Tag: breast cancer

The Battle

In October 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had an estrogen based breast cancer, probably from taking hormones during menopause for too long. I made the choice to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I made this choice to avoid radiation and chemotherapy treatments. As much as I complained about my naturally curly hair, I didn’t want to lose it and start over. I didn’t want to go through the days and weeks of feeling miserable and sick from the chemo. I didn’t want the burned skin from the radiation treatments that would hurt more than any sunburn and would turn my skin black from the treatments.

My best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer two years before me and went through a lumpectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. I watched her lose her hair, saw her burned skin and stood by as she lost her sense of taste and sensation in her finger tips. I marveled at her strength throughout the treatments, her smile and the way she made cancer insignificant as she fought and won, beating breast cancer. She is my hero and the strongest, most courageous woman I know. I also knew that I couldn’t be that strong in my fight against breast cancer.

Sometimes I feel like I cheated. Like I took a shortcut in my battle by having a mastectomy and reconstruction. I eliminated the cancer by having my breasts removed and all of the surrounding tissue. I healed up and went on about my life, returning to my normal routine. I take a pill every day for five years to keep my body from making any estrogen and visit my oncologist every six months, but for the most part, my life is the same as it was before cancer.

I read about all of the people battling some form of cancer how they fight, their strength of purpose and will to live. I admire their courage and strength. I always feel a bit odd when I walk into my oncologist’s office and see the really sick people waiting for treatment like I’m taking precious time away from each of them for me.

No, I don’t want to experience the sickness and pain of fighting cancer in order to legitimatize my personal battle; that is not what I’m saying, I admire everyone that had or has cancer and their personal decisions on how they wage their battle. I just feel that I’m not worthy as all of the others are who have fought and either won or lost their battle against cancer.

I don’t know if this is a survivor’s crisis or just me. Maybe this is the truth that people who take shortcuts feel guilty later for taking the shortcut or a quicker way of getting to the endgame. The same way people that are given money squander it as opposed to understanding the value of the effort to earn it. Maybe that is the crux of my quandary, I don’t feel like I earned my win.

The End of Summer

The end of summer usually brings a sigh of relief. It means that the oppressive heat and humidity of summer is almost done and cooler brisker days are ahead. The long dry spells that normally stretch through July and August will be gone. Here in the Midwest we’ve had three summers in a row that have been hot and miserable, with a drought that started in 2011 and didn’t really end until this year. But not this year, 2014 started off with a long cold miserable winter that just wouldn’t quit. It dragged on for months, stomping on spring and kept its hold on Mother Nature forcing late blooms and delayed planting.

This year after winter finally withered away, leaving spring a mere shadow of its self, summer came waltzing in lightly warming the days. We had ample rain early on staving off the need for watering the garden vegetables I planted. The days were really quite pleasant with temperatures reaching the high eighties with a few days in the low nineties, not the normal high nineties with days creeping into the hundreds. This summer has been a very nice gift from Mother Nature. Maybe she felt bad about the miserable past winter.

The down side to a cooler summer meant a late start on the vegetables I planted. It was well into July before my cucumbers, zucchini and squash started bearing fruit. I had lots of blooms but no fruit. I was beginning to think nothing was getting pollinated. I wondered where the bees were. I learned that because of the long hard winter and the milder summer it was taking longer for the ground to warm up enough for hot weather vegetables and fruits, like peppers and tomatoes, to get started. My cantaloupe didn’t start making baby cantaloupes until almost September. I will probably have a ripe cantaloupe about the time of the first frost.

Normally I look forward to the changing colors of fall foliage, but not this year. I want more summer. I want more time outside in the garden. This year when I look out the window and see the leaves starting to turn color I feel a sense of loss and a little sad, like something inside me is shutting down and dying. This was a great summer, one that I spent almost every weekend outside working in the yard and I’m not looking forward to the bitter cold and biting winds. I am not ready for fall not this year.

Maybe I feel this way because I’m coming up on my one year anniversary of being diagnosed with breast cancer. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling a sense of loss I don’t know, because I try not to let myself dwell on depressing things. Maybe I feel this sadness because I feel great and am working out, getting back in shape and am afraid of the other shoe dropping. You know the feeling that if you are this happy then something bad is going to happen, just to balance out the happy. Crazy, huh?

Maybe I’m just overthinking it, I don’t know. I just wish that summer wasn’t over yet. I guess I need to move to the Caribbean, it stays pretty nice there all year long.

Suspended Animation

I realized the other day I’ve been holding my breath since October 22, 2013. That was the day my surgeon called to tell me I had breast cancer. The next thirty-six days were a gut twisting, pulse racing rush from doctor to doctor trying to make an informed decision that would hopefully be the best choice for me. On the thirty-sixth day, November 26th, I underwent a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. The surgeries (2) one by my general surgeon to remove both breasts and one immediately following by my plastic surgeon to start the reconstruction process by implanting tissue expanders to stretch the remaining breast tissue over a period of time to a size of my choice. After I reach the size of my choosing, I will go back in for more surgery to remove the tissue expanders and put in the implants.

A few days after my surgery the results came back as Stage 1 cancer with nothing in my lymphatic system. Outstanding news and I thought I was done, but no I was told that I needed to call and make an appointment with an oncologist. I did and had to wait six weeks to get in to see the doctor. I had no idea that there are that many people with cancer. When the day finally came I thought for sure that it would just be a simple in and out, no cancer, pay your ten dollar copay and thank you very much for stopping by. But that wasn’t the case. The oncologist wanted to run another test, called an Oncotype DX test, where they test twenty-one genes of the cancer to see what the chances of it returning and then score the results. I told the doctor that I didn’t have any more cancer to share and he said that the lab saves it. Why would the lab save my cancer? If it was me, I would have tossed in the trash and been done with it.

The oncologist spent an hour just explaining my type of cancer and what different types of treatments were available. It was so overwhelming, because I kept thinking that was what I had the surgery for, to remove the cancer and my breasts so that there was nothing left to get cancer. Even my surgeon had said that he didn’t think I would have to have any extra treatment, eg. Chemotherapy because the cancer was so small and only stage 1. No matter how hard I tried to remain detached not getting my hopes up that this would all be over, I started believing that I would walk out of his office with a clean bill of health. So news of an additional test threw me back a few steps.

I went online to read up about the oncotype-DX test and found that the lab tests 21 genes of the cancer cell to check the likelihood of the cancer returning scoring it from 0 to 100. A score of 17 and below puts a cancer patient in the low range of the chance it returning, a score of 18 to 30 puts the patient in the moderate range of the chance of the cancer returning and a score of 31 to 100 puts the patient in the high risk range of the chance that the cancer will return.

Because the cancer was so small, .5 centimeters, when it was found, I decided that the score would have to be way below 17. Foolish me. When I went back for my appointment to get the results and score, I looked down at the report and all I saw was the number 23 screaming at me. I am in the moderate range, meaning I have a 14% chance of the cancer returning or an 86% chance of the cancer not returning depending on whether or not you are a pessimist or an optimist. My doctor was explaining what it meant and what we needed to do for treatment, but all I heard was a roaring in my ears, my throat closed and my eyes started to well up. Damn I wanted that score to be way below 17 so badly. I had to stop and focus and quit feeling sorry for myself. There are a lot of other women out there that would have given anything to get a score of 23 and I needed to sit up straight and stick out my chin. I can take it, I kept telling myself.

In the end, the doctor told me he was putting me on an estrogen negative drug, Arimidex, as a treatment. The drug is used for treating postmenopausal women with early breast cancer. I asked about the side effects and he said it causes hot flashes, bone softening and can cause joint pain and those are just some of the common side effects, the really bad side effects are a lot scarier. Goody I thought, I will be a bent over old woman walking around in the dead of winter wearing a sports bar and shorts. I am not looking forward to start taking the drug, but I don’t really have much of a choice, I haven’t come this far or gone through everything to date to give up now.

I go back to the doctor every three months for blood work for the next two years and take the drug for five years and if after that I’m still here, then I’m considered a breast cancer survivor. Now that I know what and how we’re treating me, I have a goal and can start planning life again and stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s time to exhale.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

First I want to thank all of my readers and fellow bloggers that have hung in there with me for the past three and a half years. You’ve read my stories, laughed and cried with me and left me wonderful comments that have kept me writing all this time. I write because I love to write and would write with no audience, but because of you writing is more fun. You’ve kept me challenged to grow as a writer to try new ideas and travel down new roads in writing.

Recently I was diagnosed with breast cancer and last week underwent a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. Monday I received the pathology report on my follow up visit with my surgeon. The cancer was determined to be Stage 1 and there was nothing in my lymph nodes. The cancer was very small and with the mastectomy all of it was removed gone forever. (I hope) The surgeon told me that the survival rate was 95% for five years.

That was probably the best news I’ve ever received, so you can imagine how I felt. Me, who never gets excited over anything, was babbling pretty incoherently. Poor Mitch had to tie a rope around my waist just to keep me from floating six feet off the ground. I was walking around making plans, talking nonstop not letting Mitch get a word in edgewise.

Bottom line now I can move on and get back to the reason for this blog, to entertain you with stories about those spoiled rotten wretched dogs that love to use me as a boat anchor on their walks. Thank you so much for your continued support I promise I will not disappoint you.

PS. During my recovery time of lying around and healing, I decided to start another blog site, “Susan Uncorked”, this one dedicated to one of my other passions, wine. I love everything about wine, so it just seemed like a perfect match, I drink wine then I get to write about wine. When you have a moment, please check out http://susank456.wordpress.com/ and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you.

It’s Okay

Today is the day. Today is the day I’ve been waiting nervously, anxiously for. Today is the day I’ve been dreading. I made the decision to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I didn’t make the decision lightly. I came to this decision after three other lumpectomies, albeit all benign, and I don’t want to have to make a decision like this ever again.

I’ve joked about the cancer, mocked it and made fun of myself for getting breast cancer. Some might think I was being callous, not being caring and thoughtful of others that are and have gone through this, but I’m not. This has been the only way I can deal with having cancer. To mock it and laugh about it is my defense against it. Otherwise I would walk around like a zombie feeling sorry for myself, sorry, that is not me. Besides I wouldn’t put my family and friends through that misery.

My family and friends have been outstanding through this long waiting period. There have been lunches and dinners (with alcohol), shopping trips to buy zip up tops, pajamas and undershirts for the healing process and too many hugs to count. A dear coworker even bought me a massage for the night before surgery just to help me relax and have positive energy. Poor Mitch, who has especially had to endure my warped sense of humor and totally inappropriate comments, has no idea how much I love him. I told him last night that he was the best time I ever had. Just in case.

This morning after no food or drink after midnight, not even a cup of coffee, I get to go have dye injected in me, have both my boobs whacked off and the rebuilding begun. Of course on top of having all of this fun, I get to go wearing NO MAKEUP. This from the woman who gets up an hour early on hunting trips just to shower and put on makeup.

Now that today has finally come, I’m scared. I wasn’t going to let it get to me, but it did. Damn cancer. But I’ve decided that today it’s okay to be scared.

My Rose Garden

So far the real downside to breast cancer is that I had to give up my hormones. I know that in the great grand scheme of things, giving up taking hormones is insignificant to staying alive, but these hot flashes are miserable. That sounds petty and small to some I’m sure, but until you’ve had a hot flash you have no idea what I’m talking about.

You don’t know what to wear, either you don’t have enough clothes on or way too many and sometimes not enough on that you can remove them in public. You never know when one is going to strike, no warning, just all of a sudden there is blast furnace turned up on high inside you and you can’t get any cooling relief fast enough. I keep a small fan on my desk and am constantly turning it on and off, to the point that I’m starting to get the crazy eye looks from some of my coworkers. Of course, they’re a little scared of me under normal circumstances anyway, so this just adds to the fear.

Its small comfort that it’s late autumn and winter is coming, maybe it won’t be so bad with colder weather. Of course the neighbors will think I’ve lost my mind when I’m walking the dogs in a snowstorm wearing a short sleeve t-shirt and shorts.

Stupid breast cancer, couldn’t it have been something else that could have caused it besides hormones? I would have gladly given up turnips or fish, (even though I don’t eat turnips or fish anyway) to save myself from breast cancer. Of course I don’t know for sure that the hormones caused the breast cancer, not yet anyway. I’ll find that out after the surgery when they take it all out and some of my lymphatic system too. It just sucks that not only do I have to worry about breast cancer, but I have to be miserable off and on too.

Where is that rose garden, nobody ever promised me anyway?

My World Turned Inside Out

I have been sitting here trying to think of something witty or profound to say and nothing comes to mind. I’m not feeling especially wise or funny right now. To be honest, I’m feeling lost and scared. Every year I go get my basic health exams done, you know the ones, Pap smear and mammogram. In the past both have come back questionable, so I always keep my annual appointments religiously. I had my first breast biopsy when I was eighteen. I’ve had three more since and so far they have all been benign. After the mammogram the technician put me back in a tiny room to wait half naked for the radiologist to read the X-rays and pronounce me free to go. There was a knock on the door and the technician said the radiologist saw something he didn’t like and wanted more x-rays.

After more smashing, contorting and discomfort I was sent back to my tiny little room to wait. Everything was going to be fine, I told myself, the same as always. The knock on the door and look on technician’s face said something different. The radiologist wanted to do a sonogram because he wasn’t sure if he saw something or if it was a shadow from the scar tissue made from the last breast biopsy I had done four years ago. Off I went to get a sonogram. This day was not turning out the way I had planned. The technician completed the sonogram and took off to show his work to the radiologist telling me to lie still and wait until he came back. I waited for what seemed like an eternity thinking what was wrong, how difficult could this be? The technician knocked on the door and in walked the radiologist with the technician. This was not good. The last time I saw the radiologist was four years ago when he saw the last lump. The radiologist explained that he wanted to watch the tech do the sonogram to see exactly what the tech was doing and what was showing on the screen. Oh goody, now I have two men looking at my naked chest and not in a good way.

After ten minutes of rolling the wand back and forth across my breast, the radiologist explained that the “lesion” or “mass” was new and not a shadow from the scar tissue of the previous biopsy. He said he would call my doctor and recommend either an MRI or a needle biopsy to find out if the lesion was benign or not. The technician made a DVD copy of the x-rays and the sonogram for me to take with me to the surgeon for show and tell. G-Rated of course. My gynecologist called and we discussed how to proceed. Once again it would be the needle biopsy, fun, fun, fun. She also explained that since I had been on hormones for seven years and if the mass turned out to be cancerous that I would have to stop taking the hormones. I told her that wasn’t she just the bearer of more bad news. I was not looking forward to hot flashes. Of course, I figured that it would be another benign tumor just like the previous three times. I called the surgeon’s office and made an appointment for Friday, October 11th, giving me a week and a half to stew about it. Outwardly I knew it would be nothing as always, but inwardly there was this little voice inside my head saying, “are you sure? What if…?”

I played off the impending office visit, telling Mitch and myself that it was no big deal, then immediately following up with a statement about just lopping both breasts off and not having to worry about this in the future. Friday finally came and I was so keyed up about going so that I could get this over with that I totally forgot to take my boob DVD with me. I walked into the reception area and signed in, making a joke about being early. The receptionist smiled, asked for the DVD and I gave her this stricken look, I couldn’t believe it, I forgot it. I knew exactly where it was, sitting on my dresser. I apologized profusely and walked out to call Mitch and ask him to drop what he was doing and bring it to me. What a nincompoop, I suck. Mitch being the saint he is, brought it to me in record breaking time so I could still make my appointment on time.

I took my prize back inside with me and handed it over to the receptionist to give to the surgeon. Once ushered in to the examination room, I got undressed from the waist up, donned the fashionable gown and waited for my surgeon to come in make it all better. We crossed the hall to the room with his sonogram machine so that he could find the lesion again and know where to stab me so he could take the tissue samples for testing. His nurse squirted the lubricant on my skin, and it was off the races with my surgeon rolling the wand over the area marked on the sonogram and x-rays searching for the lesion. He couldn’t find it. Back and forth he rolled it over and over and didn’t see anything suspect. He was getting frustrated and I was getting worried. Was I wasting everyone’s time on a witch hunt? Of course I wasn’t the one that found it the first time, but my brain works in a weird twisted way, I blame myself first. After about fifteen minutes of a fruitless search for the mass, my surgeon decided he wanted to call in the big guns.

It was decided that I would go to the Women’s Center and get a sonogram needle biopsy there by the hospital’s radiologist. Evidently the women’s center had a bigger better sonogram machine and they would stand a better chance of finding it than the surgeon’s office machine. Since it was after four on Friday, I would have to wait until Monday the following week for the scheduler at the women’s center to call and set up an appointment, another weekend of waiting and wondering. The stress was really starting to build and the little voice was getting louder, the “what ifs” coming more and more. I still presented an outward, “this is no big deal.” But inside I had a bad feeling and told Mitch so that night in bed.

His response was, “What do you want to do?”

“There’s nothing I can do but wait. I just want it done and know the outcome, that’s all.”

Monday afternoon on the 14th I got a call from the scheduler setting up my appointment for that Wednesday at 2pm. I wish I could have gone right then, I don’t do waiting well. You should see me during the Christmas season, I make Mitch crazy. Thankfully I was not responsible for taking the DVD to the center; my surgeon’s nurse ran that over for me. The staff at the Women’s Center was amazing, caring kind women that treated me so wonderfully. I can truthfully say that everyone I had dealt with so far have been the most wonderful caring professionals in the healthcare field. These are special people to do what they do every day.

As the radiologist took the syringe and prepared to stab me with it the technician reached down and grabbed my hand and held it. I looked up at her and she had such a soft sweet smile on her face, it was almost like having my mom standing there holding my hand telling me that everything would be alright. That was so unexpected and reassuring, I almost started crying. I felt like I wasn’t alone in this, that they were there rooting for me as much as I was. I felt a sharp prick and then a burning sensation in my left breast; I looked up at the screen and could see the needle moving back and forth squirting the lidocaine around the area to be snipped. It was weird and a little creepy looking at the screen and seeing the needle then the fireplace log starter moving around inside me while the radiologist hunted for the best site to take tissue samples. Again it was time for more waiting. Two to three days before I would get the results and since it was late Wednesday afternoon, I probably would not get the results until Monday.

Monday came and went no phone call; does that mean good or bad news? Tuesday I called the doctor’s office finally out of patience and was told that the results had just gotten there but the doctor hadn’t read them yet and would call me back as soon as he read through the report. My world stopped as soon as I heard the doctor’s voice on the other end of the phone, “I’m sorry, the pathology report shows you have breast cancer. It’s a small mass, which is good…” he droned on. But that was all I heard, “breast cancer” then there was a roaring in my ears and my chest tightened. I squeezed back tears, took a deep breath and clenched my jaw shut to keep from blubbering out loud. No, my mind screamed, no not now, not today. Like any other day would be a better day for cancer. I focused on what the doctor was saying. He said that he wanted me to come in and talk to him and discuss our plan of action. The sooner the better, I could come in today or tomorrow whichever was better for me. I could get a mastectomy or a lumpectomy and get radiation therapy.

I told myself I could do this and called Mitch to tell him. As soon as I started to tell him, I couldn’t talk, tears ran down my face, I took a breath and blurted it out. In his usual calm voice he said that we would get through this. We would go to the doctor’s office discuss our options and go from there. “WE” being the operative word. Not you but we. We were a couple, a team and we would fight the fight together. I don’t think I could have loved him more than at that moment. Mitch had my back, no matter what.

It is funny how you can read something and it doesn’t affect you as much as saying it out loud. I could see the words breast cancer in my mind or even say breast cancer out loud, but when I added the two words, “I have”, I would tear up, my voice dropped to a whisper and I could barely speak the entire sentence, “I have breast cancer.” It took me three days to be able say that without crying, but now I can and I can smile and think about the positives in my life. I am working with the surgeon, doing research and talking the best source in the world, my friend who went through this last year and is amazing. She is the strongest woman I know who has inspired me to try to be half as strong as she was.

I gave myself a wallow time to feel sorry for myself, but now it’s time to get beyond that and fight the fight of my life. I’m done wallowing it’s time to put on the boxing gloves.