October 11-21
I am trying not to allow my life to be consumed by breast
cancer. We have planned for many months
to fly to Texas to visit my daughter’s family.
My son-in-law is a band director, and this year, my granddaughter who
plays the French Horn divinely, is playing a solo in the fall marching
show. I alternate between packing for
the trip, writing instructions for the house/pet sitter, and obsessing over
breast cancer. I try to make the latter the
smallest portion of my time; however, when you’re diagnosed in Breast Cancer
Awareness Month, do you have any idea how many commercials, TV shows, news
stories etc. are about breast cancer? It’s
impossible to avoid.
On the 14th, the day before our Texas trip, I
have an appointment with the oncologist at my local breast center. I have done
my due diligence and come up with a list of questions gleaned from experienced
sisters at breastcancer.org. I have my
husband come into the room for this appointment, since I think four pairs of
ears are better than two, even if his two have to be assisted with his hearing
aids.
The first Doctor is actually a “fellow” with the oncologist,
but a very pleasant and knowledgeable young man. We go through the usual
history questions, and I surprise him by using a term gleaned from my reading –
Neoadjuvant - which is basically chemotherapy, radiation, or hormone therapy given before surgery.
At that point, I think I detect a slight change in his professional
attitude, not that he was condescending at all, but he took me just a little
more seriously. Later when we got to my questions, and I asked about the HER2
test being “IHC” and were the “FISH” results in, he looked at my husband, and
said, “She does know what she’s talking about.” Then when I used the analogy of
my lymph glands being the garbage cans for the breast, and needing to check and
see if the garbage cans had overflowed, he said, “Great analogy. I wish my
students knew as much.”
So my “hard work ain’t been in vain for nothing,” as Lena Lamont says.
A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but putting your life in the hands
of people you don’t know without knowing some of what they know is much more
dangerous.
He tells me a lumpectomy is probably the route I want to take in
surgery, but of course, that will be decided by me and the surgeon. Today a lumpectomy with radiation and chemo
has the same survival rate as a mastectomy, and it’s a much easier surgery to
recover from. He also tells me that my
cancer is Stage II, which I had already figured out, but that my PCP told me I
wouldn’t know until after the surgery. (I’m really thinking about changing my PCP.) Unfortunately,
he confirms that chemotherapy will be in my future thanks to the lymph node
involvement.
The oncologist comes in, and is also very nice etc. They do an
examination, and afterward, he discusses having me set up for blood work, a
bone scan and a CT scan before I meet with the surgeon.
I’m able to get the blood work in that day, but because of our trip,
the scans must wait until we return. I pick up the two bottles of barium that I
have to drink before the CT scan and stash them in the frig. I’m not thinking
about that til I get back.
We have a wonderful young lady coming to house/pet sit for us while we
are gone. Our two cocker spaniels are
extremely important to us, and putting them in a kennel just didn’t seem right.
Fortunately, I remembered this young woman whom we met while working on the
local community theatre production of “Hairspray.” She’s in college, and is a good, solid kid. I
feel much better leaving our “babies” knowing she’s there.
We head for the airport, park at a park/ride/fly place, and wouldn’t
you know it, the road to the Southwest Airlines ticketing is practically paved
with pink ribbons. No avoiding it. As we
check in at the counter, I notice the ticketing agent has a pink ribbon pinned
to her uniform. I ask her if she’s a
survivor, and she replies she is, for fourteen years. She asks me if I am, and I reply, “I intend
to be. I’ve just been diagnosed.” She immediately began to surround me with
good advice, good hopes and then took the pink ribbon off her uniform and
pinned it on my shirt. What a lovely lady!
I took breast cancer off the menu then, and concentrated on enjoying
the visit with my daughter’s family. Although my daughter knows, and she told
her husband, we did not want to tell the grandchildren yet. We had a wonderful visit, and on the last
evening, I gathered my granddaughter and grandson together with my daughter and
told them what was going on. Luckily (in a way,) they understand about cancer
more than most young people might as their father had gone through testicular
cancer back in 2009. They are coming to
visit us at Christmas, and I told them that I might lose my hair like their
Daddy, so to be prepared. They took it
with hugs and love.
We were glad to be back home and see our dogs. Our wonderful sitter had kept them happy
while we were gone. Now I have no excuse but to think a lot about what my body
is going through as the next three days are full of Dr.’s visits and scans.
First up is the bone scan. When
I picked up the barium for my CT scan, the person told me that I had to go to
another building for the bone scan. I
dutifully arrived at that building 15 minutes early, and asked the volunteer if
this was where I got my bone scan. She looked surprised as if she had never
heard that request before, took my name, and said someone would call me. I
waited, no one called, asked the volunteer again, “Is this the right place,
because if it isn’t, I need to find the right place.” She told me to sit down,
and she would find out, so I did, but nothing happened. Time is marching on, so I catch her eye, and
look at my watch. She grabs someone,
they call me, someone else calls me, there’s a brief skirmish over who gets to
take my vitals. Then I find out, this is NOT the place for the bone scan.
Eventually, the volunteer escorts me to the correct place for the bone
scan. I didn’t realize until then that I
had to have an injection in my vein. I
have very bad veins. If I know I’m going to have to have an IV, I try to drink
a lot of water to help the veins appear.
I didn’t do that before this appointment. She tried one arm, didn’t work, tried the
other, gets a different size needle, goes back to the first – eventually she’s
able to tap in and get the injection offloaded.
I then have to come back about 3 hours later for the actual scan which
takes approximately 45 minutes. It goes
well – no pain, and hopefully no gain.
Breast cancer metastasizes into bone, liver and lungs which is the
reason for these scans. We know at least one of my lymph glands has filled up
with garbage; the question is whether it has overflowed.
My husband takes me out to lunch at a local restaurant that we love, and I have
the best chicken/wild rice soup I have ever had. It’s almost like a risotto, and has a hint of
tarragon. We like it so much, we get
some take home to have for supper.
Finally, the time has come, and I must get the barium out of the
frig. I remember how awful the stuff was
when I had a colonoscopy. I was hoping
this wouldn’t be as bad. It wasn’t, but it wasn’t good either. I decided to put
on an “I Love Lucy” DVD while I was drinking, so I could laugh through it. It was
the episode where Ricky thinks he’s losing his hair – great bits, but it should
have been “Vitameatavegamin” –“It’s so tasty, too!” I made it through the
barium. And gee, when I get up in the
morning, I get to drink the other bottle!
During the night, the barium decided that it no longer wished to
inhabit my body, and it wanted to leave RIGHT NOW! It took several “right nows,”
for it to remove itself, then it was time to get up and drink some more. I was
more than a little wonky when I got to the CT scan place. Then I found out that not only did I have to
have the barium inside me, but also another injection! The hits just keep on
coming. Luckily, this technician was
able to get the vein fairly quickly. CT scan is fast, and I’m home and can
finally have breakfast and a cup of coffee.
Of course the second dose of barium is also not happy, and wants to
decamp like the first, so I don’t go too far away from that “little room” as a
good friend of ours used to say.
The rest of my day is preparing for the visits with two surgeons at two
different hospitals. By the end of
tomorrow, I hope I will know where I am going to have my treatment, and what it
is going to be.
As I put the word out today to friends on Facebook, I have been
surrounded with well wishers and love. It reminds me of the last thing my
oncologist said, “You’re going to be just fine. You’re in here laughing and
talking, and you have such a good attitude.
Studies have shown that a positive attitude helps.”
I will continue to smile even if
I have to jam a coat hanger in my mouth.
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