Post op

I went to the plastic surgeon for my post op appointment yesterday.  For the past week, I have had to empty 4 drains (2 on each side) every four hours and record the amount of fluid that is extracted from each drain.  I took that record into the appointment with me, and according to those numbers, the Dr. said he could remove 2 of the drains (1 from each side).  The drains were inserted into my side, held with one stitch and bunch of tape and gauze were placed around it.  It was pretty painful to remove them.  Luckily I am still pretty numb all over or I'm sure it would have hurt a lot worse.  While there, the Dr. also injected more saline into my temporary expanders.  I will go weekly for this to occur for a while.  He looked at my incisions and said that they looked good and everything seemed to be going well.  So I go back on Wednesday to hopefully get the other 2 drains out and receive more fluid.  Right now I'm progressing well with the help of pain meds and sleep :)



This is what I look like right now (on one side).  The incision was made under each breast.  The purple circle at the top is where they inject the saline.  The one drain that is left is under the purple circle.  The white guaze at the bottom is where they took out the other drain.

I'm home!

The surgery is over and the tumor is gone!!!!  I have been laying low for a week at my parents house. It's been nice with the holiday weekend, my parents have been able to stay home and take care of me. I have been in immense pain with bad nausea the entire time.  I spent 23 hours in the recovery unit at the hospital after my 7 hour surgery.  An anesthesiologist surgically implanted a pain blocker in my back to block the nerves in my chest and help with the pain after surgery.  It was suppose to last 3 days and it only lasted 1.5days (we still can't figure out why).  I think I have the nausea under control now.  I think I just wasn't eating enough before taking my pain pill each time.  I also have two drains inserted on each side that have to be emptied every 4 hours.  Mom and Dad have been getting up in the middle of the night to do that for me.  I've pretty much been sleeping all day.  I've had several visitors already.  Lots of people bringing us food.  Even though I haven't been able to eat much of it, it looks really good and my parents are enjoying it!  My mom has said several times that it's been nice getting a home cooked meal without having to cook it herself.
Thank you everyone for the love, support, encouragement, and prayers throughout this ordeal.  It has been a rough road for me, especially this last week.  I know I made the right decision, but it is hard to deal with right now with all the pain.  I have a post op with the plastic surgeon tomorrow (Thurs) and hopefully 2 of the drains will be removed.  He should also be filling the expanders some.  I took a total of 8 weeks off work, so visitors are always welcome!  I'll be at my parent's house in New Pal for 2-3 weeks then back at my house in Indy.


In the recovery unit.

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Disappointed

I had another Herceptin treatment on Friday and met with the Oncologist.  I hadn't seen the Oncologist in probably 2 months.  I had been seeing his NP every time I'd been going in for a while now.  He gave me some disappointing news.  I had a breast MRI post chemo to check the progress of the chemo and the size of the tumor.  The original size was 2.9cm.  The current size is 2.1cm.  The Oncologist was disappointed with these results.  He said that he was expecting the tumor to have shrank much more than that with all the chemo I received.  He said that my cancer is strongly Her2 positive as well as strongly estrogen positve.  Therefore, either one could be the driving force for this cancer.  Apparently, since the tumor didn't shrink very much, it appears that estrogen much be the driving force.  (If it was the Her2, the chemo would have worked better since I'm getting Herceptin)  Soooo, in other words all that chemo was pretty much pointless.  I lost my hair, had all those horrible side effects, and missed all that work for nothing!!!  It's very discouraging!  However, he said that because it looks as if the estrogen is the driving force, the Tomoxafin I will be receiving as the end of all of this will do the trick.  The upside is that this news make me more confident in my surgery decision to take them OFF!!

Surgery Decision

    I met with my plastic surgeon last week and discussed what a mastectomy with reconstruction would entail.  I had a consultation, looked at some pictures, and asked a lot of questions.  I left the appointment more confused and concerned than before, however.  There were a lot of questions that he couldn't answer for me, but then there were also a lot of decisions I needed to make that I wasn't aware of...decisions with a lot of different options.  In the following week I was so overwhelmed and frustrated every time I would try to think about it and think of the options and try to make a decision, that I would just cry and push it out of my mind.  I eventually got to the point where I said "I'm not going to think about it again until my appointment on Tuesday."  Well, luckily I have some great people in my life, including a co-worker who is a survivor, who talked with me and calmed me down, as well as my nurse Navigator who is WONDERFUL! 
   Today, I met with my breast surgeon and asked him the questions my plastic surgeon couldn't answer.  We went over all the options, discussed them thoroughly, and what the benefits were of each.  I asked my Nurse Navigator to sit in with us, to help me make the decisions I needed to make; and along with the help of my Dad, we all came to a general consensus.  Drum roll please.....................A nipple-sparing double mastectomy with implant-based reconstruction!  That's a lot of big words, so let me break it down for you.  I will have 99% of both breasts removed.  Only 1% of my breast tissue will remain which will mostly be skin and a small layer of tissue under the skin.  They are going to save my nipples (YEAH!), and then place temporary implants under a layer of muscle.  I will go in once a week for a few weeks and have those implants filled with fluid to expand the implants to the desired size.  Those implants will stay in for 3-6 months, then they will be replaced during a second surgery with the permanent implants.  With this surgery my breasts should look exactly as they do now!  They are hoping to make the incisions under my breasts near my ribs, instead of around my nipples.  If that is the case, there won't even be any visible scars!  I am SOOO happy with this decision.  With this decision I will not have to worry about bi-yearly exams, plus there is a much lower chance of reoccurance.  The biggest downside is that I'll lose most of the feeling in my breasts and nipples.  I am so relieved to have made these decisions and am looking forward to the surgery on August 29th.  Please pray for my Plastic Surgeon Dr. Stahlnecker and my Breast Surgeon Dr. Nate.  They will be joining together for the surgery.  I will be spending 23hrs at the hospital.  The surgery itself will take approximately 6hrs.  It will be done at Community North Surgery Center.

My Last Chemo!!!

   Friday, July 26th was my last appointment for chemotherapy (atleast the hard drugs)!!!!!  I still have to go every 3 weeks for another 9 months to receive Herceptin through IV, because I am Her2 positive.  But the worst is over!!!  Nothing can prepare you for how awful chemo is.  It reaks havoc on your entire body, from head to toe....literally.  Just a little insight into some of the side effects I had: hair loss, acne, heartburn, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, bone pain, neuropathy (hand and feet numbness) and FATIGUE.  At first I was excited about the possible weight loss that I hear so much about with chemo, but the opposite occured to me.  Because I ended up going for weekly chemo treatments, where one of the pre-meds is a steroid, I was hungry (and therefore eating) ALL the time!  Instead of losing weight, I GAINED 15 pounds! So there wasn't one single benefit from chemo :(
   I have had so many people tell me that they can't believe I'm staying so positive.  And I say to them....what's the alternative? I'm not dying!  I'm going to get through this and when I do, this will just be a bump in the road; an event in my life that I can look back on.  There is no reason to be Debbie Downer, and get all depressed and crawl into a hole.  Now, don't get me wrong, of course I've had my negative/sad moments and even a few sad days, but I don't stay in that rut...I can't.  If this was terminal, maybe I would.  But I know I'll be A-Okay in a few short months and my life will return to normal...or maybe even better than normal :)
   So, this week was a time to celebrate.  An old friend from childhood was sooooo gracious to leave her 3 kids and travel 2 hours to come and spend the day with me at my last chemo appointment.  We hadn't seen each other in several years and it was so nice to catch up with her.  We got lunch before the appointment and went out for ice cream at Orange Leaf after the appointment.  It was a great day!  Thanks for helping me celebrate Trisha!

7th Chemo

One more chemo to go!!  This week my awesome cousin Heather came in from WI and left her two kids with her mom and spent Thursday evening and all day Friday with me!!  It was soooo wonderful!  We haven't spent time together just the two of us since we were kids.  It was a great appointment too, because we goofed off with the nurse the whole time.  Heather pointed out that all the previous pictures I've posted on the blog from chemo appointments show me in the chair with my buddies standing behind me.....ALL of them.  So of course, she wanted to do something different.  She said she wanted to "hold me like a baby". So with the help of our nurse, we got a little crazy.....

My nurses idea :)

 

 

 

5th Chemo

I have been so blessed by my friendships throughout my diagnosis and treatment.  All of my close friends currently live out the state or country and all of them have come home to see me!  Two of them were even able to attend a chemo appointment with me.  One of those friends came this week.  I have known Ericka since kindergarten, but we have really become close in the last few years when we attended the same college.  She is a very unique and eccentric woman who I will always have an enjoyable time with.  I have missed her dearly the past year as she been teaching in Colombia and will continue to be there for another year before coming back to the states.  So, I was so thrilled to hear that she was coming home this summer and going to an appt with me.