Post Surgery Report

I'm finally getting around to a post.  Surgery was Monday, June 1st.

I was so scared to go in, but everything went well. One big fear was the anesthesia. And when I ended up with a young anesthesiology fellow, I was nervous. The supervising doctor would be switching off with her because it was such a long surgery. And I was just that, a long surgery. I was expecting 8-10 hours and was worried about that. But it ended up being 12 hours!

I went to the IMU (a step down from the ICU) from surgery and was there for 4 days. It was a rough recovery. It's hard when you've got abdominal and chest recovery at the same time because you can't compensate for one by using the other. I had to rely on my legs and it was hard. I won't go into the detail of my surgery but you can look it up if you feel the need. I chose to do a double mastectomy with immediate DIEP reconstruction (that's the part I'll leave up to you to look up). 

When I received my pathology report, it was great news! It looks like chemo was very effective. There were a few, random cancer cells still present, but a lot of tissue showing "chemo effect". That basically means the masses where cancer was present were destroyed! They removed 16 lymph nodes and 6 of them showed chemo effect. They still remove everything because of the few cells left. We don't need them replicating!! 

Because the surgery was so long, blood clots were a worry. I had to take lovenox shots every day for 4 weeks. Not fun. Luckily I have a couple of nice friends that were willing to come over and stick me every morning. I was too scared to do it myself.

Again, it was a rough recovery. But I had a lot of help and I'm VERY thankful for it. It's been very hard for me to be so useless to my kids. I want to be able to take them to the park or the carnival or for ice cream or a walk. I couldn't do any of that for several weeks. It's a little sad for me to send them with others.

But I'm feeling pretty normal now. My energy is coming back and I'm doing well. I have limited range of motion in my left arm and I'll have to do exercise therapy and work on that. It's because of the lymph node removal. 

Anyway, I'm so happy to have that behind me!!

A Break, Tests, Cleared for Surgery

May has been a nice break. I've had a couple of appointments: echocardiogram, blood work, mammogram, ultrasound, venous ultrasound, and one pre-surgery doctor appointment.  And the results from the tests say that my heart is normal, they can't find the little indicator that they put in the tumor in the beginning (which means the rumor is pretty much gone), I still have a clot in my jugular vein from the first port (but it looks stable??), and I'm cleared for my super long surgery on MONDAY! 

If I'm being honest, I'm terrified. I HATE surgery. I'm so worried that something will go wrong, or there will be a post-surgery complication, and I'll die. I'm also scared that the anesthesia won't work, even though I've had other surgeries and the anesthesia worked just fine. Totally irrational fears, I know. I asked my doctor if people die from this surgery and he said he's never seen a case where someone died. But I'm just worried. He did say I have like a 2% chance of getting a blood clot after surgery. And that's with the anti-clotting shots I'm going to have to give myself for a few weeks.

At the same time, I'm anxious to just get it over with! It will be one more phase done and one left go to. Well, one more of the "big" phases to go (radiation). I'll still have maintenance kinds of things for a while. 

Wish me luck and say a little prayer that all goes well. 

The End of Chemo!

I finished my chemo yesterday, May 5th! I'm SO happy to have this part over. I'm feeling pretty tired today and I'm assuming this week is going to be about the same as last week - TIRED! But in a week or 2 it will all be out of my system and I hope to be feeling pretty good. No treatment for the rest of the month! Just a couple of appointments for tests. 

Then I was surprised when I got home by my sweet friends from church with a decorated yard and door. I'm so thankful for all the love and support I've received. 

We wrapped up the day with my family at Outback for dinner. It was Sue's 60th birthday, so it was a double celebration. 

Chemo Fun!

I love these ladies! Obviously one is my actual sister (maybe not obviously to all of you, she's behind me) and the other 2 are like sisters to me. They are our friends from Texas and it's wonderful to still be such good friends after 30 years!  We can go months-years without seeing each other and pick up right where we left off.

We may have been a little loud in the infusion room at times, which is why I'm glad we had Cyd for my nurse today. She's a bit of a fun, Park City, outdoorsy, let things slide kind of gal. She even stopped and joined in some of our awesome conversations! And added to them well :)

It's funny how fast the time went since we were all there together, catching up and having fun. We ate some Crown Burger and some cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. And it seemed to be over too soon. I honestly didn't even realized they were switching my chemo IVs. 

TWO MORE CHEMO TREATMENTS TO GO!!

Skin!

Taxol (my current chemo) is not a friend to my skin. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the backs of my hands are on fire! They are so, so dry and they actually feel hot! Then there are the rashes on my arms, cute. Oh, and the split skin on my fingers. That feels good, especially when cooking and things get in there and make it sting. I bet you also like the black poison marks in my nails. 

I need some really good hand moisturizer! And I need for chemo to be done so that my skin can heal.

Another Chemo Day Done!

Today was a regular old chemo day. I decided to go by myself today. Sometimes it's just nice to sit and watch Netflix. 

I've been feeling pretty tired most of the time. Plus I've had bad sinus problems, that doesn't help. My feet are numb a lot of the time (neuropathy). But, I ONLY HAVE 3 MORE CHEMO TREATMENTS!!

Next week is my last long one and I have my friends/sisters from Texas coming to hang out for the day. I can't wait!

I was handed my schedule for the upcoming month. Looks like another heart echo and a mammogram. I'll be interested to see what the mammogram shows. I was absolutely able to feel a large tumor when this started and right now it's gone! I can't feel it and the doctors can't either. Apparently this chemo is working!!

I was also told which radiology oncologist they are recommending for radiation. They found someone at the hospital in Provo. His name is Dr. Clark. It's going to be so much more convenient to drive to Provo. I should be seeing him within the next couple of weeks but radiation won't start until around the end of June.

Surgery Scheduled (for real this time)

I receieved a call from my surgeons' office this morning and they said I'm officially on the surgical schedule for Monday, June 1st. I'm nervous about the 8-10 hr surgery and the 6 week recovery, but I think I'm much more nervous about leaving my kids during the 5 day hospital stay!! Maybe I should have accepted the anxiety meds that I was offered...