After my last surgery, my doctor suggested that I start chemotherapy in two weeks. Luckily I was able to put it off by another two weeks, for reasons I mentioned in my last post. So as of today, I have four whole weeks off from cancer stuff. Or so I thought.
Next week my schedule looks something like this:
Monday – MUGA scan heart test in the early afternoon (20 minutes away)
Tuesday – Appointment with Infectious Disease doctor (yep, I still got that red spot - in NYC, over an hour away)
Wednesday – Morning CT Scan (35 minutes away) then an afternoon Dermatologist appointment (regarding that red spot again)
Thursday – day off – WAHOO!
Friday – Morning Bone Scan (20 minutes away)
Alright, so maybe I’ll only get three weeks off. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?
All I want for Christmas is…..chemo. Well, not really, but that’s what I’m going to be getting. I had a meeting with my medical oncologist in NYC this past Thursday. I had surgery to remove my lymph nodes a few weeks ago and it turns out that only one lymph node had cancer cells in it, which of course is a good sign. Between the fact that it is only that one node and that my tumor was less than a 1/2 inch in size, this firmly puts me in the stage 2 category. Originally I was supposed to start chemo in two weeks, but was able to push it off until the beginning of December for a couple reasons.
First, I wanted to be healthy enough on Thanksgiving to be able to make a meal for my family. Since this is the first Thanksgiving without my Mother (and in fact, this is the first Thanksgiving I have EVER had without her) I thought it important to make it as nice as possible. Also, my neice Vanessa is visiting for the next five weeks from Hawaii and I want to be able to spend some time with her. As a special treat, my Father has purchased tickets for myself, my oldest daughter and my niece to go into NYC to see Wicked on Broadway. My daughter Leah can sing almost all the songs, since I purchased the CD a few years ago after seeing the show myself. We are all looking forward to seeing the show and it will be a good way to end the month of November.
My chemo will consist of four treatments every two weeks of A/C treatment (A for Adriamycin and C for Cytoxan), then four treatments, again every two weeks of Taxol. This regimin will be for a total of four months. In the meantime, I am going to have a MUGA test (for my heart) a CT Scan and Bone Desity Scan next week.
I am feeling a lot better since my lymph node surgery and had the drain removed last week. The only other issue I have right now is some sort of infection which is on my breast and is making part of it red and swollen, but strangely no where near the incision site. I am on my second round of antibiotics and if it doesn’t clear up by next week then I’ll have to see an infectious disease doctor. At this point, I’d much rather stick a hot poker in my eye then see anotherdoctor, so keep your fingers crossed that this clears up for me.
Cancer took my mother away from me this past June. I’m being treated to fight my own breast cancer. Today, we had to put our beloved cat to sleep because of cancer. Cancer just sucks.
Well, other than enjoying a little “me” time with a wonderful book and hot cups of tea, I’ve been recovering these past two weeks from my second surgery, this one in which my lymph nodes were removed. This afternoon I will be headed back to the city to meet with my surgical oncologist and have the drain (which wasn’t nearly as cumbersome as I had anticipated) removed and then meet with my medical oncologist. I hope that we will be able to nail down a start date for my chemotherapy and get the ball rolling.
I’ve also been spending some time looking through the website I’m Too Young For This! As described in TIME Magazine Best 50 Website for 2007: the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation, i[2]y, is a global advocacy, research and support leader in the fight against cancer working exclusively on behalf of young adult patients, survivors and their care providers. They even have a blog, where I found the above picture and you can visit them right here. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone.
I’ve been trying to figure out the easiest way to let people know about my diagnosis, but can’t seem to get it quite right. For my closest friends and family I sent out a mass e-mail. That seemed to do the job quite effectively and without much stress on my side. Just hit the send button and you’re done. I received a lot of e-mails and phone calls afterwards, but that was after they actually had time to process what I was saying.
But how do I go about telling people, in person, that I have breast cancer There is no way to “go easy” when telling someone shocking news. The other day I sprung it on a neighbor and didn’t expect the response I received. After saying “I don’t want to shock you, but I have been diagnosed with breast cancer” she actually bent over, put her hands on her knees and took a bunch of big breaths. Of course, I was shocked that I almost made her hyperventilate!
There are many reasons why just blurting out “I’ve got cancer” can send some people into varied reactions. Since I’m only in my mid-thirties, it probably makes people think about their own morality. Even though the stigma of talking about breast cancer isn’t as strong as it used to be, it still makes people plenty uncomfortable. As it turns out, neighbor’s mother has cancer and is currently having chemotherapy, which may explain her response.
Will it get easier? I suppose a few years down the line when in conversation someone brings up cancer and I say “I had breast cancer in 2008 and am now a survivor” well, then that will probably be a bit easier. Everybody like to hear about being a survivor. It gives them hope.
Do you remember Fraggle Rock? Being a thirty-five year old that grew up watching a bit of tv, I was thrilled to find out that this Jim Hensen production I enjoyed as a little girl is now available on DVD from Netflix. One of my favorite parts of the show, the theme song, is so upbeat you can’t help but sing along. Last night my six year old daughter and I watched an episode, and before long we were singing to the words.
Dance your cares away (clap clap),
Worries for another day,
Let the music play (clap clap),
Down in Fraggle Rock
I’ve been working hard these last few days to do exactly like the Fraggle’s suggest – worry less and have fun more. Which sounds easy enough, but is hard to do when you wake up each morning to the thought “wow, I’ve got cancer.” It is literally the first thing that pops into my head when I open my eyes. Not “I’ve got to pack a lunch for Leah today” or “I forgot to senda n e-mail to my friend yesterday” but those ominous words “I’ve got cancer.” This is probably not the healthiest way to start your day.
Two things have happened recently that have made that “worry less” mantra a little easier to follow. First, a big weight on my shoulders has been lifted since I received a phone call from my genetic counselor. I’ve tested negative for the BRAC gene. Secondly, I had a pumpkin painting party for my daughter’s 2nd birthday yesterday, on a glorious 70 degree fall afternoon. It was a great party and fun day for all of us, spend with our friends.
So even though today I woke up with the cancer words poping up in my head, I also thought about how much fun my kids had at the party yesterday and the book I need to start for my upcoming book club meeting. So maybe I’m not able to “dance my cares away” like the Fraggles, but hope one day in the future I will have a little more of an optimistic outlook first thing in the morning.
In my dream, I walked through a door into a lobby with two other women I didn’t know. It was a small area with four elevator banks. We were all waiting to get onto an elevator, when I noticed that the door we originally came through was shut tight. All of a sudden, the elevator doors opened and a rush of water started filling the lobby. It was at that moment that I knew I was going to drown. I immediately tried to push open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Before I knew it, the water was up to my waist and all I could think about was my two daughters.
This is the dream I had just the other night. I woke up before the water filled the room, so don’t know the outcome. Usually I wouldn’t be trying to analyse my own dreams, but this one is still on my mind. I met with my oncologist last week and received some mixed results. The pathology report came back from my lumpectomy the previous week. The sentinel nodes they removed are still clear of cancer cells. What my doctor didn’t realize at the time of surgery was that when she was removing the surrounding tissue around my tumor, she inadvertently removed a very small lymph node with it. Some testing has been done on that node and it came back positive for cancer cells. We have decided that I will be going back for surgery in two weeks in order to remove my remaining auxiliary lymph nodes. I will then meet with another oncologist at the end of the month to discuss what type of chemotherapy treatments I will have to get. They will most likely start in the middle of November.
Needless to say, I’m not thrilled with having to go under the knife again. I’m just now starting to feel a bit better from my lumpectomy, only to have them re-open those same wounds to take out my lymph nodes. Add to that having to find child care for my two girls, dealing with a drain which will be inserted and will stay with me anywhere from 10 days to 2 weeks to drain fluid AND worrying about developing lymphoedema and I feel like I’m drowning in all this cancer mumbo-jumbo. With all these new worries that come with a cancer diagnosis, how do you swim back up for air?
OK, I’m not what you would call a “hat” person. Unlike those svelte models sporting cute winter hats on the pages of an L.L. Bean catalog, hats tend to make me look strange. I just can’t seem to pull off the look. And yet, I spent the bulk of my weekend knitting up myself a couple of hats.
When I first found out that I had breast cancer, I told my husband that if I lost my hair I would NOT be wearing a wig. It kind of flew out of my mouth without much thought behind it. Over the last few weeks I’ve had the time, mostly while knitting, to think about why I felt so adamant about not wearing a wig. When faced with a disease that can change the way we physically look, I understand why many people opt to wear a wig. My Mom, when she was diagnosed thirteen years ago with breast cancer, purchased a wig even before losing her hair. I remember that she wore her wig most of the time and I think it gave her a sense of normalcy that she needed. But there was another reason she wore that wig. My Mom was very secretive about her disease and didn’t let many people know about her cancer. I suppose breast cancer wasn’t as prevalent in the news as it is in 2008 and maybe she was afraid of the social stigma of having cancer. This always makes me a little sad, since I really didn’t understand at the time why it was such a big secret.
Even though I don’t usually like to be the center of attention, I am also not embarrased by the fact that I have breast cancer. I don’t want it to be a secret. I want other women to know that a routine mammogram has saved my life. I am not afraid of my disease and even though I probably won’t really like the way I look when I put on my home-made knitted hat in the morning, at least I’ll be being true to myself. This is why I won’t be wearing a wig if I have chemothereapy. If you’ve been through this before, what made you decide whether or not to wear a wig?
Other than being a bit tired and sore, everything went well with my lumpectomy yesterday. They removed three lymph nodes and it looks like there aren’t any cancer cells in them! My oncologist did say that they will be doing further testing on my nodes over the next week and sometimes will find cancer in them that they don’t catch during the surgery, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will be all clear! If they don’t find any, then I think I will be classified as having stage 1 breast cancer, which has something like a 95% curable rate! YEAH! I still don’t know what course of treatment I will be having, but will find out in the coming weeks.
feeling resentment against someone because of that person’s rivalry, success, or advantages (often fol. by of): He was jealous of his rich brother.
I live in a town in one of the most expensive counties in the country. Even though my house isn’t small, in comparison to the McMansions surrounding me, it is teeny-tiny. More often than I would like to admit, I am jealous of what other people have – big center island kitchens, master bathrooms, built in pools. One or two days of brooding about their beautiful custom fire pit in the backyard or luxury car and I get over it. I know what is important in life and don’t need a big house to make me feel better.
This is what I always though being jealous was like. This is, until my mother died. Sure, that little green monster of envy would flair up after having to explain to my six year old for the twentieth time why we don’t have a dedicated “play room” in our house, but NEVER in my life have I really known what the word means until now.
Since my mom died in June, every time someone talks about their mom, even in the most casual of references, I feel a pang in my heart. When I go shopping and see a women walking through the store with her mom next to her, I miss mine. When I read a book that describes a relationship between a daughter and her mother, I feel sad. Last night my daughter cried. I am not sure what brought it on, but all of a sudden she cried big tears over missing her grandmother. Just thinking about her pain made me sad, angry and yes, jealous. Why do other children still have their grandmas to play with, to sleep over their houses, to talk to? Why does my six year old have to know this pain? Why does she now have to have the word cancer in her vocabulary?
Just four years ago, at Christmastime, someone took a picture of my grandmother, my mother, myself and my daughter. Four generations of women. Now there are only two of us left. Yeah, I’m jealous all right.
Remember that song "C is for Cookie" that Cookie Monster used to sing when we were kids? Well, for this 35 year old mother of two with breast cancer, the letter "C" takes on a whole new meaning...
