The date is set for my mastectomy: April 19th, 8 AM. I'm having my surgery at the Jupiter hospital. I expect to be there for about two days (the day of and the day after). First my surgeon will remove the breast tissue and perform a sentinel lymph node dissection. He's going to remove the first lymph node (and possibly a few more) closest to the breast, the sentinel or watchdog lymph node, and test it for cancer. If it's clean, he doesn't need to remove any others. The idea of doing this is to reduce the risk for lymphadema. Lymphadema is a pain in the butt side effect where the fluid won't drain out of your arm because the fluid-drainers (the lymph nodes) were removed. It's permanent and painful so we don't want any of that.
Next, the plastic surgeon is going to put in spacers. These will keep my skin stretched out while I'm going through radiation. The skin is very elastic, like a rubber band, so we're going to put in the spacers to keep the shape.
It should take me a few (~3) weeks to heal and I can start my radiation after that. Then when radiation is through I can start reconstruction.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
It's the end of the chemo as we know it...
... and I feel fiiiiine.
I've been criminally late at updating my blog lately. The fatigue has been hitting me through my past few treatments. First, my blood cell counts are low (so low that they almost didn't give me my last chemo treatment). Secondly, I'm having hot flashes at night waking me up every few hours. Not fun, not fun at all!
Well, I've been recovering from my last chemo (woo woo!). The achiness and neuropathy were just as bad as previous treatments, but have been fading away. As I said, my fatigue is pretty bad but I anticipate that it'll get better soon as my body rebounds from my last round of toxic chemicals. In any case, the chemo was a success and shrunk the tumor down an incredible amount. Hooray for modern medicine!
Hair grows about a half inch a month, so it'll be quite awhile until my hair grows back. I'm kind of relieved about this, because after my surgeries I won't be able to lift my arms to wash my hair. No hair means problem solved!
So the question on everyone's mind is... What's next??
The plan: bi-lateral mastectomy, radiation, reconstruction. A bi-lateral mastectomy means they are going to completely remove both breasts. Hey, the things tried to kill me... I have NO attachment to them now. Why, you ask, a bi-lateral mastectomy if the tumor shrunk down to practically nothing (I'm a mind reader today, I know)? That has to do with factors like the type of breast cancer I had (see my previous post on Triple Negative), the initial size of the tumor (11 cm), and my age.
I met with my surgeon and a few plastic surgeons to try to hash this all out. I currently don't have a date set yet for surgery, but will keep everyone posted!
I've been criminally late at updating my blog lately. The fatigue has been hitting me through my past few treatments. First, my blood cell counts are low (so low that they almost didn't give me my last chemo treatment). Secondly, I'm having hot flashes at night waking me up every few hours. Not fun, not fun at all!
Well, I've been recovering from my last chemo (woo woo!). The achiness and neuropathy were just as bad as previous treatments, but have been fading away. As I said, my fatigue is pretty bad but I anticipate that it'll get better soon as my body rebounds from my last round of toxic chemicals. In any case, the chemo was a success and shrunk the tumor down an incredible amount. Hooray for modern medicine!
Hair grows about a half inch a month, so it'll be quite awhile until my hair grows back. I'm kind of relieved about this, because after my surgeries I won't be able to lift my arms to wash my hair. No hair means problem solved!
So the question on everyone's mind is... What's next??
The plan: bi-lateral mastectomy, radiation, reconstruction. A bi-lateral mastectomy means they are going to completely remove both breasts. Hey, the things tried to kill me... I have NO attachment to them now. Why, you ask, a bi-lateral mastectomy if the tumor shrunk down to practically nothing (I'm a mind reader today, I know)? That has to do with factors like the type of breast cancer I had (see my previous post on Triple Negative), the initial size of the tumor (11 cm), and my age.
I met with my surgeon and a few plastic surgeons to try to hash this all out. I currently don't have a date set yet for surgery, but will keep everyone posted!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Chemo 7 and follow-up
Chemo #7 went off without a hitch. I felt nauseous after the pre-meds so they gave me Ativan and then it was night night time for Cristal. The next few days I spent in Atlanta for the Young Survival Coalition's Conference. I have had the same symptoms as the past few times... achiness, neuropathy, fatigue. My red and white blood cell counts are still low.
At my check-up, my oncologist ordered a couple of scans. First there was the CT Scan of my head. There is a chance of metastasis to the brain with Triple Negative breast cancer (that means that the cancer cells decide to take a family trip up to my brain, like what they see and permanently move in). Mine came back all clear. They didn't tell me whether they had found any grey matter in that head of mine though... hm...
Then there was the ever comprehensive (and ever expensive) MRI. The basic conclusion from the MRI was that the chemo worked (wasn't it supposed to?). They compared my previous scans to the current ones and the tumor had shrunk substantially. There were a few spots that still "lit up" on the screen.
So now I'm planning my surgery and reconstruction. I'm planning on a bi-lateral mastectomy (the suckers tried to kill me, chop 'em off!). It'll be about a month after the end of chemo. I'm still looking at reconstruction options.
At my check-up, my oncologist ordered a couple of scans. First there was the CT Scan of my head. There is a chance of metastasis to the brain with Triple Negative breast cancer (that means that the cancer cells decide to take a family trip up to my brain, like what they see and permanently move in). Mine came back all clear. They didn't tell me whether they had found any grey matter in that head of mine though... hm...
Then there was the ever comprehensive (and ever expensive) MRI. The basic conclusion from the MRI was that the chemo worked (wasn't it supposed to?). They compared my previous scans to the current ones and the tumor had shrunk substantially. There were a few spots that still "lit up" on the screen.
So now I'm planning my surgery and reconstruction. I'm planning on a bi-lateral mastectomy (the suckers tried to kill me, chop 'em off!). It'll be about a month after the end of chemo. I'm still looking at reconstruction options.
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