Ah, Spring! - April 6, 2026

Hello friends and happy belated (or early) Easter! I am anxiously awaiting for the Cape to hit 60º. It’s April 6th. Feels like it’s January 54th out here still.

Spring is all about rebirth and growth, so I find it truly poetic that my hair decided to start sprouting back in the first week of March. I ran my hand on my head and froze. When I asked, my oncologist told me that around cycle 10 of taxol, some lucky people will see their hair start to grow back. Wild how that can happen. Let me say, after months of having absolutely zero hair on my body and all the implications that came with that, it served as a nice reminder that I actually can heal from this, time will pass, and things will go back to being manageable. We’re past looking like a patchy, mangy wolf cub and now I’m looking more like mild male pattern baldness. It’s not exactly a cute look, but this past week I went back to using shampoo! That’s progress, baby! Once Taxol ends, people categorize it as an “explosion” of hair growth. That’s how fast it comes back. Coupled with the fact that all the deadness in my nails is nearly grown out now and I can do my nails again in 3ish weeks…I’ll be feeling like a new person soon. 

We’re 14 out of 16 chemo down and my biggest complaint is the ripping fatigue and muscle aches. It’s a cumulative thing. The more chemo you do, the more it lingers in your system but I am SO CLOSE to being at the point where I can start thinking about what life past treatment will look like. My last chemo is April 21 (good. The sound of the IV pump randomly screeching about an imaginary air bubble in the line is going to haunt my dreams forever) and then I have a solid 4 weeks of absolutely nothing happening before surgery. The idea behind that is to let my blood counts recover to minimize any complication risks, like bleeding or infection. I would like to have my white blood cells back, thanks. I’m opting to go completely flat, again, to minimize complications (of which there are a whole lot and none of them are good!) and risk of recurrence (because that can happen in implants too). I’m seeing my surgeon on Wednesday to go over everything. Am I happy about having to be flat? No. I’m going to struggle with it for a while. I’m not someone who has ever felt all that outwardly confident and this is seriously not helping. At all. I know life will go on. Fellow “flatties” tell me all the time how they don’t even think about it anymore, that no one even notices and life is a lot easier without having to wear a bra. Hey, I mean, I love that part… Again, time will pass. I’ll move on from this, life will be better. I’m just going to make terrible jokes about it until I find one that truly makes me feel better.

Speaking of which, I have a lot of these terrible jokes up my sleeve, which I firmly blame on my wonderfully, whimsically corny Grandpa & Dad for now passing on to me. I started making stickers with these sayings on them and others that are awareness-related as a project lately. Long story short, I’m having way too much fun doing this and I’ve put them on my website to sell. Hey, any way this latest dose of existential trauma can make me some money, I’m all over that! I’ll keep you updated about it ;)

After I am healed enough from surgery, I’m doing 5 weeks of radiation, 25 cycles in total. That brings us to around mid-September. I then start an additional hormone blocker, Tamoxifen, and a form of “maintenance” chemo called Kisqali that targets the specific mechanisms in cancer cells that allows them to grow. I take them for 10 years and 3 years, respectively. So while I’m technically still going to be in treatment for a while still, Tamoxifen and Kisqali are pills I take every day, and that’s when I can start reintegrating myself into society like a(n allegedly) normal person. I’ll see my oncologist once a month for about a year, then it’ll get knocked down to every 3 months after that. The highest risk period for recurrence is the next 2 years. If I can clear that, then I really should be home free. 

Also, my website I mentioned before is meandmyrogueboobs.com. I’m posting all of these updates I send out on there to serve as a virtual diary of sorts and a portfolio. I’m pretty serious about wanting to do advocacy-related work when I am healthy again. For a very long time I’ve kind of blundered my way through life, trying to chase opportunities and work towards a goal just to have it not pan out or not be what I want in the first place. I’m told Geminis are indecisive. In that case, I feel called out, but now I think I really know what I want to do, and there are so many ways to do it—I just need to figure out which direction is pulling me the strongest. I don’t want to stay on Cape Cod forever either; there is a whole world past the eastern seaboard I have never seen. Seeing so many of your Instagram pictures and trip videos is great, but I want to take some of my own! Come on now! There are actually organizations that take breast cancer survivors on trips and retreats. My childhood friend moved to France last year. Yeah…I’m getting my ass on a plane ASAP. 

Thinking about these things is what’s giving me hope lately. Getting my nails done and making myself a cake that says “good job not dying” feels like a good way to celebrate in September. When my hair reaches my shoulders, you can bet your life savings on the underside getting dyed pink (sorry, Dad). I’m going to travel and start a career. Can we just get there already for God’s sake?!?!

Sending all my love to you and yours, as always! Thank you all so much for staying on this absolutely insane ride with me.

Caroline (and her rogue boobs)