Jess Florio 

In April 2023, at 35 weeks pregnant and 33 years old, I was diagnosed with stage 3 TNBC. I completed 16 rounds of chemo in October, and just had a mastectomy in late November... all while raising a 7 month old and 2 year old ♥️

I have been MIA… my deepest apologies. I consistently break the golden rule of newsletters, which is to write in advance. Unfortunately, life has just been so stressful since my daughter has been sick, and I have not been able to think straight. It’s one thing when we’re sick… but when it’s them it’s like a dagger through your soul. I have every intention of being back to our regularly scheduled programming by the weekend.

sending healthy vibes to all!!

so very true for those of us who have/had to hand off our babies far too often because of cancer.

A healthy man wants a thousand things.
Cancer is antithetical to parenting

Wow 🥹 my heart is full. Thank you for those that took a chance and joined our inaugural group tonight. It was everything I dreamed of and more 🌟. Just off the top of my head we covered personal experiences of:

🔹impact of diagnosis/treatment on marriage/relationship

🔹talking to our kids about cancer, how we framed it/how our children responded

🔹identity loss as it pertains to friendship/community post diagnosis

Future topics we really want to cover are

🔸 how to manage parenting boundaries whe…

I’m working on some specialists to bring to the community. Think: breast surgeons, oncologists, OBGYN, functional doctors. Who would you want to see on here and what would you like to ask them? If you can share what would be helpful, I will do my best to make it happen!

I need to hear more about living in the uncertainty post active treatment, torn between between fear and hope

Ok, important stuff…. let’s see some hair inspo 🤪 my growth 6 months out from chemo… I cold capped, but lost quite a bit after treatment- I felt so much better after I cut the longer bits in to a pixie. Let’s see yours <3.

When did your hair stop falling out post-chemo? I cold capped as well, probably lost 75% of my hair still. I’m now 2 months/1 week out from my last treatment and still shedding a bit (not terribly anymore). When did you start to notice that your hair was growing back?

My eyebrows and lashes are almost fully back which I’m sooo grateful for- nothing worse than that making you look sick- but still waiting for my head to grow 🫠

Could not agree more, the eyebrows and lashes were a godsend. The worst shedding was 5 weeks post final chemo, but I’d say I continued seeing a lot of hair breaking for months after. The new hair grew in rapidly and started around where you are now- probably 8 weeks. And when I could see that the quality of the new hair was eclipsing the chemo hair, I felt better about the pixie. I have really grown to love it now that I know how to manage it.