A Carpenter's Dream

Warning, There are post surgical pictures in this post. 

Surgery went great. 

Even my pre-op anxiety wasn’t as horrible is it normally can be. Most likely because I talked about it...to everyone! 

The morning was a little insane. We left the house late, hit traffic and arrived at the hospital late. So late, in fact, that registration called to make sure I was on the way 🤦‍♀️ 

After they took me into the pre-op room, I got changed, threw out my bra and they took my vitals. The doctor came in to see me, review what was going to be done and answer questions. Then I waited for about an hour to go to nuclear medicine to get injections in the cancer boob so they knew where the sentinel nodes were. 

The trip from pre-op to nuke med was interesting. Nuke med is in the old building of the hospital and pre-op is in the new wing. I was literally wheeled down main hallways. Never one to miss an opportunity, I was waving at people like I was in a parade. 

I’d be lying if I said the injections didn’t hurt like hell. My doctor said they shouldn’t be bad, other cancer patients said to prepare for the pain. Glad I was prepared! 

By now I was winding up and could feel it so when the “Happy Juice Guy” aka anesthesiologist came in I asked for something. They gave me a little Ativan to help me relax. It worked. 

Next thing I knew I was I’m my room waking up. I got to see Glenn before he went home to be with the boys. 

In addition to the nuke med that lit up my nodes, my breasts were injected with a blue dye so they knew where all the tissue was that needed to be removed. We were told that the dye would make my pee blue and they were not kidding!! 

I am the consumate boy mom who appreciates a good "Wooooow!" moment. After I peed the first time that night I had the nurse give me my phone so I could take a picture of it. Seriously, it was way darker than I anticipated. I sent the picture to Glenn and the boys and we all had a great laugh. 

The rest of the night was uneventful, I got some good sleep and my doctor even had to wake me up the next morning when she came in to check me out. 

A hematoma had developed on the right side so she had to press on the skin to move the fluid to the drain tube. Fun fact: when they cut off the boobs they take the nerves so, although she had to push on my chest, I could only feel pressure not pain! 

I was discharged that afternoon and headed home to relax. 

On the way out I was being wheeled past the nurses station and one of them said, "You need to wave on he way out, you waved on the way in." 

I can totally see myself doing that...So I waved good-bye. 

Since I opted to not have reconstruction I do not have expanders in my chest. Pain is minimal and controlled with just Acetaminophen (Tylenol). 

The drains...Ugh! 

I know these things are necessary but man are they a pain in the ass! 

The tubes come out just below where the bottom of my breast was and the tube wraps up into the skin area in a big circle. The part of the drain that is under the skin is perforated to allow the fluids to drain into the bulb (referred to a grenade at the nurses station :) and the tube is so much longer than I thought it would be! 

There is a plug at the top of the bulb that I open to empty out the fluid into a measuring cup so I can record the amounts and then the bulb gets squeezed before the plug is put back in. Doing this creates a suction that draws the fluid out of my body. 

As heal I form clots that are a total pain to remove from the lines. Sometimes they move themselves sometimes they don't. 

The compression bra they gave me was too tight. The band around the bottom had to be cut so that it wouldn't dig into my skin and some jackass decided that since it's a bra it had to have lace around the edges.

Seriously...Lace? WTF?!  On a good day lace can cause chaffing. Why the hell would someone put it on a post-surgical garment?! No doubt someone that has never had this particular surgery and didn't have to be in the thing 24/7. 

The other added benefit of the lace is that it gets stuck in the velcro. Because, you know, when you have tubes hanging out of your body AND limited arm motion you want to have to detangle the lace from the velcro at the top of the already uncomfortable bra! 

Anyway...

This is how the drain looks under my skin on the left side of my chest. 

There is some bruising (remember no nerves, no pain), which is to be expected but the incisions are amazing! I am so happy with the way everything looks. As the fluid decreases things are flattening out. 

One friend even told me I'm his "favorite 2x4"...

Flat as a board! 

OMGness! I am so glad I wasn't drinking when I got that text or I would have spewed magic bean water out of my nose. 

Mom told my that makes me a Carpenter's Dream! LOL

I wish I could say that the worst is over but unfortunately that is not the truth. Sadly, having my boobs cut off was the easy part. 

Chemo looms on the horizon. 

I will most likely feel sick and lose my hair. They will give me anti-nausea meds to help with the tummy issues but, I gotta tell you, the thought of a summer without the need to shave is a bit exciting. 'Cause you know that you don't just lose the hair on the head...

Yeah...NO BIKINI RAZOR RASH!!! 

Talk about a silver lining!

If I look hard enough there is always something good. 

What's been the best part of this so far? 

Love.

So many people have sent encouraging messages, prayers, gifts, flowers and have jumped in to help us out. We don't have to worry about food for weeks, the kids transportation is arranged and nurse friends have come over to check out my incisions and drain tube areas to make sure that everything is ok and there are no infections. 

As a result of all the prayers, love and support we've received I've been able to heal at a very rapid rate. 

We are blessed. 

Pacifically

As I mentioned in my last post, there was a "spot" on my spine that showed up on my bone scan. 

That set off a chain reaction that left me in bed all day on Saturday bawling my eyes out. 

It was bound to happen eventually and I did feel a little better afterwards. We really do need a good cry from time to time. 

A friend calls these Cancer Sucks days. 

So let me back track a bit here...

Got the bone scan results that said there was something there but felt that it was most likely degeneration. Then I had the breast MRI that showed the tumor being significantly larger than what they saw in the mammogram...I'll get to that shortly. 

My surgeon wanted to make sure that the spine thing wasn't a huge issue so she ordered an MRI. The insurance company declined to authorize it because I hadn't had an x-ray, because paying for an unnecessary x-ray makes sense, so I had an x-ray and that showed something there too. 

That was on Friday...then I waited again. 

The weight of what might be in my spine hit me on Saturday while I was out delivering cakes and I had a total meltdown. I got someone to cover my shift at the store, went home, crawled under the covers and stayed there crying and napping all day. 

Part of my pity party was because I hate pity parties!! The other was because I am competely powerless and felt like I was taking two steps back for every step forward. It's a roller coaster I wouldn't wish on anyone.

My prayers were frantic. I couldn't put a cohesive thought together and just kept saying, "God's got this." Honestly, I really do believe that but I got into my head and started the "what if I have bone cancer" game. Fortunately, the Lord knows my heart and even when I am depressed, angry or frustrated he really is holding me up. 

But, it doesn't mean I can't be pissed off or that I don't need a good cry! 

I managed to pull myself together in time to eat dinner then went back to bed. 

Monday rolled around and I met with the genetic counselor. It probably wasn't a waste of time, but it felt like it was. I had my mom's genetic report with me and after the counselor looked at it she said, "Your mom was negative for all seven of the genes that she was tested for. You most likely won't have the BRCA gene which is fantastic." I replied, "Well, considering that I have breast cancer it doesn't really matter now does it?" 😳

The appointment consisted of me telling the counselor my family history while she drew a flow chart. We have an $80 copay for specialists. So, I paid $80 for someone to write down my horrible family cancer history. I am a candidate for genetic testing but it's more money and well...it's more money. 

The worst part of the appointment was that no one bothered to tell me that I was going to be meeting with this counselor in an infusion center. The waiting room was filled with a plethora of other cancer patients in various stages of treatment. To get into the counselor's office I had to walk through the actual infusion area which I was definitely not ready for. I know, I know, I'll be there eventually and at that time I'll know I'm walking into an infusion center. It really was traumatic.  

That afternoon the radiologist's report came in confirming what the more advanced bone scan had already found. Although both radiologists felt it was degenerative, because of my breast cancer, they recommended an MRI with and without contrast. 

My nurse navigator got me right into Jennersville for an MRI on Tuesday afternoon. By this point I've had blood drawn, a nuclear injection for the bone scan and the injection for the contrast for the breast MRI all in my right arm. I had the nurse give me the injection for the contrast in my left arm and well, now I look like a junkie. 

Hot! 

Both the radiologist at Jennersville and the radiologist at Penn Medicine have read the MRI and confirmed that there is no cancer on my spine...it's arthritis. Yay for getting older. 

I met with my surgeon yesterday morning and surgery is confirmed for Monday, May 17. I won't know the time until the Friday before. 

She will be performing a double mastectomy with sentinel node biopsy. I have requested that she do an aesthetic flat closure that leaves no spare skin as I will not be having reconstruction. Surgery is expected to last approximately four hours depending on the sentinel node biopsies. If it comes back clear we are good to go. If not she'll have to take more. 

Now let's back up to the breast MRI...

The tumor was larger for a couple of reasons: 1. They can see it 3D in the breast MRI where the Mammogram is flat, because...that's how they make your boobs. 2. I have both invasive and non-invasive cancers in my right breast. Until they breach the duct walls and invade the breast tissue they are contained which means they are currently non-invasive. Non-invasive is considered Stage 0. 

All together the tumor is 6 cm but only 2 cm are invasive so I don't need chemo before surgery. If the invasive stuff was 4 cm or more, I'd do chemo first to shrink it and then have the surgery. 

In my last post I mentioned HER2. HER2-positive breast cancer is a breast cancer that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). This protein promotes the growth of cancer cells. In about 1 of every 5 breast cancers, the cancer cells have extra copies of the gene that makes the HER2 protein.

Evidently, I'm the one out of five. 

Winner! 

Ugh! 

Now that we know I am HER2 positive my chemo plan will be a little more aggresive and I will be given Herceptin via infusion for a year. HER2 inhibitors work against HER2-positive breast cancers by blocking the ability of the cancer cells to receive chemical signals that tell the cells to grow.

Of course the actual chemo plan won't be confirmed until after surgery and the pathology comes back. 

In the meantime, I started taking Reishi mushrooms. A friend also gave me a book called Medicinal Mushrooms. It is an easy read and fascinating! Reishi mushrooms are really bitter but the good news is that I can put the tincture in my coffee and can't taste it! 

Clinical studies with Reishi have found that patients have a better response to chemo while using it and if stay with it my immune system will be stronger too. I bought dried ones and decocted them. In order to decoct them I had to boil them for an hour then strain off the water and squeeze out the mushroom. They never got soft but I did get lost of "juice" that I was able to use this week. I have run out of the juice so I'll be going to The Woodlands at Phillips Mushrooms Farms to buy some other mushrooms until the ones I ordered arrive. They sell the book there too if you are interested. 

And, if all this wasn't already enough to digest, our central AC decided to quit this week! I mean when you have a family medical deductible of $9,000 (thanks for that Obama) what's another $5,000 right? 

Yup! So we are weighing our options and will most likely replace both the AC and furnace. Both are more than 20 years old and it would be at least $1800 just for the freon because they use new stuff now. If we have to do one we might as well bite the proverbial bullet and do them both. But seriously...Now? 

Managing stress has been crazy hard this week. Thankfully God blessed me with two of the most amazing hysterical children in the world. They keep me on my toes and make me laugh. Today we were driving David to gymnastics and I challenged them to say Irish Wrist Watch five times fast. The result had me laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my cheeks. 

Daniel then said, "I want Kieran to try this." David asked, "Why pacifically Kieran?" Daniel yelled, "PACIFIC IS AN OCEAN."

I came really close to shooting coffee out my nose! 

BTW it was only last week that Daniel was also saying "pacifically." 

Thanks for the laughs guys...I really needed them this week! 

Patience...

...is a virtue I lack. 

Everything involved with this process involves waiting and it is beyond stressful. 

Have a test? 

Wait for the result. 

Have a question? 

Wait for the reply. 

Follow up with the doctor? 

Wait for that appointment. 

Want to schedule surgery? 

You'll have to wait a few weeks to get on the roster. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAH! 

I do have a surgery date though. 

May 17, 2021 will be the day I go in for the double mastectomy.

Yes, I have to wait another 18 days for that too! 

But...

No more bras!!!! 

I decided that I am definitely not interested in having the reconstruction done as the statistics for additional surgeries/failure are really high. Instead, I have a beloved friend who has agreed to design a chest tattoo for me. 

I am so excited and can't wait to see what she creates!!! 

In the meantime, we are still waiting for the Her2 pathology. 

What is HER2?

The human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) gene is responsible for producing HER2 proteins. HER2 proteins are present on the surface of some breast cancer cells. When they’re activated, they signal breast cancer cells to divide and multiply. 

Normally, HER2 proteins regulate and control the growth of breast cells. But when the HER2 gene is mutated, which is the case in about 1 in every 5 cases of breast cancer, it makes too many HER2 proteins. This results in breast cells growing and dividing out of control.

So you can see why this is important pathology! 

I had a bone scan that showed a weird thing with my spine that the radiologist says is most likely degeneration but it also is in the area where I had a spinal fusion in 1990. I will have to have a CT scan to double check and rule out anything else. 

Next week I meet with a genetic counselor but I'm not entirely sure why and I will also see my surgeon again to go over the tests and discuss surgery. Hopefully, we'll have the Her2 back. 

With the surgery date set, I have begun to prep. 

My employees (greatest people on the face of the earth BTW) are  ready to jump in and do whatever is necessary. My business partner has been training extra people to cover shifts in our store and I have added a ton of people to the pick-up list at the kids’ school. 

After surgery it will be a minimum of two weeks before I can really do anything so another friend and pink ribbon sister has set up a Take Them A Meal link for people to help out. This is the link if you would like to sign up. https://takethemameal.com/FYPS6898  

Countless numbers of people have offered assistance for things from folding our laundry (you are saints) to transporting the boys to their activities. Even my hubby’s employer told him to take whatever time he needs. 

No matter what, this is a crappy situation but the outpouring of love and support has blessed us with peace of mind and we couldn’t ask for more!  

Until next time ladies...