CAT Scans Aren’t Fun

I called the oncologist’s first thing this morning to schedule the CT/CAT scan. Since I explained that I have free unlimited childcare right now (Mom arrived last night), they got me an appointment for a CT/CAT scan a little before lunch. I had to go over an hour before the appointment to drink two bottles of contrast–which I regret to inform y’all was not Dr. Pepper-flavored.

[rant about disgusting contrast]Good Lord is that junk they make you drink for a CT/CAT scan just the most disgusting stuff EVER. They made me drink ~600 mL of it. It was so horrific. I don’t know how I kept from throwing it up. I kept telling myself that the people on Fear Factor and past seasons of Survivor have drunk way worse-tasting stuff, and mine might not win me a million dollars, but drinking it would mean accurate test results and hopefully ones that tell us something NICE.[rant about disgusting contrast]

Then the first guy screwed up the IV and they had to put it in my hand again. Gah.

Test itself wasn’t bad. They’ll read the test today and fax results to the oncologist tomorrow.

Hm.

The PET scan showed clean lymph nodes, but there were a few spots on my liver. The oncologist is sending me for a CAT scan to get more deets on the liver situation. Hopefully we’ll get to do that this week or early next week.

If these spots are indeed cancer, that means it’s metastasized. The oncologist said “it could be very bad.” He did not say it IS very bad, but we do need to learn more about what is going on with that liver of mine.

Boring Old PET Scan

PET scan went well. It was quite boring (I had to sit around for half an hour after being injected with the radioactive agent, and then we did the test itself, which took another half hour and involved me lying completely still in a big ol’ scary machine, trying not to get all claustrophobic). They said the radiologists would check it out this afternoon and my oncologist should have the results by tomorrow. I looked it up and I don’t see the oncologist again for almost another two weeks, so I might have to call up his office and see if they’ll reschedule me for earlier because, geez Louise, I cannot wait for that long to find out if the cancer is local or not!!.

Not Afraid of the Cancer

Okay, so it’s been two weeks since I’ve found out about the cancer. And I have to say, the fear is completely gone. I am not scared of the cancer anymore. It won’t beat me. I feel so fantastic about this, I can’t even find the words. I suspect that a lot of peoples’ prayers are behind this serenity, so I definitely owe about a million thanks for those.

Tomorrow is my PET scan; hoping and praying that will show the cancer was a “local” cancer that has not spread to the lymph nodes or anywhere else.

Wiggy Good Time

I got ahead of myself and ordered some wigs for when I do chemo and they arrived today. Meg and I had fun trying them on.

Another Nice Alexander

I cannot do a full update now, I am way too tired. But I really REALLY liked Alexander the Surgeon (in Jackson) and he hooked us up with a very nice plastic surgeon (so nice that he called me on my cell phone as I was leaving town to apologize for being unable to meet with me today–because he was in SURGERY).

I am 90% ready to schedule the double mastectomy with Alexander and the apologetic plastic surgeon. Tomorrow I am scheduling a meeting with the plastic surgeon for me and Tom (hopefully for while Mom is here so we can leave the boys here with her when we drive to Jackson) and that will get me past the last 10%.

Saddest part of the day? No duplicate on the skinny armpit compliment. Rats.

Another Nice Alexander

I cannot do a full update now, I am way too tired. But I really REALLY liked Alexander the Surgeon (in Jackson) and he hooked us up with a very nice plastic surgeon (so nice that he called me on my cell phone as I was leaving town to apologize for being unable to meet with me today–because he was in SURGERY).

I am 90% ready to schedule the double mastectomy with Alexander and the apologetic plastic surgeon. Tomorrow I am scheduling a meeting with the plastic surgeon for me and Tom (hopefully for while Mom is here so we can leave the boys here with her when we drive to Jackson) and that will get me past the last 10%.

Saddest part of the day? No duplicate on the skinny armpit compliment. Rats.

Meeting the Oncologist

Today I met with the Oxford oncologist (Alexander #1).

I liked Aleksandr the oncologist. He could not talk precise treatments etc. until we know about the lymph nodes, but he did an exam and felt my armpit VERY thoroughly (warning me that I might be sore and achy as a result tonight), and said that he does not feel anything that is a concern to him in my lymph nodes. Obviously, that is not a guarantee of clear nodes, but since he elaborated by saying that I have a “very skinny armpit” compared to many women he sees, he did not feel anything and that was not because of extra tissue in the way, but because it’s distinctly possible that there’s nothing there. Which would be very good!

He did not want to discuss anything to do with the So-Fired-it’s-not-even-funny surgeon’s failure to check my lymph nodes at the time of the lumpectomy. But he was fine with the idea when I mentioned the Jackson surgeon.

He never once used the word “incurable” or anything like that. He talked a lot about curing the cancer and moving on. He said he would be treating me aggressively and that he doesn’t believe in giving up (in other words, it’s not that my case merits super aggressive treatment…but that he would treat a 70 year old woman aggressively as well, because he doesn’t believe in giving up). I asked about potential chemo regimens and he said it depends on the whole lymph node thing, but we very well may consider the dense-dose chemo that Meg’s friend did (every 2 weeks vs. every 4 weeks).

The biggest shocker of the appointment was talking with the genetic counselor, who said that–based on my in-depth family medical history I gave him today–the odds of my having one of the mutations of the breast cancer gene have gone from 75% to 90%. He strongly suspects BRCA1.

If I do have BRCA1, this means that if I do not do the double mastectomy, I have as much as a 50% chance of having breast cancer again in the future, and as much as a 40% chance of having ovarian cancer down the road. The boys have a 25% (I think?) chance of having prostate cancer (and a 10% chance of having male breast cancer), if I have the gene and if they got it from me.

Hoooleeeee mackerel.

p.s. Oncologist scheduled me for a PET scan for a week from tomorrow, which might could give us more answers WRT the lymph node issue

80%

Eighty Percent.

One book I read said that overall, a woman with breast cancer has about an 80% chance of surviving (obviously, this doesn’t really focus on stage or grade of cancer, but still, that’s the overall #s).

At first, that number depressed me, I mean it plunged me into a wicked pit of depression and I started crying and crying. After I told him why I was crying, Tom said he felt those were actually awesome numbers, and even when I found the stat that a woman with stage 3 cancer in the lymph nodes has a 63% chance of survival, he said “that’s still way better than 50%!” Still, the 80% bummed me out quite a lot.

And then I remembered that just before the RE released me back to the OB’s care when I was newly pregnant with the twins, he said that I had an 80% chance of having a successful pregnancy — just like every “normal” pregnant woman in the country.* And I remember being TOTALLY HUGELY EXCITED about that number. Walking out of the RE’s office, driving away, I kept thinking “this is really and truly going to happen!” That that number felt like a For-Sure ticket to my babies, that I’d be in that 80% having a successful pregnancy, no problem. And I WAS.

So I need to think of the cancer in the same way: that I WILL be in that 80% who survive breast cancer.

I told you I felt oodles better today. And the cancer only made me cry ONCE. That’s an all-time low for me. Yay me!

* even someone without poor health or prior losses or any of that would still have an 80% chance of a successful pregnancy.

Good and Bad

Good:
Feeling oceans better about the cancer thing today, just tons better I can’t even describe it.

Bad:
But TiVo felt it needed to record Terms of Endearment for me. GAK! A movie about a young mother who dies of cancer? I couldn’t handle this movie before; I can barely even THINK about it today.