Big Whoop

The next big thing. The mastectomy is scheduled for Tuesday, October 14 at 8:00 am. Alan keeps telling me that I need to catch up on the blog, but aside from that little piece of info there is nothing else going on. In fact, I don't even know how I feel about that. Am I supposed to be scared that I am having surgery? Or happy that I finally get a breast reduction (however radical it may be)? Or sad to see them go? Worried that it's too soon? Not soon enough? I don't know what to think. Most of the time I don't think about cancer, I think about my sister. Everything reminds me of her. This morning Alan ran in a 5k for some 'corporate challenge' thing for work. I had the kids and while we walked around passing the time music was playing over the loud speakers. Some rad Milli Vanilli song came on (Girl You Know It's True) and when the part that says..."I'm in love with you, girl 'cause you're on my mind, you're the one I think about most every time..." I swear I could hear her fake rapping as if she were right there next to me. I laughed out loud as we walked along but now it makes me cry. Milli Vanilli was one of her first cd's and sadly, we all knew the album well. How am I supposed to think about anything else? I miss her so much. Cancer is a stinking nuisance.

The Results are in...

During Monday's sentinel node biopsy, lymph nodes were removed from each side, leaving a two inch incision in each armpit. Nice. Guess I won't be shaving there anytime soon. Anyway, one lymph node was removed from the right side (it was cancer free) and three from the left. They found cancer in one of the three lymph nodes and in the surrounding lymphatic tissue. Super. So after talking to Dr. Nate (breast surgeon) and Dr. Logie (oncologist) this is most likely our new plan of action. Hold on to your lymph nodes, folks- this totally threw me for a loop.

1.Bi-lat mastectomy, sometime in the next couple weeks
(no real reconstruction at this time, but they will put in some type of 'expander' under the skin just so you won't just see ribs, there will be "some sort of small mound, if you will"-Dr. Nate's words)

2.Then, chemotherapy. Four treatments of something called AC (Alan says that stands for 'Awesome Chemo'), one treatment given once every two weeks. Then 12 treatments of 'T' that is given once a week.

3. Next, Radiation. I love this one. This has the super convenient schedule of being 2 minutes a day, every day, for at least four weeks. Let's just stop to think about this for a second. We're talking a 40min round trip to the doctor's office for 120 seconds of treatment, every day for four weeks!

4. Now this really is my favorite part. Reconstruction! And if all goes well and the radiation doesn't turn the skin on my chest to beef jerky, I can also get a tummy tuck compliments of our insurance company. (It's called a tram flap. They use your belly fat and tissue to make new breasts. How awesome is that?)

Let's recap. Surgery. Recovery. 20 weeks of chemo. 4 weeks of radiation. Surgery. Recovery.

I should have a date for the surgery sometime next week.

Beth

Out of commission

Beth can not post her experiences with losing a few lymph nodes today because she is too busy asking, "Did I say that out loud?" - when in fact she didn't say a thing. She is also preoccupied with asking people to scratch her nose, complaining that ceiling is moving and dealing with all the pampering I am giving her.

She will post all of the fun experiences of having NUCLEAR MEDICINE injected into her body at a later time.

Bye-

Alan

Pre-Surgery Surgery

So, on Monday I have a little pre-surg surg. When we met with the plastic surgeon he said that they couldn't schedule the bi-lateral mastectomy/reconstruction surgery until we were sure about the health of the lymph nodes. So Monday morning I get to be injected with a little radioactive waste of some kind which is then to travel through the lymph nodes to see how they're functioning. It's about a two hour surgery (under general anesthesia, blech). It should take about two days to get the results back. This is what it means ...

A. No cancer in the lymph nodes-
We go ahead with the bi-lat mastectomy/reconstruction surgery asap. Chemotherapy yes, but no radiation.

B. Cancer in the lymph nodes-
Bi-lat mastectomy. Then radiation. Then reconstruction and chemo. Apparently, the skin and tissue that they use for the reconstruction doesn't hold up well to radiation. Go figure. Anyway it shrinks and becomes all asymmetrical distorted and funky. Not pretty.

I seriously don't understand. If we know that that it screws with the body that much, why is this even a recommended procedure? It's like when I had my PET scan and I really wanted Alan to come with me and they said he couldn't because once they inject the contrast I would be radioactive and it wouldn't be safe for him to sit in the same room as me. Really?! Huh. So it's fine for them to inject it directly into my bloodstream but too dangerous for someone to sit with me. Huh. You'd think they were trying to give me cancer or something.

The Boob Doctor

So I know this is Beth's Blog, but the Mowrey 500 blog is a 100% cancer free blog. No cancer talk on that blog allowed. But, I had to share my experience with our appointment with the Plastic Surgeon this morning.

I was told we were going to discuss options for her new boobs. I thought it was going to be alot of pictures and maybe some videos - so I was in for sure.

What I wasn't in for was all the gory details of how this whole thing is going to take place. Pretty graphic. I actually got lightheaded listening to the doctor. In fact, I was getting so lightheaded I almost asked if I could use one of the silicone implants the Doctor had on display as a pillow.


The worst part? No pictures. No videos. Nothing. Unless you're counting the doctor's poor artistic drawing of a pair of boobies.


A few other notes about this visit:


In general, if something has a "less than 1% chance of happening" no need to throw it out there as a something that could go wrong.


This doctor was freaking me out with all the things he was telling us COULD go wrong with this type of procedure. Hey, there is a less than 1% chance that the ceiling could collapse on Beth's head during surgery - wonder why he didn't cover that?


One last thing - I didn't find it weird that the doctor had to take a picture of Beth's boobs for his records. What was weird though, is that he used his cell phone camera to take the picture.

Summary: It's going to be a 10 hour surgery and our doctor now has a 10.2 mega pixel picture of my wife's breasts. Good times.