No, but like seriously you guys. My mouth really hurts.

Motherfucking thrush.  My last chemo and the thrush is back.  FML.

At some point, I want to make a list of all of the little things that I hated about chemo that I never talked about during chemo.  Some of them were too embarrassing to admit when they were happening (like pooping blood) and some of them were just too minor to complain about without whining (painful scalp), but, for some reason, I feel like it's important to preserve an accurate record of what chemo was actually like. 

Oh, I totally forgot to mention Halloween (and it's now December, so that's lame, I know).

If I had lost my hair, my costume was going to be....wait for it...A CHIA PET!  I was just going to put a mud mask on my scalp and stick alfalfa sprouts to it.  I'm pretty sure it would have been the best costume of all time.  But, the hair stuck around and I ended up having chemo on 10/30, so I sat around and looked resentfully at the candy on actual Halloween.  Still, the costume idea alone is worth some cool points or something.

So, right after I posted that hair question, I started losing my hair again.  I lose a little bit after every cycle, but I lost kind of a lot.  I got worried that it was all going to fall out, so I decided to wait until after I finished chemo to dye it.  I just finished my last cycle and it's currently thinning a bit, so dying will happen this weekend. 

It's getting pretty long though.  Check it out!

I have an MRI on Monday and meet with my surgeon on Wednesday, so I should have surgery news coming up soon. I'm so antsy to get this surgery scheduled, I can't even tell you.

Also, I'm so done with having boobs.  I was going to buy a ton of new bras at the beginning of the summer before my diagnosis, but bagged that plan as soon as I knew "the girls" were going to have to go.  So, I've been stuck with kind of ratty, ugly, poorly fitting bras for a few months now, and I am just over it.  Chest of a 12 year old boy?  BRING IT!

In other news, I've started to change my eating habits.  After I got the diagnosis but before I started chemo, I basically cut all processed food out of my diet and started eating between 8 and 10 servings of fruits and veggies per day.  However, during chemo the doctor said to eat whatever I could tolerate.  So I did.  And I also took that opportunity to eat everything that I had given up and missed (read: Chipotle).  Now, super fun food times are over, and I'm back to eating better.  It feels good to have the energy and focus to do something good for my health that isn't necessarily medical, and I'm looking forward to feeling the benefits.  Since the biggest predictor of getting cancer is having had a cancer diagnosis in the past, I never want to face this diagnosis again and think that I could have done something to prevent it.  So, from here on out, I'm Team Eat Healthy.  Also, I have a shit ton of candy that I can no longer eat, so if you want me to send you some, holla.

 I'll also be Team Exercise soon, but I'm waiting until after surgery to start a truly regimented program.

Okay juggalos/lettes,

I need some advice.  As you are well aware, my hair is growing back in.  However, it's growing back in grey, and it's starting to harsh my mellow.  I feel like I have enough weird appearance things to deal with and looking older than I'd like is just one more thing than I'd like to handle right now.  So, I'm going to dye that grey right out of my hair. 

So, do I dye my hair
a) Hot pink - This would be cool.  However, I already have a shaved head.  Is dying it an "outrageous" color overkill?  I mean, the shaved head is punk as fuck already, so maybe pink is just beating a dead horse.

b) Black - This is what I'm leaning towards right now.  It would be in keeping with the  hardcore shaved head look, but not be particularly startling.  Plus, I could hang out with the goth kids and smoke their clove cigarettes (it's not a carcinogen if you're already on chemo)  (that was a joke, btw)

c) Platinum - Pro: I can dye it another color if I get bored of it.  Con: I could look like that weird fitness instructor from the 80s.

Help me, blogosphere!  You're my only hope!

Ask and you shall receive.  It's time for some pictures:

(Actually, first, time for a disclaimer.  All of these pictures were taken on my iPhone because I'm way too lazy to be bothered with owning an actual camera.  Therefore, I apologize in advance for the picture quality.)

Here is a picture of my left eyebrow. 

My left eyebrow is driving me nuts right now, and hopefully you can see why.  There are just a handful of actual, normal eyebrow hairs left, but they are all scraggly.  I feel like I should be grooming them, but it seems wrong to pull out eyebrow hairs when I have so few left.  Plus, they will fall out on their own.  If you look closely, you can also see that some baby eyebrow hairs are growing back in.  Am I supposed to be grooming those?  For some reason, plucking my baby eyebrow hairs while my normal eyebrow hairs abandon me makes me irrational angry.  I should either be mourning the loss of one, or battling the regrowth of the other.  Not both.  Seriously, Cancer, throw me a bone, here.

Also, can you see how thick and lush my hair regrowth is?  It's still mostly white, which makes me feel like a post-menopausal woman (which, I guess, technically I am now, but you know what I mean), but it's really coming back.  I think I'm going to dye it fire engine red or something.

Here is my right eyebrow.  You can see how sparse the actual brows look.  If I try to draw them in, it looks like the kind of pencil you see on 70 year old ladies, surrounded by some actual hair.  It's really funny looking.  You can also see the total lack of bottom eyelashes on my right eye.

Another eyebrow pic, but check out my upper eyelashes, too.  They look funny, like gapped teeth.

My actual teeth aren't gapped, but are Cullenesque (or whatever vampire reference you prefer).  This is a result of trying to floss and is a side effect of one of the clinical trial drugs I'm on, Avastin.  Avastin makes tissues more likely to bleed, and chemo in general drops my platelet count, so I don't clot so well.  As a result, my gums bleed freely.  I like to pretend I'm in Fight Club when this happens.

And to end, here is a picture I took of myself at the hair salon back when I still had hair!  (Also, check out my awesome calculator watch, which I've managed to lose in the past 2 weeks.  WHERE ARE YOU, AWESOME CALCULATOR WATCH?  I MISS YOU!!!)

Here are 3 things I did today:
1) Shaved my legs
2) Penciled in my eyebrows
3) Plucked an errant beard hair (c'mon girls, you know you have them too)

At most, I should be doing two of these things.  How is this fair?

Lower eyelash count is holding steady at 2.

I have been hacking away at an update for like a week, and honestly, I've got nothing.  Part of it is that my mom said that if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all (actually, my mom never said that, but I've heard that it's the kind of things moms say), and this cycle has been a complete and utter bitch.  Another part of it is that they gave me a Neulasta shot which made my bones hurt which made me need vicodin which makes me way more interested in drooling than writing.  But, at any rate, I'm still around.  I'm tired and run down and nauseous and my bones hurt, but otherwise, I'm still the same snarky, irreverant cancer patient as always.

I did, however, want to discuss PICC lines a little bit.  If anyone ever suggests that you get a PICC line (like a port, but for your arm), punch them in the face.  Twice.   Because they will shove a plastic tube up your arm veins while you are completely awake, and that's not okay.  I felt violated and had to call a Take Back Our Veins hotline afterwards.  It's pretty amazing that I didn't become a militant lesbian after the experience.  (That being said, I do have perfect militant lesbian hair, right now, and I'm kind of sad it's being wasted on me.)

Also, I only have one more chemo left.  FUCK! YEAH!  (Sorry, Grandpa)  I went through this period where I was sad that chemo was ending.  It's like I felt like I hadn't been appreciating my chemo experience enough or being "present" through it.  Then I realize that's what normal people call coping, and stopping to smell the chemo roses is what crazy people do.  And while I'm crazy, it's only like a fox.  So, now I'm super excited to be almost done with chemo.  Go me!!

And finally, although my head hair seems to be coming in nicely, I have almost completely lost my eyelashes and brows.  While I'm "whatever" about the lashes, I'm a little sad about my eyebrows.  How will people be able to intuit subtle changes in my emotions if I don't have eyebrows? I tried to draw them on this morning, and it was so lulzy, I indulged in a nice round of self-mocking.  So, if you're having trouble telling what emotion I'm trying to convey (hint: it's probably either irritation or snark), I'll understand. 

I got out of the hospital yesterday, but spent all day there today getting a PICC line put in (like a port for my arm).  I'll write a longer update later, but I just want to say that they did not give me enough drugs for the venal rape that I went through.  Not enough drugs at all.

I'm supposed to get out of here today, which is good because shit is getting weird.  In addition to the moaner, we now also have a random yeller.   It's like a regular Halloween extravaganza around here.

Edited to add: My oncologist just walked in to tell me that he's running a little behind because someone is having a "hair emergency."  I don't even know where to begin with that.