Well, I have absolutely dreaded this post.... I'm not really sure why. Maybe because once I post it, my new life becomes more of a reality. I've been grieving my old life for the past few weeks and it's taking a little longer than I expected it to. I just read my last blog post and it was in September 2011 and I was so excited because my last and final chemo treatment was right around the corner. Never in a million years did I think my life would take such a drastic turn! So let me bring you all up to date. Some of this information might be old news to you and some might be brand new. So get your coffee, Diet Dr Pepper or wine, this will be a bit long. Here it goes....
At the beginning of the summer, at one of my many routine check ups, my surgeon noticed a small lump in my left breast. She felt sure it was nothing more than a fluid filled cyst, but told me to come back in August just to make sure it hadn't grown or changed. A few weeks before my follow up visit in August, I sneezed and I felt like something has stabbed me in my left breast. It was really weird, but ended up going away after a few days. A few days after that, I developed the same kind of pain in my right breast, then after a few days it migrated to the center of my chest and just hung out there. I mentioned this to my surgeon when I saw her and she thought the that even though the lump hadn't grown at all, since I was having this new pain the "reasonable thing to do" would be to get an MRI. So I had an MRI a week later and about 4 hours after the MRI all hell broke loose. I wasn't supposed to get the results for 3 days and they called me that afternoon! I get the call and the angel of a nurse on the other end of the phone, Alice, asked me if I was in a place I could talk; i.e. not around my kids or driving. My heart sunk and I could feel the blood drain from my face. This couldn't be good. She told me that the MRI revealed an eroding mass in my sternum and 2 lesions on my lungs consistent with metastasis. I will spare you all the exact words I used, but it went a little something like "YOU ARE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" It was awful. I was in no way prepared for this. For goodness sake, I hadn't even told my parents about any of this because I was sure I'd pulled a muscle and that's what was causing the pain and the lump was just a fluid filled cyst. I was on my way to pick up the kids from school, so I had to pull myself together. The first thing we had to do was schedule a biopsy, PET scan and a bone scan. My phone rang all afternoon with people confirming these appointments. I hung up with my nurse at one point and just put my head down and cried -- I could no longer hold it together. Shelby came in and asked me what was wrong. When I looked at her face, in her eyes, I knew I had to tell her the truth. You know what she said to me? .... "We can get through this mom" .... So as if I wasn't crying hard enough.... Cooper heard the commotion and came to see what was going on. I told him the same thing I told Shelby and he instantly went pale and asked me "are you going to die?" --- I grabbed him and hugged him and, of course, told him NO, that at this point we weren't even positive that it was cancer and that even if it was, the doctors could fix me. He was perfectly acceptable of that answer and went back to his lego building. All of this happened on Friday, August 17th. Fast forward to Monday, the 20th -- I had my PET scan. Then Tuesday, the 21st my bone scan, then Tuesday the 28th my biopsy. By Tuesday evening, I had my diagnosis ... Metastatic Adenocarcinoma with a Breast Primary.... meaning breast cancer in my sternum bone. At this point, the lesions on my lungs can only be monitored because they are so small. We met with my oncologist on Friday, the 31st to come up with a game plan. Most of the appointment is a blur. She did a lot of talking, Bobby asked a lot of questions and tried to write down her answers. I was getting a really weird feeling -- the doctor kept saying "we'll try one chemo and get you a little bit more time" and when the tumor starts to grow again "we'll try another chemo to get your a bit more time". I was very confused. What the hell did she mean by a "bit more time"??!!!!! So I came right out and said to her, "you can cure this, right?" and she shook her head. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIX THIS!!?!?!! WE DIDN'T GO THROUGH WHAT WE WENT THROUGH LAST YEAR TO BE BACK IN THIS BOAT AGAIN (less than a year later) AND YOU TELL ME YOU CAN FIX THIS!!! YOU HAVE TO FIX IT!! YOU HAVE TO!!!!!! Once again, Bobby or I were NOT prepared for this. I lost it. I totally lost it. I began to cry. Bobby began to cry. Then I began to cry harder. The doctor stepped out -- apparently I was making her uncomfortable. Next, in comes a nurse with a cup of water and tells me to calm down. I seriously wanted to punch her in her face. Bobby nicely asked her to leave us alone. We left the doctors office about 15 minutes later with no hope....defeated. We'd fought and lost. It was just a matter of time now. The rest of the day was spent crying.... a lot. We were absolutely hopeless, but knew we were foolish if we didn't get a second opinion. My mom started making phone calls. We have a family friend who is a very well known breast cancer nurse at the UNM Cancer Center. My mom called her and told her our situation. It just so happened that she was going to a retreat with 2 of the breast cancer doctors that weekend. She would talk to them and get back to us. She called on Tuesday, Sept 4th and told me I had an appt the next day at 12:30 with an incredible doctor, Dr. Dayao. It was the docs day off, but she came in to see me. She spent over 2 hours with me. The nurse, Ann, never left the room. The listened, they cried with me, they gave us hope ... the level of compassion from these women was unbelievable. She had a pretty concrete game plan worked out but wanted to present my case to the tumor board that afternoon and she would call me. Just like she said she would, she called me that evening. The tumor board didn't really have much more to offer, just a few details that I don't need to go into. In a nutshell, my treatment plan for now is this....
1. The cancer is deemed incurable. At this point, we treat it and control it. Fine! Whatever!!!
2. I don't have to do radiation, at least not right now. Super!
3. I will start an oral chemo probably on October 8th. Hopefully, the side effects will be minimal.
4. I qualify to participate in a clinical trial. That means I will take another chemo orally that is normally used to treat kidney cancer. It has been proven to kill certain types of breast cancer cells. There is no magic test to find out if I have those types of breast cancer cells, but we'll attack and hopefully they'll die :) The clinical trial is pretty interesting to say the least. There are less then 300 people in the U.S. on it right now. The one part that I don't really like, is that part of being on a clinical trial, you could potentially receive the placebo (fake pill) and no one knows except for the doctor in Brazil that is directing this. So we won't ever know if I'm getting the real stuff or not, not even my doctor. The other thing about a clinical trial is they monitor me like a hawk, which I kind of like :)
5. I'll have a PET scan roughly every 3 months to monitor "things"
I feel it pretty safe to say that I'm very angry right now. I'm grieving my old life and that is really hard. The harder part is accepting my new life. I don't want cancer. I don't want it to be part of my life. I don't want it to be part of my families life. How fair is it that my parents, my family, my husband, my children and my friends have to sit idly by and watch this happen. This is not how I wanted it. I don't want my kids to look back on their child hood and only remember cancer. I can't stomp my feet and throw a fit and make it go away. I've prayed and prayed, so I'm have a hard time understanding why this happened to me. My unwavering faith is definitely wavering and that makes me sad, I don't even like saying it. I know it will pass, but right now I'm just pissed. The sad reality is that I have cancer, it will not go away, it might get better, it might not, I might die in 2 years or 5 years or 20 years, or God willing 50 years! The fear of the unknown is crippling to say the least. Wine always fixings things for me and it can't fix this....
On a happier note.... the 4 of us leave at the butt crack of dawn on Sunday morning for paradise. We will spend a relaxing week in Hawaii with not a care in the world. This was supposed to me my cancer free celebration, so now we'll just have to celebrate....celebrate life I suppose, because today, as pissed off at my situation as I am, I still have my beautiful children and unconditionally loving family and friends.
