Chemo is finally over. Woot!

No more boring, six-​​hour-​​long days spent in the chemo ward… no more bur­ning arms from intra­ve­nous che­mi­cals cour­sing through my veins… no more mouth sores, numb toes and red eyes cau­sed by those few remai­ning eye­lashes acci­den­tally falling into my eye socket.

And, best of all, no more fuz­zi­ness cau­sed by that all-​​too com­mon side-​​effect: chemo brain.

I’ve had eight chemo ses­sions in all. It’s been a really tough five months, not so much with the chemo itself but with its after-​​effects, ran­ging from com­plete exhaus­tion to com­plete hair­loss. My fai­led attempts to retain wha­te­ver strands of hair I have left on my body seem like a cons­tant, losing battle.

Thank­fully, we’re done. And the hair will start gro­wing back in. (Michel, my won­der­ful hus­band, seems to have noti­ced a peach-​​fuzz-​​like growth on my scalp the other day. Ah, I knew I loved him for a reason!)

There’s a bit of a break before radia­tion starts, as there is a man­da­tory wai­ting period bet­ween treat­ment types. They only start in another cou­ple of weeks, so until then it’s a much nee­ded break.

I’m sche­du­led to have five weeks of daily radia­tion doses. That means, 15-​​minute hos­pi­tal visits, each day, for five weeks. (But the side-​​effects, I’m told, are a lot more mana­gea­ble than chemo!)

I did have to go back to the hos­pi­tal, though, for a radia­tion “pre­pa­ra­tion ses­sion.” That is, they explain the pro­ce­dure in-​​depth, and take mea­su­re­ments of my chest wall to cal­cu­late and “mark” exactly where the machine will be pla­ced during the pro­ce­dure, as to not affect any surroun­ding vital organs such as the heart.

This gave me a tem­po­rary moment of glory of sorts.

You see, my mother called me from Flo­rida the other day (she’s a snow­bird and flies south­ward for the win­ter months, where some of my family still live), and I unwi­llingly cau­sed a slight moment of panic when I told her, “Mom, I got my very first tattoo!”

She was relie­ved when I told her that my “tat­too” was really a tiny pinhead dot to guide the radia­tion machine that will be nuking my chest every day for the next five weeks. But I neverthe­less relished those few seconds when I almost made my mother faint. She also didn’t like my follow-​​up remark, which was, “And guess what? My next one is going to be a nip­ple!” (The uncon­tro­lla­ble gig­gling didn’t help things, either.)

The toughest part of this entire pro­cess thus far is, chemo truly knocks the wind out of me for a few days after each ses­sion. I can stand the mouth sores. I can stand the exhaus­tion (mind you, it’s a great excuse to nap during the day!). But my big­gest gripe is, above all, having to deal with “chemo brain.”

Doc­tors are not sure what cau­ses this. But it’s very com­mon among can­cer patients. And I can tell you that there were moments when I felt utterly dis­traught by my lack of focu­sed con­cen­tra­tion, my low men­tal energy, and my short-​​term memory lapses.

My poor family had to endure those occa­sio­nal moments of sheer fuz­zi­ness, where my foggy mind was a bit of a nui­sance at times. Aside from not being able to work for lon­ger periods of time to which I’m nor­mally accus­to­med, my mind pla­yed tricks on me that even cau­sed me to panic.

The other night, my hus­band and I were wor­king. My youn­gest daugh­ter was out, and it was past her cur­few. My hus­band, who was the first to notice, asked me: “Honey, do you know where Paige is?” If there was such a thing as a panic but­ton, it was cer­tainly being pres­sed at that moment. My heart was poun­ding. My pulse was racing. My head was aching. We were scram­bling to find out where she was.

But just when we were about to either jump into the car loo­king for my baby all over town, or call the police to report a mis­sing per­son, in walks my daugh­ter, all smi­les and chuc­kles, which see­med even more dis­tres­sing when she knew she just broke an immu­ta­ble hou­sehold rule.

“Paige!” I yelled. “Where the heck were you? We were worried sick!!! We were going to go out and look for you! It’s past your cur­few! Why didn’t you call? You’re groun­ded, little lady! You’re in DEEP trouble!”

And in a look of com­plete dis­may and utter con­fu­sion, Paige replied: “But mom, I went to see the late movie tonight. I asked you yes­ter­day, and you even gave me money for it!”

(D’oh!)

That’s what I mean. Thank good­ness those days are over. (And I’m sure my won­der­ful family is just as happy as I am.)

Spea­king of chemo being over, on the last day of chemo, the staff in the chemo ward got a little sur­prise — inc­lu­ding any patients that were still in the room after such a long day.

In the chemo ward at the Ottawa Gene­ral Hos­pi­tal Can­cer Cen­tre, there are over 40 beds, each flan­ked by an intra­ve­nous machine. (Every time we’re there, all the beds are busy throughout the day. It’s ama­zing to me to see how many peo­ple suf­fer from this dread­ful disease. Ama­zing and disheartening.)

At the end of the hall near the exit, there’s an old bell han­ging on the wall, with a dan­gling cord. When patients leave after their last chemo treat­ment, tra­di­tion says that they must ring the bell on their way out.

During each ses­sion, my hus­band (who has been with me by my side each time) and I hear the bell ring at least 2–3 times. It’s a momen­tous occa­sion to say the least. The entire ward — nur­ses, doc­tors, patients and all — break into applause and cheer. It’s a won­der­ful fee­ling. And it’s also a great motivator.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I told my hus­band how eager I was for when it would be my turn. I gave him, and the rest of the staff, a fair war­ning: when my time comes, you bet­ter block your ears, ’cause I’m surely rin­gin’ that bell! (Michel belie­ved me, but I’m so sure about the staff.)

Some peo­ple ring it only slightly. Others ring it with one big clang. But that’s about it. To me, that bell meant more than you can pos­sibly ima­gine. And peo­ple who know me know that I am defi­ni­tely not the timid type. (In fact, the doc­tors and nur­ses at the chemo ward call me the “fire­bug.” Can you ima­gine why? Hmm?)

A few weeks ago, the moment we’ve all been wai­ting for had finally arri­ved. And I didn’t hold back. I jum­ped up and grab­bed the cord (if you’ve ever seen me in per­son, you’d know I’m not a tall per­son), and like Tar­zan swin­ging from a vine, I rang the bell so loud it could have woken up the entire hospital!

(My hus­band later told me that all the nur­ses tur­ned to him, whis­pe­ring, “Is she always like this?”)

Chemo or no chemo, howe­ver, one side-​​effect I wasn’t expec­ting, which threw me off somewhat, was lymphedema.

Lymph­no­des are glands near your arm­pit that act like “traf­fic cops,” direc­ting fluid to and from the breasts — from water to milk during preg­nancy. When you have a mas­tec­tomy, where lymph­no­des are remo­ved (as it was in my case), breast fluid has nowhere to go. So it tends to build up in other parts of your body — mostly, your arm — cau­sing it to swell like a balloon.

Some­ti­mes, lymphe­dema can be very little and even unno­ti­cea­ble. Other times, it can appear quite dra­ma­ti­cally. I wasn’t aware of this. And I cer­tainly wasn’t aware that some envi­ron­ments can con­tri­bute to lymphe­dema — such as while tra­ve­ling by air in a pres­su­ri­zed air­plane cabin.

Last month, I spoke at an event in Atlanta, Geor­gia. I flew in a day ear­lier, which gave me some time to pre­pare for my pre­sen­ta­tion. And moments before I wal­ked on stage, I was focu­sing on the crowd, reci­ting my pre­sen­ta­tion in my head, and making sure the AV equip­ment was wor­king and ready to go.

I speak on stage regu­larly, so I’m used to it. There are many things that go into making a suc­cess­ful pre­sen­ta­tion, and all of these took my mind away from a little sur­prise that “quietly” hap­pe­ned while I was on stage.

Right in the middle of my pre­sen­ta­tion, I felt a cer­tain pain in my ring fin­ger. I was only a half-​​hour into my pre­sen­ta­tion when I took a moment to look down at my hand to see where the pain was coming from. And to my com­plete shock, I noti­ced my bul­ging hand and fin­gers, which have swo­llen to twice their size cau­sing my wed­ding ring to dig itself deep into my skin!

Sau­sage hand. Ugh.

(Thank­fully, it stop­ped swe­lling after that point and the ring remai­ned intact. I would have drea­ded the mere thought of being for­ced to cut my wed­ding ring off my fin­ger! The good part? My hand was still swo­llen enough to cover my entire face trying to hide the emba­rrass­ment from the whole situation.)

My doc­tor, Dr. Young, who is my hero and for whom I’m so thank­ful (by the way, look for a blog post soon about him, because he was such an ama­zing per­son!), presc­ri­bed a com­pres­sion sleeve for the next time I tra­vel. So hope­fully, my hand won’t blow up like the Good Year blimp, espe­cially while in the middle of an impor­tant presentation!

Lymphe­dema is per­ma­nent, but at least it’s con­tro­lla­ble. Howe­ver, another side-​​effect of chemo that’s much less con­tro­lla­ble is meno­pause, and its trusty side­kick, “Cap­tain Hotflash.”

Since breast can­cer in women is often cau­sed by estro­gen levels, chemo for­ces you into meno­pause as part of the pro­cess. But now that chemo is over, and since estro­gen can­not make a come­back or else it will put me at risk for a re-​​occurrence, I will be pla­ced on hor­mone the­rapy to keep me in a meno­pau­sal state.

And that, unfor­tu­na­tely, will last forever.

My poor hus­band has to put up with our arctic-​​like bedroom nicely chi­lled from its wide-​​open win­dows in the middle of win­ter, or else he will wake up swim­ming in a pool of my sweat from having seve­ral of these hot­flashes over­night. Yuck. Not a pretty sight. When my hus­band tells me I’m hot, this gives it a whole new mea­ning.

But one thing that hap­pe­ned throughout this entire pro­cess is pretty fas­ci­na­ting. In fact, it’s almost eerie.

As a child in grade school, I had a dear friend who I used to hang around with all the time. She and I were best bud­dies. We were inse­pa­ra­ble, it see­med. But, as you know, life hap­pens. And as my mother moved us away from Ottawa, I lost touch with her and haven’t seen my best friend ever since. We’re tal­king close to 23 years, now. From time to time, I still stop and won­der how she is, where she is, if she has any kids, where is she wor­king, and so on.

When I got married last sum­mer to my Soul Mate, I was pre­pa­ring to file the neces­sary paper­work to change my mai­den name to my newly married name. But since I was diag­no­sed with advan­ced breast can­cer just a few days before my wed­ding, I was lite­rally whis­ked into the ope­ra­ting room upon my return from our honeymoon.

These events have for­cibly side­trac­ked any attempt to legally change my name. So when I regis­te­red at the hos­pi­tal, I had to use my mai­den name.

Then one day, out of the blue, I got a phone call.

Appa­rently, my best friend who I haven’t seen in over two deca­des wor­ked in the admi­nis­tra­tive offi­ces of the can­cer cen­ter! Luc­kily, while she was wor­king in the bac­kroom (which is why I never saw her), she came across my name. And being a Hallo­ween baby, there aren’t too many peo­ple out there with my name let alone my birth­day of Octo­ber 31st.

So she knew it was me. And that’s when she recog­ni­zed me right away. So she deci­ded to give me a ring, and we finally got back in touch after such a long time. We couldn’t chat too much because she was wor­king. But when I visi­ted the hos­pi­tal for one of my many tests, we finally met face to face.

We didn’t have much time to catch up — only to know that her life was frigh­te­ningly simi­lar to mine. She has kids about the same age as I do, and lived prac­ti­cally in my own back­yard, just a few streets away from my home!

Strange coin­ci­dence? Maybe. But in the end, this goes to show that, wha­te­ver the Uni­verse does to you, you’re some­ti­mes remin­ded that everything hap­pens for a rea­son. And aside from being thank­ful for ending che­mothe­rapy, I’m thank­ful to be alive, to know that I’m not alone on this jour­ney, and to be so loved. Until next time, as the song goes:

“You can ring beeeellll-​​ellll-​​elll.”