Hurry Up... Now Wait

Okay... I have breast cancer. Now what? I had to wait five days from being given the news, until I was able to meet with the team of doctors to determine what is next. This time was undaunting. I spent a lot of time on the phone. First calling my mom and sister breaking the news. Then I had to calculate the time difference from California to England so I could call my other sister and my dearest friend. More calls and text to other friends and family. I figured if I had to wait again, I was going to build my support group up. 

D-day arrived and the hubs and I went off to meet everyone and get a game plan. First up, the surgeon. She had a nice page of info all filled out for us. Very helpful! She told us that the tumor was about the size of a golf ball. The good news it all seems to be in tack, so we could do a lumpectomy and save the breast. I was surprised when she said that I would do chemo first, but hey they are the docs. The thought is by doing chemo first it will shrink the tumor. Then, when they go to do surgery there will be less of the mass to remove and hopefully less scaring. She also let me know that I will be having a "quick" surgery to have a port put into place. I will need to have tracking markers inserted onto the tumor and infected lymph node as well. Oh, and we should do an MRI just to make sure that the cancer hasn't spread to the other side. Oh goodness, I didn't think of that!

Next up would have been the chemo doc, but one of the other docs in the practice was on vacation, so she needed to stay on-site. An appointment to meet with her was scheduled for mid-week. What's another few days anyways??? The radiology doctor came in and briefly went over her part. After chemo and surgery were done, I would do 6 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week. We left with our brains on overload, but still so many unanswered questions.

To help kill the time between doctor appointments I had a breast MRI scheduled for the next day. This was definitely an adventure. Not only would the test show if the cancer had spread to the other side, it would also give the docs the ability to see if other lymph nodes, that can be hidden behind the breasts, are infected. The first questions that they asked when scheduling this appointment was if I was claustrophobic. Ummm... I don't think so. When I walked into the procedure room, I then understood. I was going to be laying on a board and put into a large tube. In order for the MRI to pick up everything contrast dye would be pumped into me. The tech had to start an IV for the dye and my veins were not cooperating. 5 sticks later we finally had a running IV. Then they hand me a set of ear plugs. What do I need these for? Oh... the entire 35 minutes that I will be in the tube it will be making extremely loud noises. Grand! They then handed me headphones that would also help deaden the sound and allow the tech running the machine to talk to me. Then I had to get situated on the board. I had to lie on my belly with my boobs hanging though an opening in the board. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it worked. Once everything was in place they started the MRI. Holy cow! When they said it was going to be loud, they were right. I would hate to hear what the machine sounds like without all the ear protection. The sounds that the machine made reminded me of a really bad rave. Just boom, boom. boom. Then there was one part where everything vibrated in addition to the booms. I was like, "Oh joy! A massage!". I was glad to see it over. Now to wait for the results. Mega plus that the results were posted online later that day. The cancer had stayed just in the left breast and lymph node. A few other hidden lymph nodes looked like they might have a bit of the cancer starting to creep in, but the chemo would take care of them.

Now to meet my oncologist, aka the chemo doc. When my original biopsy results came back on June 1 they were then sent out to another lab to verify if it was estrogen negative or positive, and if it was HER2 negative or positive. These results will determine what chemotherapy will be used and how long I have to do it all. It seems that I must like to play the waiting game because all the results should have been back by the time of our visit, but they weren't. HER2 part was taking forever to do it thing and they were having a hard time determining which way it was going. It needed more time. Okie dokie. The doc was great though. She went over both treatments so we would have a clear understanding of the road ahead, regardless of which path we had to take. While we were waiting for the test to come, she wanted a few more tests done. I'm getting to be a pro at doing tests. At least we are moving forward... just slowly.

Next up Port Placement Surgery. What is a port? It is a tiny device that is placed under the skin that runs a line through a vein that goes from my neck to my heart. There is a small box, about the size of a dove chocolate, that is under my skin that they will stick and access my vein instantly. This is needed for two reasons. First is the chemo can be really hard on your veins when done via external IV and can cause a mess of complications. Second is my veins just suck. Every time I need to have blood draw, or an IV done it takes them multiple trys. So, it just made sense to say yes and get it done. The surgery to get it done is really simple. The anesthesia that they used to knock me out was the twilight version. It had less of the nasty side effects and makes the surgery a lot quicker. The downside, my surgery was supposed to be at 11am, with no food or drink after midnight, but it got delayed until 1pm. I was so hungry as they wheeled me in. Surgery happened in a flash (hahaha) and I spent about a half hour in my recovery cubby having some graham crackers and 7up. What sucked was in the cubby next to me a group of peeps were talking about food the whole time! Thankfully hubs got me some soup on our way home. 

After a day to recover, off I went to have the trackers put on the tumor and lymph node. My mom and hubs wanted to know if they could track me via an app now. Thank goodness the answer is no. No one needs to know how many times I'm at Target anyways. They trackers are these little, teeny, tiny devices that only work with a wand that the surgeon has. The hope is that the chemo will reduce the main tumor and lymph node to an unrecognizable mass. She will then use the tracker during surgery to remove the area around the main site and to remove the correct lymph node. To put them in place they numb me up real good, and then use the ultra-sound machine to find the affected areas. Then, instead of pulling tissue out to be biopsied, then inserted the bitty trackers. This was easy, and pretty painless. Oh and I got to geek out with the ultra-sound machine again, so I was happy.

Chemotherapy travels throughout the whole body. So, because of that some precautions have to be taken. The various chemotherapies can put a lot of stress on your heart, which is why an echo of my heart was the next task to complete. The best part... it involved an ultra-sound machine!!! The gal that did my stress test was from Ireland, so we chatted the whole time about the "homeland" and my mom being from there and my older sister growing up there. It was a great experience. She was also able to tell me from her doing the scan that my heart was good, and I would be able to proceed. Yipee, I think.

The last test I had to do was PET Scan. A PET Scan is a full body scan that involves and injection of slightly radioactive dye. The dye is administered via IV. My port was too new at this point to use, so she had to stick me. The gal was good though and got it on the first try. I then had to sit and relax for 30 minutes. No phone, no nothing. Just sit with my nice warm blanket and pillow. Yeah, I took a cat nap. The machine for this procedure was similar to the MRI machine, but instead of a tube it was a donut, and it was so silent. Total test time was about 20 minutes. The results for this test also came later that day. No signs of cancer anywhere else. Thank goodness!

All tests and procedures are complete, except for that HER2 test that can't make up it's mind. So we continue waiting...