jumping through hoops as I hands on managed and over saw an on-and offline marketing plan. My brain is fried. I get tired. My chemobrain kicks in and I have no memory of what I did 10 minutes ago. I don't trust myself to do as much as I used to.

Now I do marketing for a small family owned business. When I took the job, we discussed the fact that it was clearly a step back for me career wise. I told them my life had changed in that I had gotten married and was looking for a job where I wasn't traveling, wasn't managing a bunch of people, and could go to work and go home. That has become even more real. 

Now I leave myself notes all over the place on what needs to be done because there is no way I could remember it all. I have flexibility to go to doctor appointments and for the days when I am too tired. I can manage my schedule around my health issues. And I don't have to worry that I might overextend myself because I can handle my little job.

This new research shows me that I am not alone and there are many other women out there who don't work or work in lesser jobs because of chemotherapy.

Call me a moron

Let's start at the beginning. I forgot to blog yesterday. Completely forgot. It slipped my mind completely. But I do have an excuse, we had a small college reunion here yesterday afternoon and I was busy getting ready.

I also am a moron because I lost one of my favorite earrings yesterday at the party. I am still scouring the house  as we speak and hope it will turn up but not very optimistic because it is a small stud earring, but relatively valuable and sentimental as well because my husband gave me the pair.

Next on the list on Friday morning I thought I had a refill on my Tramadol (breakthrough pain medication) but when I went to refill it, the pharmacy told me that because the law changed (and I was supposed to know that how?), it can no longer be automatically refilled because it is one of those kind of medications (meaning it has 'street value' - all good drugs have street value. So I called my pain management doctor and begged to have a refill called in on Friday so I didn't run out over the weekend - this would have made me very cranky for said party.

Usually on Saturday afternoons, my big project is to refill our pill bottles and make sure we are both set for the week. I didn't do that yesterday because of the party. This morning I got up and my first task was to fill our pill boxes. This is when I realized that I don't have enough Lyrica to make it through the week. In fact I have enough for 2.5 days. This is a problem. Lyrica withdrawal is nasty. I did it once before and it was two weeks of hell.

I get Lyrica through mail order because of the cost. It is expensive. Normally it takes at least a week to get a mail order refill. Crap. And its Sunday. So here is my plan:

Step 1 - switch from 2 tablets daily to one a day. That will get me to Friday.
Step 2 - called my pain management doctor again and made another begging phone call to ask for two months supply to mail order AND a five or ten day supply to my local pharmacy for an expensive bandaid to carry me over.

But I won't have an answer until tomorrow to see if I can keep my fibromyalgia under control and avoid Lyrica withdrawal...

I NEVER mess up my meds. I always have a week's cushion built in so I don't run into these problems. 

Yes you can call me a moron for all of this. But I can also blame chemo brain, fibro fog and what ever else I have.

And if you happen to find the earring I lost yesterday, please feel free to let me know.

My story is that I have chemo brain, fibro fog and something else I don't remember....

Now I might be able to also claim Tamoxifen fog. I was on tamoxifen for two years so now I have something else. But I think there is still something else. I just can't remember.

I still think there is something else...

I know I have chemo brain. I had chemo and my brain has gaps and I cant remember things. I know I have fibro fog. I have fibromyalgia and now I can't remember names or words for things.

But now I know I also have 'cognitive decline from breast cancer hormone treatment' due to my Femara treatment.

""Decline in cognitive function is common in patients receiving adjuvant therapy for early-stage breast cancer," concluded Dr. Rugo, director of the Breast Oncology Clinical Trials Program at the University of California, San Francisco. "Ongoing hormone therapy appears to be a risk factor for worse cognitive function."

I'm doomed. I can't remember anything these days.

But I still think there is something else that I can't remember....

Unemployment after chemotherapy

In May 2007, two weeks prior to my breast cancer diagnosis, I was laid off from my full time job. That is the last full time job I have worked. I was a rocket scientist and decided I could job hunt between surgeries and while going through chemo. I ended up returning to a part time job I had held before - lucky me, they had an opening.

Now it turns out I am not alone. New research (because we always need new research) shows that women who undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer are much more likely to become unemployed. (They didn't tell us about that little factoid when we were making treatment decisions.)

"Dr. Reshma Jagsi of the University of Michigan Health System and her colleagues studied 2,290 women in the Los Angeles and Detroit areas diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2007. They spoke with more than 1,500 of them four years later.

About 1,000 of the women were under 65 and interviewed both times, and of them, 76 percent had paid jobs before they were diagnosed.

The women who got chemo were less likely to still be working four years later, they reported in the journal Cancer. The researchers found that 38 percent of the women who got chemo were jobless four years later, versus 27 percent of the women who skipped chemo..."

"The findings don’t surprise breast cancer experts. “For the vast majority of patients, side effects are manageable and they can improve after, but some patients don’t feel fully functional for the long term,” said Dr. Jennifer Litton, a breast oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston."

In my case, I worked two part time jobs for a total of about 30 hours/week for a few years after chemo and radiation ended. Since my rheumatoid and fibromyalgia diagnoses I have cut back to one part time job for 15-18 hours/week. Sometimes that is even difficult.

Even with out RA and fibromyalgia, I am not sure I would be able to do my previous jobs again. As marketing director for a medium sized non profit, I was multi-tasking, putting out fires, and jumping through hoops as I hands on managed and over saw an on-and offline marketing plan. My brain is fried. I get tired. My chemobrain kicks in and I have no memory of what I did 10 minutes ago. I don't trust myself to do as much as I used to.

Now I do marketing for a small family owned business. When I took the job, we discussed the fact that it was clearly a step back for me career wise. I told them my life had changed in that I had gotten married and was looking for a job where I wasn't traveling, wasn't managing a bunch of people, and could go to work and go home. That has become even more real. 

Now I leave myself notes all over the place on what needs to be done because there is no way I could remember it all. I have flexibility to go to doctor appointments and for the days when I am too tired. I can manage my schedule around my health issues. And I don't have to worry that I might overextend myself because I can handle my little job.

This new research shows me that I am not alone and there are many other women out there who don't work or work in lesser jobs because of chemotherapy.