I’m almost done with my chemo. Part of me can’t wait. It’s closer to the next phase of treatment. It’s one step closer to getting my life back. I also dread it for the same reasons. Who looks forward to surgery and recovery? WILL my life be normal after this? Once treatment is done, there is nothing actively fighting the cancer cells, and what if there are still cancer cells somewhere? All I’ll be able to do is pray that the chemo has killed everything (not trying to say that prayer isn’t enough). Will I be super paranoid every time I have an ache, pain, or don’t feel well? From what I know, if I get through the next 3-5 years without recurrence, then my chances of remaining cancer free are pretty good. Basically, once treatment is done, I’m going to have to adapt to a new normal.
You would think that while being off work for the last 4+ months, I would have gotten a lot of things done, right? Not exactly. I feel like I've accomplished nothing. I wanted to get a bunch of PD done for school. That should be easy, just reading and responding, maybe attending some webinars. Nope. My house should be spotless. I'm home ALL day, EVERY day. Nope. It's incredibly frustrating. I chide myself for spending too much time on my tablet doing nonsense. I was venting all this to one of my besties, and she gave me a wise piece of advice. "You've healed and fought. And fought and healed. Mentally you needed some wasted time." I have to remind myself constantly that my body is having toxic poison pushed through it every week right now, and then my body is trying to purge and recover from said toxic poison. Some days I barely have enough energy to get off the coach. Some days I sleep for 9-10 hours, sometimes I only sleep 4 thanks to steroids. I can't expect miracles, but I do need to be a little better at prioritizing my time. FYI - I started using my new daily planner by Day Designer today. I'm currently only an hour off schedule.
Blood work is slightly improved. Even though several things are high or low, this is pretty much considered normal for someone getting my chemo treatment. I've had several nurses ask if they could clone me, and the doctors seems to be happy with everything.
This is for you medical/science geeks out there.
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| Liver numbers are better. |
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| White Blood Cells (immune system) |
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| Red Blood Cells (carries oxygen) |
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| Hemoglobin is a protein contained within red RBCs that sends oxygen from the lungs to the body’s tissues. Source |
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| Hematocrit (Anemia) |
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| White blood cells that develop in the bone marrow. |
My surgery will be 3 weeks after finishing chemo. My last chemo is Jan. 22, and surgery will be Feb 16th. It will take about 3½ hours or so in the operating room, not 4-5 like I thought because the doctors overlap. Though I’ll probably be in the hospital for 8 or 9, just guessing. I get to go home the same day. The breast surgeon will start the procedure with a sentinel node biopsy. Here’s a link if you want to know more about Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy. Basically, she’ll inject me with dye, and see which lymph nodes she needs to take out. She’ll take out the breast tissue, and then the plastic surgeon will start with his portion of the reconstruction. Brad and my mom have it worked out as to who will be home with me for the first couple weeks. Maybe I should look into those free trials of Disney+ and Discovery+ for that time period.
While I’m recovering, some smart person/people will be dissecting the body parts they removed from me, looking for any stray cancer cells that may have escaped. If my lymph nodes come back clear, and there are clear margins, then I shouldn’t need radiation. Clear margins means the area around the original tumor site is free of cancer cells, and the cancer didn’t get into my chest muscles, ribs, or lung. This site does a great job of explaining Surgical Margins.
If it doesn’t come back clear, then I’ll need radiation. Let’s pray everything does come back clear, and not just because of radiation. The more the cancer has spread beyond the original tumor, the lower your chance of long term survival. Remember, there is some magical hormone blocker I can take like most breast cancer patients can. They haven’t figured out what makes Triple Negative tick, they just know a few things that don’t. Radiation would start 6 weeks after surgery to allow time to heal. Then I’d have about 6 weeks of radiation. I admit that I had to ask the radiation oncologist, “What exactly would we be radiating?” I mean, if the breast tissue is gone, what’s the point, right? Well, that’s where clear margins and lymph nodes come in. If the margins aren’t clear, they’ll be radiating the muscle area under the implant. If the lymph nodes are positive, they’ll be radiating the areas where the lymph nodes are. But, the tumor is on the left side, and so is the heart. That means radiation on the left side can cause heart issues down the road. Radiation can also cause complications with the implants from reconstruction. The more common side effects of radiation are similar to a serious sunburn. Some people don’t have much of a problem, others are miserable. There could be redness, blisters, tightness, dryness, and fatigue. Some women are exhausted while getting radiation. Thankfully my radiation oncologist said I could work during radiation. So let’s pray that if I need radiation, I can get it late in the day and I can continue to teach.
Just in case you're trying to keep track, I currently have 4 doctors treating me. An oncologist, a breast surgeon, a plastic surgeon, and a radiation oncologist. It’s a little crazy, but each is an expert in their field, I like all of them.
I haven’t been able to find the tumor for about a week. Hopefully by surgery it will be completely gone, or melted away, as the surgeon says. I’m optimistic that I’ll be part of the 50% in which that happens. The surgeon seems to think that will happen.
The steroids have been wrecking some havoc. It was probably the cause of the acne returning, which has started to go away again. I’m pretty sure it caused me to gain 6 pounds in one week. I’m not trying to be petty or vain, but this puts my BMI closer to the higher risk category of surgery complication, lymphedema, and other issues (lymphedema happens when your arm starts swelling as a result of having the lymph nodes removed). If you remember, they reduced my steroids several weeks ago. That helped me sleep the night of treatment for a few weeks, but now it seems to be keeping me up again. It’s a small price to pay to keep nausea at bay, and give me a couple days extra days with energy.
The chemo is really starting to mess with my taste buds. For the longest time it was just sweets that didn’t appeal to me. Now things just taste off. I’ve started putting pepper on things, which I never did before. Some food tastes like something is missing, others taste nothing like before. We grabbed Fazoli’s the other day. The lasagna was great, the breadsticks had no flavor. Brad however said the breadsticks tasted the same as they always did. It’s just weird. He thought there was a strong mustard flavor in something the other day. I tasted no mustard in it, and I’m not a mustard fan. At least most Mexican and Italian food still tastes good.
I was listening to a podcast from “Best Life After Cancer” by Radiation Oncologist Dr. Deborah Butzbach. She summed up Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) pretty accurately in this quote. “This isn’t the pretty breast cancer that I see in the commercials. This is like some evil b***h who’s coming to kill me. So many patients have this view that breast cancer isn’t that hard. It’s some surgery, and some hormonal therapy, and a bit of radiation, and then you’re done. And then there’s this whole other group where it’s not the same beast. And it’s super scary.” -Dr. Deborah Butzbach podcast ‘Shana’s Story - A Node Positive, Triple Negative Breast Cancer Survivor and Thriver’
There’s a reason I try not to look up statistics of TNBC survival and outcomes, or other stuff. I’m not sticking my head in the sand and pretending this stuff doesn’t exist, but I could easily get sucked into a pretty scary and depressing realm. The link to a couple of her podcasts about TNBC are below.
Understanding Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Shana's Story - A Node Positive, Triple Negative Breast Cancer Survivor and Thriver
If the above links don’t work and you're interested in listening, you can also find it on Best Life After Cancer, Spotify, Google Podcast, Anchor.fm, or Listen Notes.
