This is where I will post on-going thoughts and follow-up on my treatment for breast cancer.
Sorry about that hiatus, folks. I'm still here, still doing fine, I think. I had another follow-up MRI last month which Dr. Hartford was pleased with. The spot was a little bigger than it was in my August MRI, but he's pretty sure it's scar tissue he's seeing. However, rather than wait three months for the next MRI, he's scheduled me for a thallium scam, which I will have done today. This is a PET scan, and a negative from it will be a completely trustworthy negative. A positive could be a false positive, but if it is positive, we'll do radio-surgery again. I'm confident it will be negative. However, the good news, if it's positive, is that the center of the spot has moved off the brain stem and is much smaller than it was when we first treated it. Its location and size means that, should we have to, we can treat it more aggressively. The center of the tumor was hit with 16 grays of radiation; the maximum is 20, and if we have to, we would now be able to hit it with the full 20 grays.
I like Dr. Hartford. I like his not taking a wait and see attitude. I like the fact that he took time over Christmas to keep looking at the MRI -- to look at all the sets of MRIs -- and to bring my case with him to a radiosurgical conference.
I'm hoping we need to break out a bottle of champagne tonight. Fingers crossed.
I had my LAST treatment today! I've been on herceptin alone for the past year, having had four rounds of Taxotere and Herceptin between May and August last year. I'll be seeing Dr. Bonnem for check-ups once a month for a while, but now, I will no longer be tied to that damn pump every three weeks!
This is still a happy story, folks. Just more involved. But don't put the book down now.
Funny word, Whoops.
I was out walking the dog on March 10, looked behind me to cross the street, and noticed that my eyesight was a little... weird. My eyes were not tracking correctly.
I went to my optometrist, who sent me to an opthomologist, who saw nothing wrong. I called my primary care physician, who ordered an MRI.
On April 1, I learned that I had a 1.5 cm lesion in the cerebellum, right next to the brain stem. Basically, probably before we started chemo, a cancer cell had snuck up to my brain. It grew very, very slowly, as it was only 1.5cm AND there was very little swelling. There were also very few apparent physical "deficits" according to the doctors who gave me all sorts of low-tech tests for balance and other things. The MRI was high tech -- the diagnostics were all touch your nose, beat time with your hand, touch the doctor's finger and then your nose, walk across the room, hop across the room, walk on your heels, walk on your toes... Make a face. Fascinating stuff, really.
So, one tumor. A perfect candidate for something called Stereotactic Radio Surgery.
It was absolutely fascinating! First, they have to put a frame on your head, to keep it immobile during the procedure. This involves four screws, right into the skull. Those are preceeded by a goodly number of injections of lidocaine. Which I understand is the part the reduces most people to tears. Me, I was too fascinated by what we called The Bob Vila School of Neurosurgery. I asked the neurosurgeon if he had been sure to put a piece of tape on the drill bit to make sure he didn't go in too far.
Once the frame was in place, it was time for a CT scan/simulation, so they could be sure they had all the coordinates correct. In the CT scan room, Mark, the dosimetrist, whips out his keychain and tightens the screws on the frame just a little bit more. It was so casually done ("Mark!" exclaimed one of the other techs, aghast, "That's your keychain!" "It's my _work_ keychain," Mark pointed out quite reasonably.) that I couldn't help laughing. Actuallyt the CT scan was the most painful part, as there wasn't a lot of room on the bed and the frame had to be adjusted just so, but even then, it was hardly anything.
Of course, there was the sit around and wait period. Rebecca the wonder nurse (she really is a remarkable, and funny, person) told me that because I wasn't going to be under general anaesthetic (or indeed any besides the lidocaine), I could have anything I wanted to eat. That was very appealing, as we had had to get to the hospital around 6AM, and at this point it was probably 10. So I cheerfully glommed onto a muffin when it was offered.... only to discover that the frame tilted my head forward just enough that I could barely swallow.
I could mash the muffin up into tiny crumbs and manage to choke those down. Oh well, thought I, I can at least have my tea, which Melissa got for me...
Only the frame came across the front of my face. I could neither get the cup under nor over it.
Thank heavens for straws. I was able to drink my tea and remain a fairly decent human being.
The procedure was scheduled for 1 PM. First the techs ran the table and the machine through the positions that had been plotted, and then... we went for it. They asked me if I wanted some music, and the procedure was done to some very triumphal sounding Handel or Vivaldi. And well before 2PM, Doctors Hartford (radiation oncologist) and Taylor (neurosurgeon) were removing the frame. My head was swathed in gauze ("Even when you don't cut in, you have to make it look like you do, don't you?" I asked Dr. Taylor.) and I went out to where my sisters, Melissa, and Melissa's mother Elaine were waiting.
That evening we went to dinner at Grenache (a lovely restaurant right by our hotel) and bless the staff, they didn't bat an eyelash at the sight of me with my bandages! I imagine they're perfectly accustomed to it, being so close to Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
Dr. Hartford came in and shook our hands. He said that amount the tumor had "involuted" (lovely word!) was extraordinary, given that it had only been six weeks since the radio-surgery.
I won't talk about the time I had of the steroids. At least not now. Suffice to say, I was probably more miserable on the decadron than I was on chemo. Seriously. It was different, but pretty miserable. I was on them for 47 days. Luckily, once I went off them, on May 17, it took only about a month for most of the side effects to disappear.
53 weeks ago, I started chemo for Stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer. Today, I am almost 6 months cancer free.
Did I ever mention that the worst part of all the treatments I had ended up being radiation? Yep. I had 5 1/2 weeks of radiation last fall, finishing right before Thanksgiving (how's that for appropriate?). All went just fine until the last week, when those darned Barnett red-headed genes kicked in and I got the mother of all "sunburns" under my right arm and side. If anyone thought I was brave and stoic up to that point, let me tell you, that went right out the window! It _hurt_! I went from the cream to the ointment to the pads soaked in the ointment.
I got through it, and it was pretty funny, really. Even the burn. I cannot say enough for the radiation techs at Wentworth Douglass Hospital in Dover, especially Connie and Holly. On my last day, they presented me with a diploma signifying that I had successfully completed my "course" of radiation. Great people skills and bad puns, yet! No wonder I like these women.
While going out there, I met a wonderful, insane woman named Suzie, who had the same kind of breast cancer as I had, and who was on almost the same schedule for radiation. She's a dynamite, dynamic woman, and we had great times going out to Chilis in Dover for dinner following treatment. She's awesome.
The surgery went very well indeed, and on September 17, I got some extremely good news: the pathology report showed no remaining signs of cancer! The chemo had gotten it all (despite that suspicious looking MRI!) The lovely thing was that Melissa's mother had arrived the evening before to spend some time with us, helping out with trips to the doctor and the like, so it was a great way to begin her visit.
Because of the kind of breast cancer it was -- inflammatory -- and how aggressive it was, we have decided to do radiation as well, which I start on October 20, and will continue for 5 days a week for 5 1/2 weeks. In fact, it looks as though my last radiation session will be the day before Thanksgiving, which is singularly appropriate!
For the surgery itself, well, no, it wasn't a lot of fun. Getting up out of the hospital bed for the first time after the surgery was probably the most painful, and after that, it got better. The only problem with staying in the hospital overnight is, of course, they check on you every couple of hours! But because the surgical floor was full up, I had a private room on the maternity floor, so that was pretty peaceful.
The drains were the worst part, but even they were more of an annoyance than anything else, and more at night. During the day, I could stick them into my pockets, but at night, it was hard to figure out the best way to manage them. Fortunately, Dr. Gens removed them on September 12, three days after surgery.
I went out to EPONA, with Don & Thomas in tow, and for the first time in two years, got on a horse. For the first time in my life, it was a Thoroughbred racehorse, a daughter of New York sire Distinctive Pro, and grand-daughter of the great Mr. Prospector. Her racing name was Pro on the Road -- her barn name is Gem. She is one. Conformation-wise, she is gorgeous, and under saddle, she is completely professional and remarkably calm for an off-the-track Thoroughbred who hadn't been ridden in about a year when EPONA director Ron Levesque started her under saddle again. Gem was rescued from a killer auction -- she was in a pen with a "Kill Only" tag on her -- and our vet recently deemed her perfectly rideable. So this cancer survivor and a survivor of the kill pens got together on a gorgeous October afternoon!
Dr. Gens said that he could do a lumpectomy, but because of the location of the cancer and how aggressive it was -- they're now admitting it was inflammatory breast cancer, yikes! -- he would feel more comfortable in terms of preventing local recurrence, doing a mastectomy. He admitted he had no scientific reason to think a lumpectomy wouldn't be good enough, it was just a gut feeling. I have enormous respect for this guy, and since I've been thinking mastectomy ever since I was diagnosed (as in "Ewww, cut it off! CUT IT OFF!), I have no problems going with his gut instinct. In fact, I asked him, "Can you make it a double."
One of the reasons for this is that, since I am undergoing radiation shortly after surgery, they wouldn't be able to do any kind of reconstruction right away
I was diagnosed with breast cancer back in February, and on July 17, had my last chemo treatment -- loud hoorays! A follow-up mammogram showed no signs of malignancy -- louder hoorays! There's still a ways to go -- I'll be having an MRI done, so that the exact kind of surgery I need can be determined. Then radiation, and a year of Herceptin treatments (administered like chemo, but without the nasty side effects!), but I feel extremely fortunate. I cannot say enough good things about the staff at the Cancer Care Center at Portsmouth Regional Hospital.
I'm also grateful to groups like Race Fans For a Cure and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Chemo is not the most fun thing I've ever done, but my overall health and energy level remained good. I continued working full-time through it, and even still managed to remain active with the Piscataqua Obedience Club and volunteering out at EPONA. Let me tell you something, chemotherapy combined with equine-therapy is fantastic.
return to home page