LadyA Strong - Final Chemo

March 15, 2019 Mike Arrison

I cannot begin to express how happy I am that I don’t have to do chemotherapy anymore. There are simply no words for it. No more struggling to get out of bed, no more feeling weak or defeated, no more bone pain and no more feeling sick. The one thing I probably hated the most was how sensitive I was to certain aromas. As soon as I would smell something that didn’t sit well with me, I immediately became very nauseous. On my last day of treatment I was really hesitant to ring that bell when I was finished because all I could think about was everyone else in their chairs getting treatment. Some people need treatment for a long time and I couldn’t even possibly imagine how they feel when they see someone else finish. The nurses and my friends made me realized that the bell is a sign of hope. When I went up there to ring it, everyone clapped and cheered, and as I was leaving everyone was congratulating me. As for my next steps, I’m going to be getting a double mastectomy in the next month or so. That’s when they take out all of the breast tissue so there’s a lesser chance of cancer coming back. This surgery is quite the process. First they take everything out, then they put expanders in under the chest muscle. Every week after surgery I’ll need to get these expanders filled with saline until I’m at the size I need to be. Once that’s done, I’ll need another surgery to exchange out the expanders for breast implants. I don’t know which is harder to go though, but I do know that if I can do the strongest chemotherapy out there... I can do anything.

Anastasia "LadyA" Colletti