As I contemplate starting my new chemo treatment tomorrow, I decided that maybe it was time for me to try to document my journey of battling metastatic breast cancer. In the 10 years and 4 or so months since my original diagnosis I have mostly avoided any of my feelings about the subject and I just plow through one day to the next. I think, in hindsight, maybe that hasn't been the best idea. I hope that by writing this blog I can do a better job processing my emotions and maybe touch someone else fighting a similar battle.
First, a history lesson for those that don't know me or anything about my cancer journey. In November 2012, at the age of 37 I felt a lump in my right breast. I wish I could say I was doing a breast exam but honestly, I was just taking a shower. I asked my husband, Ramsey, to see if he could feel it and he could and said if I was concerned, I should go to the doctor. Being a mom of an 8th grader and 4th grader at the time going to the doctor for myself is something I would normally push off as long as I could. But for some reason this time I didn't. I was due for my annual exam, so I called and made an appointment. Going into the appointment I told myself, if the doctor feels it without me saying anything then it is real, if they don't feel it then I won't mention it. My thinking was that I didn't want to make a big deal out of nothing. Needless to say, the doctor felt the lump right away. Things moved swiftly after that, which scared me. The clinic I went to was connected to the hospital, so they took me right away for a mammogram and then an ultrasound. The results of both tests indicated a mass that needed to have a biopsy done to determine what it was. I was living in a small town at the time so had to book a biopsy 3 hours away. I was scheduled to have that done that same week. Unfortunately, I had the biopsy the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we had to wait a few extra days for the results.
I think I knew in the five days that we waited what the result would be, but I am not sure I said it out loud. At this point we had told some close friends and family what was going on and everyone was anxious. On Monday, I called the clinic, no results. On Tuesday morning I had just gotten home from dropping the kids at school and my husband was about to leave for work when the clinic called and said....can you come in now and can you bring someone with you. At that moment we knew, we had no details, but we knew. We went to the clinic and my doctor said, it is cancer. At this time that was all we knew -we didn't know what kind, what stage, what was next, just that I had Breast Cancer. I remember my husband crying, my close friend at the clinic was crying. I don't think I cried...not yet. I was focused on what's next - which will be a theme you see in this blog as a I go along. Another doctor at the clinic had just battled breast cancer so I got the name of her oncologist, general surgeon and plastic surgeon. I know she was a tough customer, so I said if those doctors were good enough for her then they were good enough for me. At this point the appointments started being made and we left the clinic with the task of telling our friends and family. We decided to tell our daughter Abbey in person, so we headed towards her school. My husband and I were telling friends and family via text and phone calls. It wasn't until I said it out loud on the phone for the first time that I cried. Saying it outload made it real.
One thing I remember from that day was going back to pick Abbey up from school and drive her and some friends to basketball practice. Ramsey was their travel coach since they were in 4th grade so we were a family. By the time school was out they all knew and I got a hug from each and every one of them as they came out of school. When we dropped them off at practice Ramsey went in and told their school coach that he wasn't sure what kind of a practice he would get out of them that day. I will say that I don't think I could have lived in a better town at the time of my diagnosis. There was so much support from everyone, those we were close with and those that barely knew us. Small town communities know how to take care of their own.
To make a long story not as long in the next few weeks we met with doctors and came up with a plan. I had Stage 3 ER+ HER2- Breast Cancer. It was Stage 3 due to the size of the tumor -- about 9cm. I was going to have 6 rounds of chemotherapy followed by a double mastectomy and then radiation and reconstruction. I had no issues making the call on a double mastectomy, the thought of having to go through all of this twice was not something I was willing to contemplate. So, we had a plan and then I had procedures and tests. I had a port placed, and echo of my heart, a PET scan, blood work and who knows what else. One thing that I remember even 10 years later is the chemo education session. I walked out of that not sure what was about to happen to my body - I could vomit, I could get diarrhea, but I could also get constipated. My hair will fall out and I might get mouth sores and the list went on and one.
Finally on December 19th, 2012, the day after I turned 38 I had my first chemo session. Six sessions of chemo were successful, and the tumor shrank considerably so in April 2013 we proceeded with the double mastectomy. The surgery was a success, the tumor was removed, and 11 lymph nodes were removed. Two were malignant....I should have paid more attention to this at the time but more on that later. During the surgery, expanders were placed to expand tissue for eventual breast reconstruction. We had a setback a few weeks after surgery when I ended up with an infection on my right side. I spent a night in the hospital on iv antibiotics and the expander had to be removed. Because we didn't want to postpone radiation, I got to have a lopsided chest for about a year. I am not a vain person so honestly, I didn't care. Radiation proceeded as normal with about 30 sessions. After that I went on tamoxifen and slowly finished up the reconstruction process sometime in 2014.
Somewhere in this process I convinced myself this would all end soon. Other than the tomxifin and quarterly trips to the doctor life would return to normal. It just never did. There was always something just a little off in the bloodwork and then in 2015 I had a CT scan that showed some tiny, tiny spots on my lungs. Too tiny to know what they were so we had to wait. What were we waiting for --- well we hoped the spots would go away because maybe they were just an infection or we were waiting for the spots to get big enough to biopsy. Its a strange thing to want something to get bigger so you can know what it is but also knowing that if it does get bigger it can't be anything good. Finally, in January 2016 I had a chest biopsy and it was confirmed that the cancer had spread to my lungs. I will do another post later on the right and wrong way for a surgeon to share information with a patient's husband in a case like this.
I have probably shared enough for the first post - hopefully some people made it to the end. Next time I will talk more about the 7 years since the Stage 4 diagnosis.
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