I am coming up on my 6 month anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. January 3rd is when I had my regular mammo and ultrasound. It was at this appointment, that I knew something was up. I was all too familiar with watching the ultrasound person and how they zero in on questionable areas. Within 2 weeks I had a biopsy, confirmation of breast cancer (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma) for the 2nd time in 3 years, parameters of my type of breast cancer, HD MRI and finally on my 45th birthday, January 19th, a confirmation from my Dr. and to myself, a double mastectomy was in my future. My girlfriends that night surprised me with a birthday party where I promptly burst into tears and told everyone what was happening. Talk about a downer. I was so angry at my husband that night for not warning me of what my friends were doing. I just couldn't handle it. I really just wanted to crawl into bed and cry. His thought was it might cheer me up to be with my friends...well in our 28 years together, he has only been wrong a few times about my feelings and this took the top prize.
So after that night and countless additional tests, I set a date for the double mastectomy, March 10, 2011. Amazing how some dates just stick in your mind. Leading up to it, life was good. Had a girl's weekend away. Time away with my husband. Got the house and kids in order for my "out of order" time period. The thought of having the double mastectomy was more terrifying then the actual event. It was by no means a walk in the park. The days after surgery, the uncomfortable feeling, the drains, etc. etc. Within 3 weeks I felt pretty good. I was getting fills every week on my expander's. Incisions were healing fine. Came to the conclusion chemo was in my future now since my tumor was 11cm large, encircling my entire left breast. Big clear margins though-thank you Dr. Gottlieb! Went to UCSF for my 2nd opinion. They concurred with my oncologist here. Set the date for chemo start all based on when my daughter's graduation was going to be from high school, June 10...there's another date to remember. Crazy enough, I can't remember the date of my first chemo...but after looking it up, it was on May 5th, 2011. That was a horrible weekend. Period. End of story, well not exactly end of story. I have 7 more chapters after that and then end of that story.
Every 2 weeks on Thursday am. I had my chemo, Adriamycin and Cytoxan. I lost my weekends plus Monday and Tuesday following my Thursday infusions. I would have some side effects that would follow me into Wednesday, Thursday, Friday but I was functioning. Starting Saturday I would feel back to normal and by the time Tuesday rolled around I actually felt like a little hanky panky with the honey. Wow once every 2 weeks...no boobs (redefine that- boobs that are hard with the expander's), no hair... how sexy is that look? Wednesday I head back to the Dr.'s for blood tests and then Thursday's I do it again. This part of the whole process is taking way too long. I will be starting the next phase in 2 weeks, the Taxol. June 30th will be my 1st infusion date of my 4 part cycle.
I feel like my life is in neutral. I'm not losing ground on making my life happen but then I'm not doing "stuff" to make my life move forward. I'm not overally sick that I'm in the hospital or having side effects that impair me the whole time I'm doing chemo-that would be my life in reverse. I'm also not in drive, I can't really go on vacations since I don't know what and when side effects will happen. I couldn't help with our high school's Grad Night preparation. I was on the steering committee but I dropped out. I couldn't (or I should say I chose not to) go to the all the preparation events making Grad Night. I couldn't risk being exposed to germs or getting a splinter and having it get infected. I couldn't go to parties because of the germ exposure. All I was concentrating on was being healthy for my daughter's graduation from high school.
We did not attend any grad party's since the days after graduation were Junior Olympic qualifiers for boys water polo. Frank and I split our times at the pool watching our son's games. Just a half day was too much for me, weirdly enough. I fell into bed achy each night so no Grad parties that I really had been looking forward to. Again, my life in neutral, life around me in drive.
I would be lying if I said there was no bitterness. The bitterness creeps in occasionally. I ask, why me? Why do some people who are self absorbed, pretentious, untrusting liars get all the breaks? They cheat to get what they have and nothing negative happens to them. You spend your life trying to abide by the right morals and decisions and then you get stuck with cancer-what the f*ck??!! I have lost a year in my life. I spend just about every day with some ache, pain, or fatigue. I am sick of this. I want to put my life back in drive. I want to be able to just leave whenever I want and not be stuck by a chemo schedule or illness. I want to have my husband look at me with lust not sorrow. I want to be able to eat that hamburger that's dripping with melted cheese and chili. I want to go to a crowd capacity baseball game, drink all the beer I want and eat the greasy garlic fries with my fingers. That is life in drive. As you can tell the bitterness is creeping in. I'm stopping now. I feel better...thank you.
Yes I know, it could be worse, a lot worse and I should be thankful for where I am and what I have. Just sometimes, I want more. Anyone who has had cancer and has to deal with the baggage that comes with it, can relate. I want my life to be in drive.
As for now, neutral is the best description of my life and that is not me.
p.s. one of my blogs I talked about my 6 month chocolate bar. Well, it's time to enjoy it unfortunately it just doesn't sound appealing so I'm giving it to my youngest to enjoy. Here's a thought-the Dr. says don't eat stuff you like while you have nausea from chemo. Well, why wouldn't you eat ice cream, cookies, pies, drink lots of wine, beer during this time? Once your done with chemo, you would associate all this stuff with nausea so you would stop eating it. Doesn't that make sense? I think it does and at least I could keep some of the weight off. Just another crazy thought that has some logic to it.
Keep me company as I travel thru my journey facing breast cancer again.
Why would anyone want to read about someone else's problem when you have plenty of your own? Maybe one day a loved one, a friend, or you will be diagnosed with breast cancer. My blog might offer insite into cancer resources, thoughts, questions to ask, or guidance in helping you deal with this disease. These are my experiences and suggestions. Every breast cancer is different. If you are touched by breast cancer, be sure to consult your Dr. for direction in treatment.
I equate my blog to the emergency evacuation instruction the flight attendants do before you take off on an airplane. Nobody pays attention to them but when your plane is about to crash you think, "sh*t, why didn't I pay more attention to them? Which color cord do I pull first again?" We have so many things going on in our lives that one more thing to dwell on that doesn't apply to us right now may not be important but when it does, we wish we would have paid attention.
My blog is something you might read a couple times or maybe follow. Hopefully you gain some knowledge about breast cancer, in particular, Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (ILC). It is the 2nd most common type of invasive breast cancer however it only accounts for approx. 10% of all invasive breast cancers. It is the silent breast cancer. It is generally not detected with a mammo but rather an ultrasound. Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (ILC) is what I have been diagnosed with. My suggestion to every woman who is of mammo age insist on an ultrasound with your mammos.
UPDATE 3/2011
I have had my bilaterial mastectomy and I am recovering. ILC is a sneaky cancer as I said above. My various Dr.'s here and at UCSF confirmed the size of my tumor should be between 2.5cm-3.5cm with possibilty but not most likely, 7cm. After my surgery, my tumor was confirmed to be 11cm. My Dr.'s are very knowledgeable and are on top of things. This is simply the truth about ILC. I had mammos every 6 months, ultra sounds, and MRI's. With all of these, it was not picked up until 1/2011. The good news, if you can call it that, only 1 sentinel node out of 2 has micromastic findings and 5 aux. nodes were negative.
Be sure to start my adventure from the blog history on the right. I have tried to bold points to make it easier to extract the important information. If there is anything you get out of this blog, refer to my Dr.'s listed below if you know someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer in the East Bay. These Dr.'s; Dr. Gottlieb, Dr. Wotowic, and Dr. Sherman are my 3 musketeers....all for 1 and 1 for all!
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