Ta-ta to the tata's!

There has been a recall on all 1981 model Cristal Hydo's for faulty parts. Tomorrow I'm taking her into the shop to get worked on.

I wasn't nervous until I started getting a lot of "good luck"s and "I'll be thinking about you"s at my last day of work on Friday. I'm not even sure why I'm nervous. I am positive nothing will go wrong and that I'll heal quickly. I have the best surgeon around and a great plastic surgeon as well. I guess since I've never actually had surgery before (except for wisdom teeth), I just don't know what to expect!



My friends and family have been great (as usual). Earlier in the week we had a "Ta-ta to the tata's" bowling party and I bowled a 144 (I have photographic evidence to prove it). I also picked out my new tata's:

Tonight my friends surprised me with a big dinner at Rocco's Tacos. My parents, youngest sister, and grandma are here for my surgery and to help out at home. I'm all packed and ready to head to the hospital in the AM.

Pre-op

Days until surgery: 5
Number of eyelashes: 12 (11 on the left, 1 on the right)
Hair length: Still about 1 mm

I went in for my pre-op appointment this morning for my mastectomy on Monday. What I have to do to prepare is not take any medications that would thin my blood, do not eat or drink after midnight the night before my surgery, and wash the surgical area with anti-bacterial soap the night before and the morning of my surgery.

My surgery is first thing in the morning so I have to be there at 6AM. They will take me to pre-op, knock me out with anesthesia, and when I wake up I'll be in recovery. Seems simple enough, right? I'm getting a bi-lateral mastectomy (both sides taken out) and lymph node removal on my left side only. This is done by my breast surgeon. Then my plastic surgeon will put in tissue expanders and drains and they'll sew me back up.

I've been trying to figure out what I can do to prepare at home for my surgery. The recommendations I've gotten have been to buy cami's and button up shirts (a shopping trip? Deal!) because it'll be hard for me to reach over my head to put clothes on. Also helpful is to move dishes, food, etc on lower shelves because I won't be able to reach them for awhile. I have family members who will be staying with me so they should be able to help me with all the lifting and reaching that I need. I went into my closet and arranged it so all the button-up shirts are in one section. I don't know what else to do to prepare, so I'll just relax and wait!

Eye of the storm

Number of days since chemo = 26
Number of days until surgery = 13
Length of hair (in mm) = 1

I'm sitting here in the eye of the storm waiting. This is an eerily calm period between chemo and surgery where I don't have a lot going on. I don't know what to do with myself, I only have about one doctors' appointment a week. My blood counts are bouncing back up. I can tell because I'm only sleeping 8 hours a night (yes, only 8). My little hairs are trying so hard to grow. I'm feeling better. I'm working full time.

I've had the pre-op meeting with my plastic surgeon so I have an idea of what to expect for surgery. To prep I basically need to avoid blood thinners and bulk up on vitamins. I'll be in the hospital for what I expect to be 2 days. Then lots of pain, sleeping, and healing.

I had my blood taken by the vampires today for the BRCA genetic test so I should get those results in two weeks. I also learned a new fun fact today: People with larger than normal heads are more likely to be genetically predisposed for breast cancer. The nurse practitioner measured my head, it's pretty normal sized.

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?