just call me murphy....

what a week full of excitement! my love and i got up at 5:30 am, thursday morning (last week) in order to make the patient registration time of 6:15 at the hospital....i was to have my portacath installed...yay! we get there, i get weighed, changed into my lovely hospital gown, and sit there patiently as they TRY to get an iv in me for the procedure. luckliy, the nurse gets it on the second try....in a tender spot, but it was in and that is all that counts. this is supposed to be a 30-45 minute procedure that i would get to go home right after. we figured....in by 6:15, home by 8:30..back in bed by 8:35 and we can pretend that we slept in and roll out of bed, happily snuggled at around noon. great plan....too bad....

i wake up in the recovery room and it is already 8:30....the procedure took WAY longer than it should have....the last time that happened, i had to stay in the hospital overnight. i guess that they had a hard time finding the vein needed (they needed an ultrasound to find it...it is lower than most peoples)...and that my veins are small. now that i look at it, it is in a diferent location that i was told...kind of half way between my collar bone and my boob. anyway, the surgeon came in and told me that they think they may have punctured my lung, and that i needed to have a chest xray and wait two hours to see if things were healing themselves. 1st chest xrey at 10:00....left lung is colapsed to about 50%....second xray at 12:00....same thing....they tell me that they are going to need to insert a chest tube, which will be uncomfortable, and that i will need to be admitted to the hospital for at least 48 hours for the lung to fully expand, yadda yadda. they kick bret out of the room, inject me with the twilight drugs again, i pass out...next thing i know is that i am waking up with a big tube sticking out of my left side. they then move me to my room....207. here is an example of a chest tube:

while i was in the hospital, i had to pee in a bedpan....couldn't be detached from the suction device that was trying to help my lung become full again. the nurses were nice....but that doesn't make up for having to pee in a pink plastic container. i almost threw up the first evening...i don't think my body liked the in and out of anesthesia thing...but starting the next morning, i was eating normally again. i had another chest xray the following day, mid-morning...and dr. banks came in and told me that it looked good...the lung was back full force. they would keep me hooked up overnight, turn the suction machine off at 6 am the next morning, take another xray, and if it looked good, they would pull the tube and send me home.

can i tell you how great it felt to NOT be hooked up to all those tubes?!?!? i started with an iv, added the oxygen up my nose, and then the tube in my chest....once they began to get rid of them, i felt so FREE!!!!

all went well....after three pain meds to find the right one for me (oxycodone was the winner), they yanked the tube out (literally), let me get dressed, gave me my release orders and sent us on our way...all before lunch.

so now, i am sitting here, working from home. i have slowed down on the oxycodone, have taken my anticoagulant 2 days in a row (small veins plus portacath equals higher potential for bloodclots)...i have tests that i am supposed to take tomorrow and thursday, and then follow-up with my oncologist on friday. here we are....the quick countdown to the start of my chemotherapy...once it starts, it is 8 sessions until it is over...hopefully they will fly by without incident...and i will start to rebuild my strength...i wonder if my hair will grow back curly or not?

cancer treatments pre chemo....

me before this all starts....working out relatively regularly...very happy with life














this is the love of my life..he who sticks by me through everything...comforts me, protects me, holds me when i cry or feel down, makes sure i'm eating well, getting my vitamins and minerals, goes to my appointments with me, stays with me in the hospital, loves me more than anyone has every been able to show before (the way i need to be loved, no less), knows me, understands me (as well as anyone can), feels me, moves me...(i could go on forever...bret truly is wonderful)...in any case, this is him

:D








so, this is how it begins....

• August 18, 2007: i find a lump in my right boob
• August 20, 2007: i go to my primary care physician to have the exam so she can have a mammogram and ultrasound scheduled for me
• August 21, 2007: i find out that there is a concerning looking mass in my boob, so we have to schedule a core biopsy with the surgeon
• August 22, 2007: core biopsy takes place
• August 24, 2007: the pathologist doesn't see any cancerous cells, but there is a lot of enflamed tissue in the core samples
• August 28, 2007: i meet with the surgeon and we schedule the first excisional biopsy to get the mass out and have the thing tested in its entirety
• August 30,2007: excisional biopsy done
• August 31, 2007: i get a call from the surgeons nurse telling me that the test came back positive for breast cancer, and i tell my family
• September 20, 2007: have the lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy, they find cancer cells in the sentinel node and take the auxiliary node cluster from under my arm. i am admitted to the hospital over night, and have a drain for the lymph fluid.
• September 26, 2007: go to the surgeon to have the drain removed. strangely enough, when they pull the drain they find that there was a blockage in it, and i get a waterfall of warm lymph fluid gushing down my side, all over my jeans. it takes over 15 minuted to get all the fluid that has built up out of me, and the wounds are dressed.
  i also find out that one of the 14 auxiliary nodes came up positive for cancer cells, but less than 1mm. that is a good sign.
• every other day from here until October 4, 2007, i go to the surgeon to have the fluid manually drained from under my armpit where the lymph nodes were removed.
  
• October 4, 2007: i met with the oncologist to discuss the treatment options they suggest, go over the options, look at my prognosis and have my baseline exam with her. i find out that she is married to my surgeon and that she and i see things a lot the same way. my surgeon comes down to find me in my oncologists office so he can drain the fluid for me while i am meeting with his wife...great service! bret and i leave the oncologists office with a lot of information, and new appointments for more tests before i have to get the portacath implanted and can start the treatment that we choose to go through.
• October 9, 2007: head off to the hospital again, after working in the morning, and drinking two berry smoothies (barium shakes for the CT scan...yuck), only to get to the hospital, changed into the gown and pants they give me, lay on the CT scan table...and have them REPEATEDLY MISS vein after vein in my left arm trying to get the IV in....my veins are just too small for the medium sized catheter they were trying to feed into my arm. after 4 attempts and one majorly blown vein (the only one that was worth sticking in the first place), i told them that i was done and going the fuck home. all tests were cancelled for the day.

here we are...this is me today:

i am looking to have a CT friendly portacath implanted on thursday, October 18...then a CT and Bone scan on the 23rd...the muga scan for my heart on the 25th...and the follow-up with my oncologist on the 26th....at that point, we will schedule the start of my chemo treatments...