however

I found out I do have to go through the chemo routine, just in case.  not thrilled about that.  have to meet an oncologist this week to find out what all that will entail. 

I guess i'm looking forward to wearing lots of cool hats.

cancer free

so, Tuesday evening, a call from my doctor telling me that all the lymph nodes are clean, and the mastectomy resulted in clear margins around all cancer bearing tumors.  So, my wild ride from clear to cancer and back again is apparently over for the moment.  two weeks ago, my doc said 'you have cancer', yesterday my new doc said I don't.

yee haw!!!

misssing one breast

isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  the drain is irritating and annoying.

I'm using lots of traumeel around the incision to keep the swelling down, it's doing great, I think

so now what

it's too soon to pick a new tattoo.  the vicoden still makes me queasy.  food isn't my favorite thing.

gotta wonder why that guy left his wheels down when he landed on the lake in stanwood, that's a sure way to flip your plane over,

waiting for the Doc to tell us what's next.  don't like the waiting.  too bad though huh princess?

so, skipping on ahead

had the surgery yesterday.  a simple mastectomy.  the sentinel nodes showed up clear so far.  so i'm quite optimistic about the staging  and hoping beyond home that I don't need to do chemo.

The folks at Swedish live up to their reputation.  a professional, friendly, helpful bunch of doctors and nurses.  i am so glad I wound up there.

I have a new huge scar, about 10 inches long, but am staying ahead of the pain so far, so it's bearable.  Not as scared as i was before.  The prognosis is good.

Still wondering how it all happened, but one of the books they gave me to read said that 88% of women do NOT have a family history of cancer, and have clean mammograms up until they find something odd.  So i'm not as unique as i thought i was.

anyway, off to nap for a few minutes.  I'll try to keep positive.
I have a great network of folks from Florida to Nome keeping positive thoughts headed my way, couldn't ask for more!

shaune

Piece meal here

I'm recreating last week, working my way up to this week, it's Tuesday morning in Seattle, less than a week ago I found out I have cancer.  I have crossed the line and become a cancer patient.  I bought a pair of pink dansko's with a pink ribbon on them for goodness sake.

so, I can't write all this at once and keep sane, so i'll catch up slowly and then be in real time

the real time of today is that I have an appointment on Thursday with my Dr. to go over the preop stuff for surgery on friday

between now and then, I have to decide if I have a lumpectomy with radiation therapy, a mastectomy or a bilateral mastectomy,  not decisions I EVER thought I'd have to make.  And there is no clear absolute telling me that "this" is the only option  I have to make a choice, and I am floundering,

Getting out of Dodge and finding the Best

I have "always" known that Swedish Medical Center was the best place for breast cancer treatment.  Don't know why, just always have.

So, Lorrie and I, with our cell phones, sitting outside a coffee shop in the car started making calls.  I called a friend who had recently undergone a horrific cancer scare, I called my brother who called a childhood friend who is an OBGYN in Fairbanks, whose best friend is a surgeon in Anchorage, Lorrie called Swedish Medical Center and got me an appointment for the following day.  We called the imaging center that performed the mammogram and ultrasound, and the hospital where the films were for the original mammogram in October, 

We encountered folks who were so helpful, we encountered folks who are wasting oxygen, but overall everything fell into place, so when I called Alaska Airlines and asked for two tickets on the last plane out that night, of course there were two seats left.

Thursday morning found us in Seattle, in the Swedish Medical Center Breast cancer offices waiting to speak to the surgeon.

Less than 24 hours after my diagnosis, i was meeting with my surgeon.

It's just a speed bump hon...

So, on Wednesday morning my best buddy and I went in to the Doctor's office for the "good news".

As I was signing in, I saw my chart on the counter, with some lab results on the top page.  I couldn't read the labs, but the handwritten "good" was clear, so I was SURE that there was some bizarre infection in my breast that would be cut out and put in a jar in the medical museum.

Consequently, I was blown away when he came in, sat down and said, "there's no easy way to say this so I won't beat around the bush, they took the biopsy and there's cancer in there."

He tried to explain the lab results to me, but was pretty honest when he said that he really didn't understand the "jargon" but would make the calls to hook me up with a surgeon who did.

He had already called the best breast surgeon in Anchorage, but she was out of country, so he was going after number two, who was in surgery that morning.

As we tearfully left his office, he hugged me and said "it's just another speed bump hon, you'll be okay".

Out my office Window

Last October (2010), the mammogram mobile was parked outside my office window.  A month earlier my doctor gently reminded me that at the ripe old age of 48, I was about due for a mammogram, it had been oh...  8 years or so since my previous one...  I blew it off, of course, but there sat that big bus, with the pink ribbon on the side, so what the heck.

I made an appointment, went in an hour later and got that out of the way.

A few weeks later, before I had the results back in fact, I felt a lump.  I have a history of fibrocystic breasts, so didn't  fret, figured it was hormones and that it would go away.

The mammogram results came back clear, no worries, so I felt pretty confident that my little wierdity would just go away.  There were a couple days right before Thanksgiving where it hurt like crazy, but I took a couple Aleve, and the pain went away, so I kept right on figuring that it was hormonal and would just resolve itself.

Then.  The first week in January, i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I got out of the shower and could see the lump.

I went into freak out mode and called my Doctor.  He ordered a mammogram from the imaging center near where I work.  I called them, they couldn't get me in right away, but since I was freaking out, they called their sister office in Anchorage (about 45 miles away), for later that afternoon.  This was January 5, 2011.

Before I had time to tell my secretary that I would be out for the afternoon, Susan (a wonderfully calming woman) from the imaging center called back and said that they would fit me in if I could be there in 30 minutes.  Off I went.

I got a mammogram, just the right breast.  Kelly, the tech came back in and said the radiologist wanted a spot mammogram, just focusing on the lump.  Then she came back and said the radiologist wanted an ultrasound, so across the hall for me.

Kristy, the ultrasonographer, who loves her job, took awesome pictures of an ugly spot, and took them into the back regions of the clinic.  After Kristie's ultrasound, the Doctor herself came in to do her own and see for herself.  Worrisome was the word she used, and scheduled me for a needle biopsy the next morning.

The biopsy was Thursday, January 6, and I was going to have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for results.

Monday afternoon, my Doctor's office called and said that he wanted to see me first thing Wednesday morning to go over the results.