Slacker

So I've been slacking- right when things were getting interesting apparently! It's a No-Go on the boobs, for now at least. New plan is that once I finish chemo, I'll have phase 1 of my reconstruction done before I start radiation. Then when I'm done with radiation, they'll do the rest. ETA of the boobs, I'm hoping is late spring/early summer. So sad...
I had my first round of chemo on Feb 26th. It was awesome! So maybe not awesome, but it went better than expected. I was a bit high-strung however. When mom picked me up she was wearing her Theresa's Troops tshirt and I yelled "you're wearing your shirt??" and totally bawled the whole way there. She thought I'd be happy- but I assured her nothing would make me happy that day.
They injected 2 big turkey-basters of red medicine in me along with some stuff to calm me down. Dr Doodlebop asked me how I was doing and I told him horrible, that I'd had a bad day up to that point. So he asked me what happened? I said "THIS!!" and waived my arms frantically all around the room. I think he got my drift because he all but sedated me when I started my chemo. He however did tell me that it's possible I won't lose my hair, since they are only giving me one drug. Yay! It's just now getting really thick again. He did tell me to expect to get sick from the chemo although he was giving me everything he had to prevent it, most people still get sick. When we got home I slept for 3 hours and went to bed early. Saturday morning I woke up still feeling really good. Didn't do anythig but lay around to try to keep nausea away at the advice of my nurse and kept taking antinausea pills. Mom left around 5 pm on Saturday since it seemed I was doing good. I went to bed when she left and didn't wake up until 8 am Sunday- still feeling good! My body was really tired, just exhaused like I had run a marathon on Monday, so I went in about an hour late but worked the full day. I'm glad I did because I seemed to snap out of my morning funk later that day.

I got an unexpected call today! My plastic surgeon (who Dr D was going to contact to keep in the loop of what I was doing) called and was in his office in town, he's from Sioux Falls. I'm going to get my new boobies sooner than I thought!
There's lots of different options of ways to get the reconstruction done- WOW, I had no idea. I'm chosing the fastest, least painful procedure :)
Apparently I can't get the expanders after radiation because the skin on the radiated area will be too tight and would press against my ribs- SO I have to get them in before radiation then will have another surgery after the radiation to wrap things up. It could happen as soon as next week! Yay! Not so sure I want to have another surgery again, but he said the recovery would be similar to the mastectomy- which I'm still trying to get my arm to extend and taking pain pills!
He was going to contact my oncologist about possibly doing this next week, which would push back my chemo OR I could do it after chemo, before radiation but that could extend the radiation out longer because of the recovery.
Mom doesn't think I need big ones, I think I do! I told her she has boobs so she doesn't get a say in it! Will know more tomorrow! YAY!

Today I saw my surgeon again, the petscan showed the 13 cm seroma, my oncologist thought might be able to be sucked out. He did a ultrasound and thought something might be able to come out- but first stick and second stick with the long, scarey needle brought out nothing. I didn't feel the first stick but the second I sure did! I asked if he'd put me out before we did this but he said if he has to stay awake I do too. So, sounds like I'll have an A-cup of swelling for quite a while since it won't suck out.
On Monday, all my lady co-workers wore their Theresa's Troops tshirts. I kept it together till about 10 am when dear Ranae came in and hugged me and asked me how I was doing, for real-and I just started crying...that tends to happen a lot! :)
All for now...

Clean Petscan/CT...but...

Still gotta have chemo. I'm having 4 rounds of adria (the stuff all horror stories are about) two weeks apart for a total of 8 weeks. Then I will have radiation for 6 weeks, then I should be able to start reconstruction and get my new boobies! One thing to look forward to!
He said I will definitely lose my hair, but I can use a fashionable scarf he said. I'll need to take extra precautions because my white blood cell count will drop and that it makes most people very sick. I'm a little concerned what to do about work and Amanda's wedding!
He asked when I wanted to start, I said definitely not next week, I have too much going on. I'll have another mugascan of my heart just to be sure everything is ok to start more chemo, after the last chemo I had.
The scan did show I have a 12 cm seroma on the left side; he was gonna call my surgeon about possibly sucking it out.

Back to work

I went back to work on Tuesday 2-2-10. I had a lot of appointments this week and needed Friday off for my petscan so I thought that would be a good transition to ease in to working full days.
Tuesday I worked a full day. Tiffney picked me up because I'm not driving yet. I tried to make a quiet entrance in the back door, until I saw my hallway had been decorated with a WELCOME BACK THERESA banner and about 60 balloons!
Wednesday morning I had physical therapy. Much easier this week- she mainly did a lot of massaging my muscles and stretched them for me. Feels like there's tight little rubber bands in there, they stretch just a little and want to snap back! My physical therapist is going to start coming to my house on days other than Wednesdays just because she can't do private practice more than one day a week in her office and she thinks (and I do too) that I could benefit from seeing her more than just once per week. So next Friday she's coming here at 8 am to stretch me.
Wednesday I had an eye appt, 2 year follow up on my lasik eye surgery- what a waste, I will not be attending my 3 year follow up.
Friday I had my petscan. Got there before 830 for my labs, was supposed to have a nurse eval and then check in for my petscan at 945. Well, 945 came before my nurse eval did and they ended up doing my petscan before my nurse eval- I don't know what the problem was. So while I was sitting in the supply closet again 'resting' I could hear who they were paiging for medical oncology and I never did hear my name. When I got out of the petscan after noon, I still had to sit and wait for my nurse eval, i was less than thrilled- pretty honked off.
When I got in for my nurse eval, it was a nurse I'd never had before. I was reading the computer screen as she was going thru my meds and my labs and saw "Adria" listed as a med under my previous chemo drugs. I instantly thought I was going to start balling but was able to choke back the tears until I got to the car. This is the drug that all horror stories of chemotherapy are about- knock down, drag out, nasty side effects. I told my mom what I had seen and couldn't stop crying- I'm horrified to go through any of it again, let alone that. It's my mom's birthday so I felt bad ruining her day, but I couldn't help it!
I was exhausted tired when we got home so took a nice long nap...

I've been trying to sleep in my own bed instead of the recliner, it's not going well. My right arm isn't hurting hardly at all, but I still can't sleep on it. Laying on my left arm is out of the question. I went into my bed last night around midnight and did more tossing and turning, propping pillows here and there to try and get comfortable.
I'm getting ready to go back to work tomorrow, a bit nervous about that. I feel like the last time saw everyone I was 'bragging' that I was done with chemo and now the cancer is back, and it's bigger and badder than it originally was.
I still have a lot of swelling in my left side- the burning under my arm isn't going away, it's been a week on Lyrica for it but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.