Dear Family and Friends!
So much has happened since the last time I wrote. After my first surgery, the pathology report came back saying we didn't get a clean enough margin (only .1 mm vs. 2mm). So I went back for a 2nd surgery and waited for the next report. This time the margins were great!
But even more importantly, as I quote from my 2nd pathology report "NO RESIDUAL INVASIVE OR IN SITU CARCINOMA" What does this mean??? It means...
THERE BE NO MO'CANCER!!!
I just can't believe it!
AND...the report also says that "Skin is also included and is REMARKABLE for a scar" and refers to "adipose tissue REMARKABLE". I always knew that my tissue/skin was wonderful, but didn't realize my pathologists would feel the same way! (They probably have a different definition of "remarkable" than me, but I reserve the right to interpret as I wish!)
HOWEVER...I do not appreciate them mentioning my "yellow-tan fibroFATTY tissue" or my "FAT necrosis". Who do they think they are???
So I went home after surgery and recovered for about 4 days, had another infusion of herceptin (causing muscle ache and numbness in my feet unfortunately), and then I had THE APPOINTMENT.
Before I share about the appointment, I digress for a moment.
I used the potty at the hospital for the first time. It was clean and beautiful, but most of all no one else was in there! Don't you hate it when someone else is in the restroom, especially when you need to "go #2"?
Part of my treatment has involved constipation, and part of it has involved diarrhea. Either that or because I've become lactose intolerant in my 40's, I had some "unfortunate side effects" after drinking a yogurt juice that a.m.
You know how when you sit down, barely move, and the toilet flushes and showers your butt? Then of course, someone else just HAS to walk in after you thought you had the restroom all to yourself. You start to feel it coming on, and of course there is NO music to hide the "plop of the poop" or the "fart during the poop". So you wait til the other person is going potty or is pulling the toilet paper and then you hurry the poop out. And if that's not long enough, you then pull your own toilet paper out as fast and loudly as you can to cover the "plop-farts". Relief results, you stand up to wipe and...the flush begins before you're ready, AGAIN!
Don't lie...you know this has happened to you!
As I prepared for the next phase to this wonderful treatment for breast cancer - RADIATION - I asked a friend what this was like. Here is what she told me.
"You go into this room and they make all kinds of marks on you with a permanent marker and tattoo x's all of you. Then you lay on a table stark naked on top of empty garbage bags. They pour this gel around you and 6 people hold up the bag around you until the gel molds."
My first thought was...they can't hire 6 people just to hold this garbage bag around people all day long. Do they walk into the hallway and grab another patient's husband sitting in the waiting room? Or do they find the maintenance man, florist, or pharmacist assistant who isn't doing anything to help? All I could imagine is 6 random people helping, all in various uniforms and walks of life helping me with this mold, laying there naked all marked up with x's. For some reason I just wasn't looking forward to the process.
As it turns out, first I undressed top only and put on this round circular cape that tied in the front in only 2 places. I tried turning around in circles to see if it would spin, but it didn't.
I did go into a big room with another gigantuan machine, laid on a VERY HARD AND VERY COLD table and sat. I sat and sat in silence while the radiation woman watched me thru blinds, so I decided to make some rapping noises and move my feet to the beat. She did eventually come in and explain a few things, thankfully. The garbage bags? It was one big honkin' blue bag and had my name written all over it on tape. The gel? It was a canister of brown gunk that they pour INTO the garbage bag, then taped it so it wouldn't leak out. They quickly brought it over as I lay down and put it under my head with my arms over my head. The gel felt so good - it was warm and cozy. The 6 random people? Well...it only took 2 and they were both women who worked in that department - yeah!!! Relief!!!! After a few minutes, the mold started to take shape, and they peeled me out from it kind of like pulling finger jello from a pan (remember that?). Gosh I wish I had invented this gel stuff...
They told me I would then be rolled inside this circular machine and it was most important that I lay still. Do these people know how hard it is to lay still, arms above your head (after 2 incisions have been made on your boob and underarm and still healing), body on top of a garbage bag full of gel, stark naked in a cold room? Apparently not!
Then we went to this room with 5 computer monitors where they asked me when I wanted to come in for my radiation treatments - 5 days a week for 6.5 weeks. Yup...that's 33 radiation treatments. All I could focus on was all the names of other patients that were also on these monitors and how much confidentiality was broken! But I kept going as we tried to fit my 15 minute radiation treatments in amidst all these other wonderful patients. Before I walked into this appointment I was doing the sky part of a puzzle in the waiting room, and now I felt like a piece of the puzzle of the radiation schedule! How ironic :)
My first radiation treatment is this coming Wednesday at 9:45am. I also have another 10.75 months of Herceptin infusions, once every 3 weeks. My surgeon told me that I didn't need to see her for another year - I wasn't ready to be done with my visits with Dr. Radford! It was somewhat sad for me to have had such a wonderfully successful surgical experience and my ties with her to already cease! She said we'd probably see each other in passing at Schnucks or somewhere.
So here I am...on the other side of the chemo ride. It's such a good place to be! Thanks to you, your prayers, and all the remaining good stuff that y'all shared with me and my kids...
WE MADE IT!!!!
Zenobia prayed..."Thank you God for all that you have done for me, and especially for the incredible amount of support, love, and generosity that my friends and family have shown me over the past 5 months. I could not have survived the cancer ride without them, or without You. I am so blessed, so very blessed."
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