It's a date!

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.

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!

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.

You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose...

I had a PICC line installed today. PICC stands for "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter". For those of us who aren't medically inclined, a PICC line is basically a more permanent version of an IV. They inserted it into a vein in my arm, which goes to an artery and then on to my heart. It will stay in my arm for the rest of chemo (usually they last for a month or two). There are two tubes that hang out of my arm, one for taking stuff out of me (drawing blood), and one for putting stuff in me (chemo).

It was really easy and not painful to get the PICC line installed. I wish I would have known that sooner, it sure beats getting stuck a bajillion times every time they try to find my veins at chemo. They used some local anesthetic (like what they use when you go to the dentist) and then a few minutes later it was done. The downside to the PICC line is that I have to make sure it doesn't get wet so there won't be any germies... infections are not allowed, no sir! Also, I have to flush the lines out daily with saline solution. I wonder if I can put my Diet Coke into a plunger and just inject it straight into my veins?

New news is new news.

I had a very eventful checkup with the oncology group. I'm very low on iron, so they ordered me to eat a steak for dinner. Deal! They said it was time to schedule an appointment with my surgeon. I also have a "treatment summary" appointment scheduled with my oncologist.

Since my veins have been disappearing and being difficult (it took three nurses four tries to stick me at my last chemo), we decided to have a PICC line installed.

Now, the most important part. I've been very achey with the Taxol and Abraxane. It makes it uncomfortable for me to sleep so I am exhausted. Then, there is the neuropathy (numbness and tingling in my fingers and feet). The neuropathy is a concern because instead of getting better over time, it only gets worse (and may be permanent). With the Abraxane, the neuropathy is more likely to reverse. The other option is to take smaller doses in more frequent treatments. This would mean I'd have three weeks of treatments, a week off, and then three more weeks of treatments, thereby extending my chemo for a few weeks. So the question is... if you had to get sick would you prefer a) a flu with a fever and the whole bit, completely knocking you out for two days, or b) a cold with a sore throat and the sniffles, but still being able to do most things for two weeks (and no cheating and saying you don't get sick or you get ebola in this hypothetical situation)? I guess I'd pick the flu. I'll just tough out the chemo for two more treatments (the side effects aren't unbearable, just uncomfortable).

Chemo #6

Two more to go! The Taxol was making the bottom of my feet hurt (neuropathy) so they switched me to Abraxane. It's a natural (as opposed to the synthetic Taxol) protein so most patients handle it better. Plus the neuropathy is more reversible. It took three nurses four tries to find a vein. Once they started the benadryl, I was out cold. I didn't wake up until a half hour after my chemo was finished. I went home afterwards and slept some more. I'm very happy that these treatments don't make me nauseous, although I was just getting the hang of how to handle the nausea when they switched me. Now I have to find a way to deal with the achiness.

I put the FUN in fundraising

Team HYDOOO did an amazing job with the Susan G Komen race for the cure! We ended up in 4th place (so far... they're accepting donations through the end of February) and raised $15,500. That's a whole lot of mammograms! The race was an incredible time. I got to ride in the pace car for the walk in the back of the Ford Mustang. They dropped me off a block up so I was able to rejoin the massive crowd for the walk. Thanks to Tim and the boys holding up pink foam fingers I was able to find them in the stream of people.

The local (channel 5) news interviewed me the day before the race. Tania Rogers was a sweetheart (her husband works with me at Siemens too) and did a great job with the segment. I had a bunch of strangers come up to me the day of the race and say "I saw you on the news!!". Here's the link:
http://www.wptv.com/content/news/topstories/story/Race-for-the-Cure-breast-cancer-Cristal-Hydo-Te/YdqVSht2-E6-rBE006eLJw.cspx

After I finished the race there was a survivior ceremony. It was really nice. They gave us a pink carnation and brought us on stage for a few songs. Palm Beach Post's video of the survivor ceremony (look for yours truly a few minutes in):

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/race-for-the-cure-2010-203874.html

So... now what do I do to save the world? ;)