Ok, another trip to the plastic surgeon and another disappointment. I sort of new what to expect after I spoke with my radiation oncologist and went on line. Apparently I am not having just run of the mill, pin-point radiation. Because of the positive lymph nodes, my radiation will extend beyond just the breast, under the arm, into the chest wall and lungs. I can’t do anything halfway - give me the biggest, baddest, best. Anyway, this will cause some extensive tissue scarring. Anything implanted would be subject to rejection from my body.

So, I am hearing all of this. My doctor goes on about how he could not do reconstruction at the time of the surgery. Of course I am crying. I know it isn’t the fault of the doctor. He is just telling me the results, he didn’t create the facts. Thank goodness Scott was with me. He could listen more dispassionately and try to reason with me. Was I listening? No, probably not, it was all about how I felt.

Breast cancer surgery is really the only surgery that leaves a result that you can see. All other cancers (other than bone) require internal surgery, not this. Breast cancer takes the most visible form there is for a woman. And I don’t even really care how it looks to other people. But every minute of every day after my surgery, I will be reminded that I have no breasts and have cancer. With reconstruction, even though they are fake, at least I could forget for a while. Now, it will take months before I can start that mental healing.

So the new plan is to wait until after radiation and then attempt reconstruction. Radiation starts after the wounds have healed, so maybe 3-4 weeks after surgery and lasts 6-7 weeks, 5 days a week. Fortunately, the treatment itself doesn’t last very long and it is close to the house.

We know I am a planner. Once this all hit me and I realized that I wasn’t going to have re-made boobs, I needed information. Where do I get fake boobs? What do I wear after surgery? How long will it be before I start to look normal? Surprisingly to me, the doctor did not know where I could find fake ones. I told him he, or his people, should know who to call. He did suggest I needed a support group though. I guess I really came off as a crazy. Seriously, after thinking about it, I do think it is a good idea.

So my next step was finding a good prosthetic and a support group. I looked in the Yellow Pages, but those were all orthopedic. On-line I went, because my lovely friend Sue had told me about the wonderful things the American Cancer Society can do, I figured they would be the answer and sure enough, Sue was right. The web site referred me to the Jacksonville Women’s Center for a support group and I figured if they have a support group they would know who to call for the prosthetics. Brilliant, eh? Again, success. A lovely woman answered the phone and was very helpful.

Never one to let grass grow under my feet, I called the pharmacy recommended by the Women’s Center. I figured my luck would be they would have to order whatever I needed and it would take 3 months or something. This little place is over by Memorial Hospital and carries a variety of hospital needs. Back in a private room, a great woman helped me with everything I will need after surgery and through radiation. She did order them, so we will see how long it takes.

I know I am making light of these things, but it really was not easy. I just know it is something I have to do. I have no choice. But for the first time, I am questioning why is all of this happening to me. I haven’t really done that before. Why not me? You hear so many tragic stories. It seems so unfair when cancer hits a child or a single mother. But I am not special, I can get cancer just like the next person, I know that. But lately, with so many negative turns in my fight, I did start to throw the why me question up to the Big Man. I am pretty much over that kind of self-pity. I still wish he could take this away from me and I could have my life back. That will happen, just not the way I wanted it too.

Amidst this, the surgeon’s office called to give me the surgery date. Last week, I begged them to set the date even without the input of the plastic surgeon, but they wouldn’t. It will be no problem they said. We are only booking August 1 right now. August 17 or 18 will be just fine, don’t worry about it. They call and have set the surgery for August 21. Well, they messed with the wrong person on the wrong day. I strongly reminded them of the promise for the beginning of that week, that it was already 2 weeks after when my oncologist and the surgeon wanted to take me. They were somewhat taken aback that I would question the scheduling and tried to make excuses about other cases blah, blah, blah. I told them they were now putting my health at risk (certainly an exaggeration, but I was tired of people screwing around with me). The scheduler said she would see what she could do. An hour later, she called back with a new date. Surgery is August 17 at 10:00 a.m. Ah the sweet smell of success. A little control back in my life.

Well I made it through the last chemo treatment. Or at least I am trying to break through now. I’ve told you how it is, up and down, feel good and then feel crappy. I can do a small amount of things and then my head starts to swim and I have to sit down. This is so not like me. I am go full speed, get it all done and then sit down, so it takes some getting used to.

This afternoon I see the plastic surgeon again. My radiation oncologist spoke to him and now he is not sure about the reconstruction. It may interfere with radiation so I have a feeling he doesn’t want to do it until after the radiation is over. After all of this, it seems silly that such a thing would bother me, but it really does. I want to have something there when I wake up from surgery, not just pain and scars. The psychological aspect of healing from this may be as important to me as the physical and it will take a lot more if reconstruction doesn’t start right away.

I’ll let you know what he says.

Ok People! I went to the oncologist and told him how horrible the chemo treatment was last time, that if I had any more it would kill me. He was extremely sympathetic and made a deal with me. He would reduce the dose but I needed one more treatment. Well I figured anybody can do anything 1 more time.

So here I go tomorrow... after 4 months and 6 doses of poison, ONE MORE TREATMENT!!!! After that 10 days of feeling like crap and I will be through with chemotherapy. Thank God! I feel like I should wear a crown and skip out of there. Although I am sure you know I don’t really feel like skipping when I leave, maybe tomorrow I will though.

From here I go on to surgery. The surgeon was going to take me right away, but I told him I have to wait until after we take Andrew to law school and NIck to college. I didn’t want to be in pain (physically anyway) as our baby leaves the nest. You know I will cry all the way back to Jax after we drop him off. But he is more than ready to get out of here.

The surgery will not be easy. They scrape the tissue away from the skin and the plastic surgeon inserts the spacers to keep the tissue expanded for reconstruction. I spend 2 - 3 days in the hospital and come home with drains still in place. The plastic surgeon then decides when to take those out - when the fluid stops draining from them. I could bounce back in a week or two or it could take longer. We’ll see.

Meanwhile the surgeon has to consult with the plastic surgeon to coordinate their schedules to get me in. Probably the week of Aug. 17. So I have that to look forward to :(

I do have to say once again how thankful I am to have the most wonderful support group in the entire world. You all have gotten me through this and I couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you. THANK YOU!!!!!

Talk to you on the other side of chemo.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!

The bone scan is clear! I can not tell you how thankful I am for that news.

The radiology technician knew I was nervous about the outcome of this test. He was kind enough to tell me he did not see any spots of concern. Cautiously optimistic is what he said. That was such a reassurance to me because I am sure he sees many, many scans with cancer every week, so for him to be positive sent me out with a much happier heart.

Then my radiation oncologist looked at the disk as well. She said that although she stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, she was not a radiologist, but the scan looked clear to her. So although I do not have the official radiology report, I am feeling unbelievably upbeat for the first time in a very long time!!

Thank you God for not putting this burden on me!!

I am back from the dead. This course of the chemo was just debilitating. I had thought this type was supposed to be not as bad. I guess they meant the nausea isn’t as bad, which is true. But the fatigue and pain was unbelievable. I still have the fatigue, which comes and goes. Yesterday, I didn’t feel that bad. Today, while not in the pain I was, I am more tired. Weird, huh?

I have a new hill to wait out until Wednesday.

Yesterday, I was at the doctor of the week, this week being the radiation oncologist. She was wonderful, she comes in and gives me a huge hug, none of this hand shaking for her. We begin discussing treatment, she is the localized treatment person as opposed to the medical oncologist who treats the entire body. She wanted to look at the pet scan that I had before I started chemo. After reading the original report from the original radiologist, she said there were some discrepancies.

Discrepancies? What does that mean? I have started becoming more fluent in “doctorese” and discrepancy probably is not a good thing.

The report says there is “some uptake in the bones” but no metastasis. Again, need definition. What does that mean? Well, the 2 statements are contradictory. There can not be uptake in the bones and not have metastasis. It there is something in the bones, then there is metastasis. We looked at the pet scan together and she showed me the places that were of concern to her. She says they could be arthritis and not be cancer at all, but she wants to make sure. So off to a bone scan on Tuesday.

The problem with this is how it changes my long term prognosis. I go to stage 4 and that 5 year survival rate is not as good. So, I am hanging on to the fact that the doctor is more than 80% sure that it is all ok.

So next week looks like this:
Monday - meeting with my medical oncologist to discuss how much more chemo I need. It will take quite a bit of persuasion to hook me up again.

Tuesday - go to St. Lukes at 8 am to be injected with some kind of dye in the nuclear medicine department. I go away for 2 hours and come back for the scan. I take away the disc and take it to my radiation oncologist.

Wednesday - Off to the surgeon to discuss when I chop these puppies off and get the results from the bone scan. (The office of the radiation oncologist is in with the surgeon.)

So big week planned.

You know I think this part is harder on Scott. His mother had breast cancer and it came back in her back. She eventually died from bone cancer. I know this was difficult for him to hear and I think it freaked him out just a little bit. But, we are trying to stay positive, because there is nothing I can do about it now.

I’ll let you know.