Visit with My Oncologist

Today I met my oncologist. He seems wonderful and his PA was great too. I expect doctor appts to be like 30 mins. But I was there about 2 hours again. I'm already feeling terrible about the time away from my kids. Yikes! It's just the beginning. Anyway, today they agreed that chemo should be first. They want to start next week. But a few things need to happen first.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with my surgeon to have a chemo port placed. I'm SO not looking forward to that, but I've been told that patients that have them are very grateful they do. Basically it's a little device they place under my skin and connect to a big vein behind my heart. Then anytime I need chemo or meds or blood draws, they do it through the port. That way I'm not being poked constantly and it saves my veins from being damaged by the chemo. They'll sedated me for the port placement but I won't be "out". 

Next up, a PET scan. Of course they need to get a pre-authorization from my insurance and I hope they get it quickly. This is where they inject a dye that will light up any cancer cells in my body. Then they basically do a head to toe scan looking for any cancer that could have spread. The results of this scan will determine what kind of chemo they'll do.

If the cancer has not moved beyond the lymph nodes in my armpit (fingers crossed!) they'll go after this very aggressively. I'm young enough and healthy enough to take a tough hit. If they can do that, they are going for CURE! However, if the PET scan shows that it has spread beyond the lymph nodes, they'll have to take another approach. I guess at that point it is more of a "control the beast" situation. But we won't know until my insurance gives the official ok and they schedule it. My doctor wants to meet with me the day of the scan (about 2 hours later when it's read). Then he'll have a plan.

I have to get a heart echo to make sure my heart is healthy and strong enough. I guess I'll be getting these every couple of months. Then I start the chemo. And then my hair will be gone in like 2 weeks, just in time for Christmas.🎄

Oh and I'm in another clinical trial. This time is a bigger one. I'll be one of 6 at Huntsman and many others will be tested across the country and world. In the last year they have been able to use an antibody to fight the specific type I have (her2+). In the past, it was really bad news to have this type because they really couldn't treat it. Typically they give patients 4 treatments of this antibody and have seen remarkable results. Now they are hoping to see if there is a benefit to receiving the antibody for a full year, instead of 4 treatments. To do this trial I'll have a little extra monitoring and I'll have to go to the main Huntsman campus every time. But, I feel like I may end up better off in the end if this new antibody really is as remarkable as they seem to think it will be.