As I lay here tonight on my couch, thinking about the last month....
😀😩😱😭🙏💩💗😡😴😷🖕🎉💀💔🐓🐽💉💊🎻😂
Yes, holy crap, it's actually been a whole month since my boobie chopping day!! I feel like it was just yesterday. Pretty sure I slept in a drug induced coma through the first two weeks, which is why it doesn't seem possible that it has already been a month. My incisions are healing nicely. That's what everyone says. Yeah they look great. No boobs, big old ugly slices where my boobies were. Yeah I'm looking GREAT..... (insert sarcastic emoji).... And did you know without big ole boobies the big fat Buda belly now looks giant..... yepper I look preggo in almost ALL of my tops 😡! The Flat and Fabulous ladies said this would happen. But not to me. #denial
So my friends, if you find my name on the arrest records in the Tribune one day, just know it will quite possibly be from me knocking the 💩 out of the first person who asks me if I am preggers! You
have been warned! LOL
In my last post I was freaking out and 🙏 hard for no chemo. This Wednesday I learned my fate.
I had my oncologist appointment on Wednesday. I had been having a slight problem with an area on one of my incisions, so I planned to stop into my surgeon's office while I was in the neighborhood. Checked in, but doc wasn't in, so began the LONG walk to my oncologist's office. I'm guessing this is probably how a prisoner feels on his walk to the court room on sentencing day. This was my sentencing day.... chemo, radiation, pills..... which one or all three or what else could be on the table? Walk, walk, walk.... closer and closer to the office.... or I could just turn around and run far away.
Entered into the office, $20 Bucks..... for old times sake.... haha.... the check in lady says the financial counselor wants to meet with me first. First imagine the mind set I was already in. I could only determine that if I was meeting with a financial counselor that could only mean more treatment, which meant chemo. OMG she was going to tell me before my doctor. NO! Let the drama queen freak out begin! 👑 Of course it only ended up being a discussion about my current statement. Whew. That was close! Then off to waiting room A. Blood work time. I was so worried about the actual doctor visit, I had forgotten about the every visit blood work routine. On this day, I didn't even freak out.... well very much.... about the needle and blood work. Finished up there and off to examining room. The onco nurse comes in and does the nurse things. She always makes me feel better and I relax a little bit. Then the knock on the door and in comes the doc. Here we go. The big moment has finally arrived.
He starts the conversation with my pathology report from the mastectomy. He mimics my surgeon stating I had absolutely made the right decision with the double boobie chopping. Again stating the naughty boob was full of cancer and the good girl was also showing pre-cancer. I tease him with the "slam dunk" comment from our very first visit (see slam dunk post). Then he gets that serious chat look on his face.... I've seen this one before.... didn't like the last one and I knew what was coming. Said something about chemo and I think I might have had a mini stroke or passed out.... the next thing I remember is my fiancé saying something about my oncotype score and how low it was. Doc gets this weird look on his face and says, "What Oncotype". Are you fucking kidding me right now? He says he didn't get an oncotype test for me. He was getting ready to discuss chemo options with me due to the large size of my tumor. Now people, don't you think these damn doctors would f'n communicate??? Apparently that is an incorrect statement. I almost got shot full of some poison shit for no reason because people do not know how to communicate! 👆that.
What is an Oncotype score?
Oncotype DX test results assign a Recurrence Score — a number between 0 and 100 — to the early-stage breast cancer or DCIS. You and your doctor can use the following ranges to interpret your results for early-stage invasive cancer: Recurrence Score lower than 18: The cancer has a low risk of recurrence.
A little back story on my oncotype.... First of all, it was not originally ordered. I had seen several other ladies on my cancer support pages mention oncotype. So I asked my surgeon what it was and what my score was. She explained to me what it was and said they had not received the score back yet from my lumpectomy. My honest opinion. I do not think it was ordered until I started asking about it. From the time I first mentioned it, to the date I actually got the results, was almost a month. I don't think it takes that long.... Maybe it does. Maybe I'm just paranoid. But whatever the case may be, I finally got my onco score the night after my double mastectomy. She brought it to me personally while I was still in the hospital. It was a 10. I almost cried with joy. I knew this could possibly be my ticket out of chemo. Thank God I am a psycho researcher and found out about this test and asked about it!! Lesson learned ladies and gents, do not wait for these doctors to do the right thing. Do your homework. It may just save you from undo suffering in the long run!!
Back to the visit. Doc asks the nurse to request the test scores from my surgeon's office. Then doc says, "well if that's the case and it is a 10, that's a game changer and chemo will be off the table". OMG No Chemo!!!! Thank you Jesus NO CHEMO!! I'm so happy, I'm not even pissed any more that this was somehow not communicated to my oncologist. Now that chemo was off the table, the doc had to recalibrate the discussion regarding the next steps in my treatment. I will, of course, still be getting a full hysterectomy within the next few months, and I will begin taking a pill called Tamoxifen. Of course there will be follow ups with all docs forever, or it will probably feel like forever at least. Out the door I went doing the NO CHEMO happy dance of joy. I felt alive and happy for the first time in over 2 months!
A day or two later, however, I started to wonder about medical practices. For instance, if both my surgeon and oncologist had failed to order the oncotype test, I would be headed to chemo instead of the salon. And by all logical thinking, wouldn't you think it should have been my oncologist who ordered it, or at least questioned if it had been ordered with all of my other pathology reports. But it seems like it only happened after I questioned my surgeon and was not even thought of by my oncologist. Which now makes me question things. Should I get chemo. Will it come back. If it comes back will it be because I didn't do chemo. Should I get a second opinion. Did my guy actually do his job and what was best for me. I guess, as with everything along this journey thus far, you have to have faith in your medical team and only God knows if it's good enough. I just pray it is the right thing to do and the fucking nasty "C" word never rears it's ugly head again in my body!! Of course, however, with my BRCA2 gene, this will ALWAYS haunt me, regardless of my current outcome. 😡😡
For now, I will start the new pill on Monday. I haven't researched it yet or checked the side effects. Trying to decide if I am going to. I know I have to take it, in lieu of chemo, and I am very happy to do so! I'm now trying to decide if I need to give my brain a phantom side effect by reading this info before I start taking it..... But research saved my ass from chemo so...... I may, however, just wait a month into taking the drug and then research. This way my body can process the drug itself without my mind telling my body what bad things it should be feeling.
This weekend I'm giving myself a vacation away from anything related to cancer, chemo, stress, and sadness. My "vacation" began today with a hair cut and color. I have been waiting, since the awful "C" phone call, to do anything with my hair, as I figured why pay money to make it pretty when it's just gonna fall out! Today I went and made it pretty again! Well, as pretty as a red head with naturally curly frizzy hair can be! HA! The whole time I was in the chair I was feeling so thankful to be able to be there. When I was finished I did the NO CHEMO happy dance all the way out of the shop!
I know this journey is far from over, but today I am a whole lot closer than I was a month ago when I was laying in my hospital bed, just hours out of the biggest, most awful, surgery of my life, wondering if I would ever feel human again.
No comments:
Post a Comment