How Good is the Remaining One?

We met with the surgeon this past week to find out what the options are. There really aren't any. He recommended a full mastectomy of the left side. I was hoping for a lumpectomy but he would have to remove too much tissue which would pretty much be a mastectomy anyway.

I didn't really hear much past the words "full mastectomy" so my husband had to repeat what was said. He had better questions than I did. Sometimes the brain goes blank when you get disappointing news.

Doctor tells me six months after radiation can start looking at reconstruction options. The plastic surgeon will match the other side. Ummm...I'd rather he did a better job than THAT! He'd have to be a pretty bad surgeon to MATCH that one. When things like that are mentioned my mind goes to the scene from Shallow Hal. He's asked if he'd rather date a girl with half a brain or one breast. He pauses and asks, "How good is the remaining breast?"

After sleeping on that news, I realized the next morning that I'm more upset about losing my hair, my eyelashes, and my fingernails than I am about losing a breast. We are such vain beings. Well, maybe it's just me.

My hair is growing back. It's still very short. Like a really short buzz cut. And the patches of gray look like bald spots. I've been told it comes back curly at first...but mine is growing straight out of my head. No curl. My mother used to tell me a poem when I was little...."There once was a girl, who had a curl, right in the middle of her forehead, When she was good, She was very very good, But when she was bad, She was horrid." So I guess if I don't have a curl I'm not horrid....??

I have six weeks to build up strength for the surgery. I've been walking 20 minutes a day. Which is really about all I can do. Amazing how fast you can get out of shape. Damon and I were up to 4 miles last summer. I'm lucky to go around the big block in my neighborhood. There is a tree on the Steamboat Trail. It's a very large pine tree and the only one like it. When we first started walking last year it was my goal to get to that tree. We passed it by 2 miles last year...it will be my goal to get there again.

I'm impatient to be over all of this. I want it done and out of the way so I can get back to my life.

Keep the Faith

15/16 equals 100%

This week 15/16 equals 100%. Because I have completed 15 of 16 chemotherapy treatments and I am 100% done with it.

A week ago I went in for my third FEC chemotherapy (add that to the 12 Taxols and you get 15). My doctor had ordered a chem panel to check my system functions and make sure everything was working all right. My blood sugar came back at 297. ?!?!? My nurse, Rosa, told me it's from the steroids in the premeds. I had no idea steroids could do that to blood sugar. Over the weekend it went up to 417. By Monday my oncologist had me on diabetic medications to bring it down. Today is a week later and my morning finger stick was 189. Still too high, but it's getting lower.

I spent a good hour on Friday with an internist and he chose not to put me on insulin simply because I'm not taking the steroid anymore. However I got quite an education (yet again) on the meds I've been taking.

He explained that the steroid I've been taking, virtually every week since December, is the strongest they can prescribe. And the dose amount is equal to 400mg of prednisone. For those of you that I told it was the same as 200mg...I looked up my meds and they have been giving me 20mg of decadron...not 10.

My nurse also explained that the FEC has a cumulative effect so the more treatments you get the worse the reaction. Well, let me just say she's right. I'm finally beginning to coming out of the fog and told my oncologist this week there won't be another FEC treatment. He agreed, but it doesn't matter if he agreed or not...I'm not doing it.

His reasoning was that I have responded so well to the treatment that it would be ok to miss the last one. Not only that, we still have surgery and radiation to get whatever is left...if there's anything left.

My husband's sister, Cindy Reid, has been a great source of information and inspiration. She is recovering from leukemia treatments that included a bone marrow transplant. We had similar drugs and she was able to shed some light on reactions from some of them. That really awful one (epirubucin) she received in two different forms but referred to them as the "bitch sisters". Amen....and I only got one of them.

In every awful experience there are good moments. That is the true blessing in this life. In every disaster there are miracle survival stories. People come together in tragedies. I believe this is one of the purposes of life. To find the good in the bad and dwell on that.

My daughter is giving a talk in church tomorrow. Her topic is "God is not a respecter of persons". In other words, He does not favor one above another. It's just that sometimes we wish He would, huh? However, I am somewhat happy that my trials are tailored to me...I have been given the tools I need to deal with them.

And so the march goes on. Once the blood sugars are under control we will start the next step in curing me.

Keep the Faith.

P.S.
Thank you to Lynette Guarino for the beautiful flowers she sent, again! And thank you to Sharon Cocanour for the adorable lemonade mug. It's bright pink and says BFF on it. "Beautiful Fabulous Friend" :-) And thank you to all of you who pray for me and my family and have brought meals and treats and given my kids rides and me too for that matter... (Francine, Jackie, Sherry, Shelly, Tamra, Renee, Jennifer B, Mary, Heidi, Cece....Mom and Dad....)