It's official, I have "recurrant" breast cancer, Stage 4

So there it is, welcome to the rest of my life- whether it be 2 years or 60 years. There is no cure, and no guarantee. Now the fight is on to keep me healthy, alive and keep the crap from spreading any farther. The bad side is this. It will do no good to operate, nor to radiate. The cells have spread too far. I have a mass on my mastectomy side of my chest. I have a positive lymph node in my right armpit. I have a positive lymph node buried under my left collar bone. We are not sure if it is 1, or more then 1, positive node buried inside me under my sternum somewhere. It has spread past my lymph nodes that drain the breast area. So it has definitely metastasized. This means chemo treatments until further notice, until they are gone. Chemo may or may not work. If one doesn't work, we will try another. The good news is it has not spread to my blood, bones or vital organs.
 Currently I now take 3 pills with breakfast, and 3 pills with dinner. They are called Xeloda. I shouldn't get any of the real bad side effects, as I am not 80. So I SHOULD not lose my hair, nausea should not be an issue, nor energy loss. Diarrhea may be an issue, and doc needs to know. Can't just pop a diarrhea pill this time, as he needs to know how bad it is getting. Hand and foot syndrome is the other concern. My palms and soles will probably get red and rashy, call the doc if I can't function as normal. The mouth sores will also be back. The most important part is to really pay attention on how I am reacting. I won't see my oncologist every 2 weeks like before, so I need to make sure to communicate well with him. I do the pill routine for 2 weeks on, and 1 week off. I will go see doc again in 6 weeks. He measured my mass, and felt my armpit node. He says he will know if those 2 shrink, then the rest are as well. He will switch me to a different chemo pill in another year most likely. He needs to be sure I am post menopausal before he does that. I am on chemo until further notice. Either when they are totally shrunk up, or it just isn't working anymore. Hopefully my body will allow me to hang on until there is a cure found, or until it is my natural time to go. He had a lady on the same pill for 4 years. She was my age. As far as I could tell from the story, I believe he took her off because it fixed it. He says she did great, and she carried on as normal- that you couldn't tell she was in the battle of her life. There is so much hope, even though the news doesn't sound great.
  There is so much I don't understand about this. This was a huge amount of information to shove into a 45 minute doctor's visit. Don't go look this up on the internet! I know that it is not as bad as what the internet says. They give you statistics, but they don't tell you anything about the different situations. I am probably much younger and healthier then the statistics people were. Plus- how old are the statistics? They come up with new meds and research every day. Don't cry for me- love me, and support me! Celebrate however much time we have left together. Learn and educate ourselves, to do the best we can to prevent someone else to have to walk in these shoes. Help me to remember to live each day like it is my last, and then maybe I will have many more. Be there for the ones closest to me- they may really be the ones that need your strength and support. Life's been good to me so far!

So it's aggressive, WTF?

What does that mean? I heard it the first go round- it was medium to fast growing, and aggressive. OK, fine but we cut it all out, (we thought) then. So now we discover that something that has been in the surgery site, (appeared right after surgery) and is agressive as well. Now I am scared. What does this mean? Thank God all will be revealed tomorrow. It will be soon enough then. Good night.

This is not how things are supposed to be a year later!

This is not how things are supposed to be a year later!Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 5:18pm

 Cripes, almighty! My doctor's appointment did not go as planned last week. Least not how I had it all worked out in my head. Doc felt my swollen lymph node, and said yep it's swollen. He went over and felt the remaining lymph nodes on my bad side, which felt fine. However, I have this mass up above the surgery site, below my left collar bone. It has been there since almost imediantly after surgury. We brought it to his attention at my check up. He just kind of glanced over it and said it was something along the lines of scar tissue. All I know is we haven't been worried about it for the last year based on his response. Well this time he spent some time feeling it, and he didn't like it. I didn't even show it to him this time because of his prior response. Well this time he stuck a needle in it on the spot for a biopsy. What he expected to find when he pulled out the needle- was liquid. Like it was a liquid filled cyst. This did not happen- he could tell that he pulled out cells. He said that he could have missed and got behind it. I wasn't really buying that statement, as he is a very good surgeon.
  This time he took his time with me, like back in the begining. I couldn't read him very well, but I got the idea that he was very concerned. He said it was not likely to be cancer back on that side of my chest, nor likely that it had jumped from one breast to the other. He would expect it to rear it's ugly head elsewhere in my body. I couldn't understand how this thing that I originally thought oh no- it feels like a tumor, could really be a tumor now. When we originally felt this lump over a year ago, I had just had surgery days before, an MRI and a mammogram. How could it have been hiding in there? And a bit angry that my surgeon didn't really seem to take much time with it when we showed him. I'll get over it. So that day he did the biopsy, and then he called my oncologist and they scheduled a PET scan. Finally the test that will tell us if there is any cancer still, so that is good. Just not good that they were concerned enough to order one.
  So my hubby brought me in first thing in the morning today. I got my PET scan  done. It was different, but painless. Well, ok I'm out of practice on needles since I had a port in for so long. Tech said they wouldn't have used the port for this injecton anyways, as it would gum it up. I'm not glowing from the radiation, but I'm also not supposed to hold little kids or sit on pregnant women's laps for the next 24 hours! I will not know the results of the scan until my pow wow with my oncologist on Thursday. My surgeon left me a message before I left the hospital. He said he didn't want to keep me in limbo anymore, but that the biopsy came back positive for cancer. So there it is- here we go again. I imagine it will mean surgery in the next couple of weeks, more chemo in another month, and more radiation too. This mass feels big and close to my chest wall, so hence my guess on radiation. All will be revealed on Thursday with Dr. Snyder.

The picture is the mass, though it is hard to tell. The little tiny pea bump is the smallest. I think that might be due to the biopsy. The big mass is hard to see and between the pea bump and my armpit.

   I am OK. I am much better now that I can quit wondering. Much easier to pull my combat boots back on and move forward instead of hanging in limbo. I am surrounded by more people then I will probably ever be able to acknowledge for their kindness and support. We will get through this round too. I've got many more miles to put on my harley, roller coasters to chase, lovin' to do with my husband, more survivors to visit with and much more. I'm out of here for now.

Dear left breast

Just wanted to wish you a happy anniversary of your death. I'm sorry I had to separate you from your twin, but it had to be done. You have been a fine friend over the years, but you were sick and you were going to make me sick. So I had to cut you loose and send you on down the road. Life is different without you, and I miss you sometimes. Mostly only when I need your support under a smashing blouse. I can mimic you with a falsey, so it is not the end of the world- just a pain in the butt. I may miss you, but you do not define me. I am still beautiful without you, because my beauty comes from the inside- the outside is just a bonus. Someday I will replace you, but only so your twin isn't lonely under my cute tops that I haven't been able to wear!