Walking on Water -- Sink or Swim?: A Quieter Home

Saturday, June 21, 2008

A Quieter Home

Shane and Tyler left yesterday (Friday) for their church mission trip -- they and 16 others will be working on a Habitat for Humanity house in Bozeman, MT for one week. Afterward, most of the group is backpacking in the mountains nearby, where they'll sleep in tents and backpack day trails for 3-4 days. It is really a very special trip -- they're traveling to MT by Amtrak and chartered bus ( b/c of flooding). Road trip! They'll have the "mission" part of the trip by working on the HFH house. And will see a part of the country that neither of them has ever experienced. They'll be encouraged to have a daily devotion -- and how awesome will that be while in the mountains!?

I received a phone call Thursday evening that my doctor's orders for the Zometa (the bone building meds) have been sent to Midland -- Yea!! I should have called on Friday to schedule the infusion, but I put it off -- we went up north for the day and I wanted a "normal" day with the boys before they left for their trip. Now I'm kicking myself -- hopefully I will be able to get the Zometa (which can cause flu like symptoms, etc.) early in the week so I am "recovered" and able to get chemo on Monday, June 30. I didn't think about the scheduling issue of it all until late Friday evening. My bad.

My "latest and greatest" kick is to try to reduce my fat intake and (eventually) increase my exercise each day. "Studies have shown" that this combination is beneficial for reducing breast cancer recurrence, and possibly most so for women with triple negative BC, like I have. Trouble is, the recommended fat intake per day is only 33 grams. When I started with the idea, that sounded like a lot. But, today I started actually counting fat grams -- the butter alone on my breakfast toast and dinner corn-on-the cob added up to almost a third of what I'm supposed to have in a given day! I have some learning to do, that is for sure. Keeping a food journal (ugh!) will be helpful, but I have to confess -- after I realized tonight how pitifully I had blown my goal, I drowned my sorrows in a bowl of ice cream. Tomorrow is another day...

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Highlights of My Journey

I know that other breast cancer patients and survivors visit this site. The following is a history of my cancer journey. Feel free to email with me any questions:

Sept. 2006 -- diagnosed (eventually) with T2 N1 M0 "triple negative" breast cancer of the left breast. MRI of both breasts indicated only the one tumor. Age 40 @ dx. Three young boys, a wonderful husband, and great friends and family. My doctor says we all need the three F's -- Friends, Family and Faith.

Oct. 06 thru January 2007 -- Began chemotherapy: taxotere, adriamycin and cyclophosphamide (TAC). Six cycles, given every three weeks.

December 2006 -- tested negative for BRAC1 and BRAC2.

Feb. 2007 -- Lumpectomy. Results showed tumor had an incomplete response to the chemotherapy (some shrinking, but not completely gone). My oncologist recommended more chemotherapy after radiation. I had "close margins," and had a re-excision in early March.

March 26 thru May 9, 2007 -- Whole left breast radiation. Daily. "Boost" treatment just to tumor bed during last week. Met some great friends there.

May 13 thru September 7, 2007 -- oral Xeloda prescribed by my oncologist as "insurance." Easily tolerated. In hindsight, not sure it was very useful?

October 24, 2007 -- Mammogram. Declared "normal," except for concerns near incision location. We should have checked into this more thoroughly, but wrote it off as scar tissue/radiation affects. It's only been a year since first cancer was found -- must be too soon for any problems, right? Wrong.

March 2008 -- MRI showed "large area of abnormal enhancement" with increased blood flow. Both suspicious for malilgancy. This was confirmed via biopsy. Over the next couple of months doctors had very difficult time quantifying how much cancer was in my breast. My diagnosis went from DCIS (pre-biopsy) up to as much as 4cm of actual cancer in the breast, after mastectomy. A wild ride!

May 19, 2008 -- left breast, simple mastectomy with latissimus dorsi (back flap) flap. A hard recovery, but okay now. Woulda, coulda, shoulda had the mastectomy the first day cancer was ever found....

June 6, 2008 -- Bone Scan and CT Scan -- all NORMAL, no sign of cancer elsewhere in the body! Praise God! It is a bummer that the cancer is back, but it could have been so much worse...

June 24, 2008 -- Zometa infusion for bone strength, and to deter bone mets. Very achy a few days afterward.

June 20-Sept 8 -- Chemotherapy: Taxotere and Gemzar.

September 22 -- Began Carboplatin chemotherapy. Will be finished by Thanksgiving 2008.

October 2008 -- Major setback: implant spacer became infected (pseudomonas aeruginosa), and had to be removed. Blood levels crashed. I spent 8 days in the hospital, received multiple RBC and platelet infusions, and was on IV antibiotics for almost the entire month.

Nov/Dec 2008 -- We tried a second dose of Carboplatin, (a reduced dosage, even), but my blood levels crashed again. Doctor said, "No more chemo." Received RBC transfusion mid-December.

2008-2012 -- annual CT, bone scan, MRI and mammogram, as well as regular visits to my oncologists (every 6mos).

June 2012 -- my oncologist used the most beautiful C-word in the dictionary -- Cured! :-) I will still have an annual MRI and mammogram and check in with him once a year, but he considers me past the point of having to be monitored specifically for cancer. Triple negative IS treatable!