I met with my oncologist yesterday. Whew! Talk about information overload! May I just say that the people at Hematology Oncology Associates are about to become precious angels in my life. A friend of mine posted this as her FB status yesterday - "I'm beautiful in my way, 'cause God makes no mistakes... ~ Lady GaGa." How true this statement is to my life right now. I have no choice BUT to be beautiful in my own way right now because having no hair and square boobs is gonna have to be MY beautiful for the next 5 months. I still haven't quite figured out why God has chosen this path for me, but I know by the end of this journey, I'll find out. Bobby said that maybe with my breast cancer they will find a cure. Now wouldn't that be A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!?
OK, back to the doctor visits yesterday....
I met with my Oncologist, Dr. Sanchez. When the nurse was checking me in to get my weight, height and temp I learned that I still don't like to weigh myself, I've shrunk an inch AND I had a fever of 101! Say what? She asked me if I was feeling OK and I said no, that I felt like crap but I figured it was just par for the course right now. This explains why I had to leave in the middle of church on Easter Sunday and go home. I pretty much slept all day and then all night. I figured I had just over done it on Saturday when I went to get a pedicure with my mom and Shelby and then we went to Target. Usually, when I do too much, I pay for it the next day, so that's what I figured was going on on Sunday. Not so much. By the time I got home it was 102.2. Whatever, stupid fever! Anyway, Dr. Sanchez is super nice and super informative. She talked to us in terms that we understood. Basically, cancer sucks! Surprise! I know this is new information for you guys. Right? All together now and clap your hands.... CANCER SUCKS, IT REALLY REALLY SUCKS! I should get bumper stickers made. So, here's my plan....chemo starts May 6th and will go for 16 weeks total. I will go for my treatments every 2 weeks. I'm super lucky and get to take a medicine that is also know as the "red devil" -- this is the one that will make my hair fall out. On the upside, I won't have to be blow drying my hair in the middle of the summer - no more bed head! I'm thinking a hot pink wig is in order and I'm changing my name to Peaches for the summer. I have a port catheter installed next week in my big vein right under my collar bone. Because, you see, it's better to pump poison into the larger veins in your body than it is to pump it into the smaller veins. The red devil could potentially do so much damage to my veins and arm that I would need skin grafts to repair it. Uh, I don't think so!! Oh, and the closer to your heart that you inject the medicine, the better it is. OK doc, whatever you say. You might be wondering why I still have to do chemo if all the cancer was taken out. Well, it just so happens that I have an answer for you. It's because when you have a cancerous tumor it has cells that like to escape and travel thru your blood stream. Imagine a few pieces of dirt running threw a hose, those pieces of dirt are likely gonna get caught up somewhere in the hose. Sometimes they attach to other organs or land in your lymph system or any other place in your body and you get BREAST cancer there. So if a cell attached to my liver, I don't get liver cancer, I get breast cancer on my liver. So the chemo will help eliminate as many of those bad cells as possible. Unfortunately, it won't get rid of them all, so I won't be guaranteed that I will never get cancer again. This is why I actually pondered the idea of not doing chemo at all. I mean, if it doesn't eliminate my chances completely, why would I want to go thru this? However, after talking with Bobby - I quickly remembered the 3 reasons why - Bobby, Shelby and Cooper. Yes, I had a momentary bout with headupassitis - ever heard of it? Don't look it up, I'm pretty sure it's not in the dictionary :) But Bobby is really good at talking me down and helping me remove my head from my ass, and that's exactly where my thoughts were. When I made the decision to have a double mastectomy instead of a single, it was because the 20% chance of cancer recurring in the other breast was too much for me. I remember saying 1% would have been too much. So, yes, the 1% is still too much and I'm still willing to do whatever necessary to make sure I can watch my kids graduate from college, meet their soul mate and make some amazing tiny humans like I have been blessed with. Do I want to do this? H to the E-L-L no!!!!! But God has chosen this path for me, and we all know, he doesn't make mistakes. So I'm gonna get to the end and find out why!
Next appointment was with Dr. Chan - she's my 29 year old plastic surgeon. She's a rock star!!!! I thought for sure I had an infection on the right side where one of my drains was at and I didn't! So there is no explanation for the crappy feeling for the last 3 days or the fevers. Whatever, stupid fever. She pulled the last two drains out and gave me my first fill! She injected 30 cc's of saline into each boob - we can call them Ethel and Alice for blogging purposes. So first up was Alice, she got the first 30 cc's, so instead of being a rectangle, Alice is now a perky little square. Ethel was last, but she also got 30 cc's. I was warned not to look at the syringe with the saline, but that's almost IMPOSSIBLE to do since it was sitting right next to the chair I was sitting in! Think about it - the syringe we use to give our kids tylenol or advil is a 5 cc syringe, so imagine my eyes popping and my heart sinking when I saw two 60 cc syringes sitting on the tray when I walked in!! Let's not forget to mention the 2 foot long needle that is strong enough to stick in a horses rump on the end of the syringe. OK, maybe two feet is a slight exaggeration, but it was big!!! Good thing Ethel and Alice are still numb and I didn't feel a thing.
So that was my day in a nutshell....a very BIG nutshell. Remember people, I did a self breast exam and it has likely saved my life. Yes, it opened a door to a temporary hell, but imagine the hell your loved ones would go thru if you didn't do an exam and by the time cancer was found it was too late. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for them - because in the end, if you do it for them, you will still get to reap the benefits. Love to ALL of you. The meals, cards, gifts, flowers, Starbucks....all of it has touched my heart in ways that could never be put into words. Thank you a million times over!
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