So, how DID I get here? To this strange Cancer Land? Where the language is vaguely foreign and the culture utterly alien–dare I say it? That scary place we all pretend doesn’t exist for fear of contamination and loss of words?
We all start somewhere. And if I’m going to go forward from here, I guess I should probably dust this ‘ole blog off and put it to some use. I can’t keep sending out mass emails, forgetting who I sent them to and then sending them all again. I can’t keep running back and forth from site to site filling in blanks either. And the cell bills are gonna kill me quicker than the cancer. Besides, a story gets kinda old if you repeat it too many times, ya know?
Case in point. By the time I got done filling in just the cyber friends in my life on my news today, I was entirely too worn out to deal with the round of phone calls that must also go out in the next 8 hours. The emails? Unthinkable. I’m beat. Which means there is no way I’m going to finish this entry properly. I must celebrate my good fortune with a nap. And soon.
What good fortune is that? I was hoping you’d ask.
I have breast cancer. Today I learned many things about that cancer. The first of which is that they got “clear margins” on my Grade II 1.6 cm invasive ductal carcinoma. Also, the first “sentinal node” was the only positive one. While we had hope, after the SNB, that they were all clear, there was macroscopic invasion on one and I wound up at Stage IIa after having secondary ALND two days post lumpectomy. I also have the double, not singular, good fortune of being able to join the ER+, PR+ club. HER2, of course, was negative in my case. But the incredibly scary “Triple Negative” bullet has been dodged. Of course, those blessed with Triple Negative respond very, very well to chemo. I might not. But I got the name of the Oncologist who will order it for me today anyway, along with my Rads and whatever meds we’re using to combat hormone reception these days. Or is it still the same old Tamoxifen our mother’s got? Must explore that new AI thing. Oh, and the drain, after all that stripping and clearing and measuring and pinning and pulling– is GONE.
I can SHOWER tomorrow!!!!!! Now THAT is progress.
WHAT!? Yeah. I know. A month ago, it was all Greek/Pig/Latin to me too. But that story is just going to have to wait until AFTER my nap.
–Get used to that, by the way.