The Prescription

The prescription for what cancer I had was finally given to me today from Dr. Metcalfe. We had a great visit with him today at Saint Josephs. I will be starting chemotherapy on Tuesday September 8th. I will be given chemo four times at three week intervals and yes my hair will fall out. All hair on my body will fall out. I will be a naked chihuahua for a few months. This should mean that if according to schedule I will be finished around my birthday. Then the doctors wait about a month, or in my case for me to come back from Naples at Christmas and then I will be given radiation therapy. The chemo and radiation dynamic duo will make it less than 10% likely that this cancer will ever return.
Tomorrow, I am going in for a heart ultrasound. One of the chemo medicines you can't take if you have heart problems so they want to check my heart and make sure I am good to go.
My next project is wig shopping. My hair will start falling out about 10 days after my first treatment so I need to find a cool do ASAP.

Cold Cap Therapy

So today did not go as planned. My oncologist, Dr. Metcalf, was sick today. He has rescheduled my appointment for Monday at 2pm.
I did some research today however and there is some amazing new stuff out there for chemotherapy patients. I found this website which is very interesting:
http://penguincoldcaps.co.nz/public/default.php?page=1
These people have developed a cap that you wear only while you get your chemo treatments and up to 80% of the people that wear one DO NOT lose their hair. The cap has to remain at a certain cold temperature which keeps the drugs from affecting your hair follicles. The patient has to have a certain type of cancer and it will only work on a certain list of chemo drugs but its still nice that some people are coming up with ways for people not to lose their hair.

Treatments

Well, John Henry and I just walked out of Central Baptist Hospital. We have two pieces of good news. One, McCauley has a birthday...probably October 7th depending on blood work and if my white cells are high enough to deliver. Two, my cancer is curable.
I had stage 2A cancer. The tumor ended up being about 2cm. It was an aggressive form of cancer and will not respond to hormones. I will be starting chemotherapy soon and radiation after that. I meet with Dr. Metcalf, the oncologist on friday to find out when all of my treatments can begin.

Surgery Day aka Christmas Day

Yesterday was surgery day at Central Baptist Hospital. I called this day Christmas Day because I couldn't wait for it to get here. It was very exciting. I went in to be prepped for surgery and Dr.Tate wastes NO TIME. Within 10 minutes he had already stuck me with three large needles (no anesthetic!) to inject the dye into my lymph nodes. This allowed the dye to spread around my lymph nodes in time for surgery so he could see if there were cancer cells present. I was scheduled for a 10 am surgery. As I looked up on the way into the surgery room it was 9:59 and 58 seconds.
My mom and John heard from Dr. Tate less than 40 minutes later. The surgery was quick and successful. The cancer was NOT in my lymph nodes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I repeat NOT in my lymph nodes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I left the hosiptal in less than an hour, after some careful monitoring of McCauley's heartbeat. I am scheduled to see Dr. Tate next wednesday and by then they will know what type of cancer I had and if I need any further treaments.
Meanwhile flowers have been arriving, clothes for McCauley, and such great cards!!! Thank you everyone. They are all so uplifting and beautiful! Tonight I am going to move all of the flowers out of the bedroom. John snored all night however! I think he was allergic!

The Master Plan

Well, after meeting with every doctor in town, including our next door neighbor and John's old next door neighbor(see what I mean...EVERY doctor in town!), we now have a master plan. Tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. I will be having a lumpectomy with Dr. Tate at Central Baptist Hospital. The goal after tomorrow is for me to be cancer free! We will know immediately if it has spread into the lymph nodes but will have to wait about 5 days to know what type of cancer it is, and if further treatment is needed.
My OBGYN believes the cancer cells were probably there and pregnancy made them grow faster which brought the cancer to my attention. If that is the case we will be patting McCauley on the back for sure when she arrives.
Some good news today was that I had an ultrasound and McCauley is doing wonderfully. She is exactly where she is supposed to be at 3 pounds. She even smiled for us on ultrasound and I think she looks EXACTLY like John Henry! This worries some people but we don't believe she will be as hairy as John. Hopefully!

The Size of "THE LUMP"

So, I wanted to show everyone the size of "the lump" that we have been talking and talking and talking and thinking and thinking about for the past 4 days NONSTOP. If you will look closely at these pictures you will see "the lump" really deserves no more of anyone's time except if you are shrinking it with your mind or something...then please continue. The lump is exactly one centimeter or the size of a marble.

Day One

Today is the first day on "our" road to recovery for breast cancer. "Our" consisting of me, even though in all other proper English sentences, I would never begin with myself. I do however have the lump that is soon to be removed and then shot by the 12 gauge. More on that later. "Our" also includes John Henry, loving husband, baby McCauley Carlyle, who is still currently incubating and The Bart, a junior sized black lab.
Today will consist of bathing. I am a little sore from having a bebopsey ( Is this how you spell it Megan? From My BIG fat Greek Wedding?) on Wednesday so that might be a small challenge in itself. My first doctors appointment is at 11:45 with, "the cancer doctor", Dr. Monty Metcalf. Then hopefully off to lunch with everyone before meeting with the sugeon Dr. Tate. We are getting two surgeons opinions today, Dr. Tate and Dr. Stewart.
Day one is offically beginning now...