It is inevitable, when it comes to cancer treatment that things will not go as planned. That somewhere along the line there will be a slight change or modification to the plan. Lets just say that sometimes the changes aren't so slight and you have to remind yourself that the reality is that these plans are fluid and sometimes there are major changes in direction but you are still moving forward.
This leads me to my life over the past 2 1/2 weeks. The plan for the last week of August was: port placement on Wednesday and Chemo on Friday. But on Monday I noticed that my left breast was swollen so I called the surgeon and she fit me in. With a look of concern she drained about 120cc of fluid out of my breast. With a reminder to come back and see her if it started to swell again we were back on plan. I noticed a little swelling after my port placement on Wednesday but nothing I worried about too much.
Friday was chemo day. Chemo day involves a lot of waiting. You start out getting a lab draw (through my fancy new port). Then you sit around and wait for the doctor to get the results so that she can make sure you are well enough to get chemo. This visit, since it was the first one, also included some extra education (which is always helpful). Then we head downstairs to wait for an empty chair in the infusion room. Once that's available you wait for the medicine to come and get checked and verified. Then they start the infusion. The infusion is pretty painless - just a little boring if you don't have someone as entertaining as Mark to keep you company. And then you are done.
They give you a bunch of preventative medications that help curb side effects (like nausea etc.). Then they put you on an anti-nausea plus steroid combo for the next two days to keep you feeling good. (Mark and I like to refer to the steroid as Meth - it's somewhere in the name). Despite all this of course I came crashing down into nausea land.
In the meantime, I noticed that I was swelling more and more in my left breast. Of course, it was a holiday weekend and by Tuesday I was feeling pretty rotten from the chemo so I forgot to call the plastic surgeon. By Wednesday I was a mess - nausea like crazy, sores on my tongue (turned out I had thrush), and the swelling in my left breast was getting uncomfortable - so I called and got appointments made with my surgeon and oncologist. My surgeon took one look at my breast and was very unhappy. They ended up draining about 200cc of fluid this time. She scheduled a follow up for today - she was very concerned with how my incision and skin looked.
I've been slowly feeling better from the chemo and I've been making sure to do everything my doctors told me but today's appointment didn't go very well. My surgeon took one look at my breast today and sat down. She sat quietly for a long time - I could see all the wheels turning as she tried to come up with the new plan... Then she gave me the bad news - I am losing my implant (or expander to be more accurate).
The skin on my breast won't likely survive much more chemo if any. It is ready to rupture. So tomorrow they have to take it out and clean out the dead and dying tissue and then close it up. There will be nothing left. We will have to do a major rebuild process after I heal from radiation treatment. It will involve a lot more surgery and they will have to take donor skin/tissue from somewhere else on my body to build the breast. It will be a lot more complicated. So that means another surgery now, postponement of chemo for a few weeks, and more surgeries later.
To put it mildly, I am bummed.
But I try to remember something I read recently describing the human spirit as water. It can be calm and peaceful but it can be fierce. It can move around obstacles with hardly a notice or with a ferocity needed to move them out of the way. So I remind myself this is something I can and will manage. Just maybe not always gracefully.
Love to you all,
Grace Faux Tata
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