Surgery – ???

Jan 30th

Today I met with a plastic surgeon and I must say it was very upsetting. I have three options, a lumpectomy, a mastectomy or a double mastectomy.
He was only talking to me about mastectomy’s and what he would do because if I chose to have a lumpectomy a plastic surgeon is not needed. He drew all over my chest with a marker giving me different options, things to worry about and just caused brain overload on me and my friend that was there with me. I left very confused, upset and not knowing what surgery to have now. He was a very nice doctor but just left me too confused so I will get a second opinion.

Feb 1

So…today I had my first chemo treatment of just Herceptin chemo now. I finished the other 3…the ones that were so bad and made me so sick! We will see how I do on this one chemo. I will have to have this chemo every three weeks until October. I will say it was nice to only be in the infusion room for 1 hour instead of 5 and I didn’t have to have the Neulasta patch so that’s over with also!!! We will see how I feel in the next few days from this chemo.

Feb 2

I met with second plastic surgeon today. I’m going to go with him. I had a better connection with him and he made me feel more comfortable. If I go the route of a mastectomy he explained that his procedure would be what my surgeon had said it would be all along.  Much easier surgery than what the first plastic surgeon had me told me. Or …at least made me feel his would be way different. This meeting today made me feel much better about all of my decisions.

Feb 5

This puts me in the 6 months of my Journey To Healing and I’m not even halfway through. Seems like it’s been forever since I felt good, felt like myself. After the last round of chemo on Jan 11, I have really suffered from neuropathy in my feet and toes even worse than it’s been. It hurts like a thousand needles are being put into your feet. You know when your foot falls completely asleep and then when it starts to wake up…that feeling, how it’s numb, tingly and painful for a few seconds before it wakes up completely? That’s how the neuropathy feels in my feet and toes times 100! It’s a continuous pain but at night time it hits it’s peak. I lay their in bed until about 2:30am or so before I fall asleep if I can fall asleep at all. My eyes are still watering but seem tone getting a little better.
The last two chemo treatments have seen to make these side effects worse and the added muscle soreness in my hamstrings and quad muscles. It’s as if have no muscle there right now. I can see muscles, but they doesn’t seem to be working so well..?? I literally can walk across my house and my legs hurt and I want to sit down. I can climb my stairs one time and basically have to rest when I get to the top. This really sucks for me because I am not use to feeling so out of shape! I mean I was perfect for sure but I have always tried to at least stay somewhat in shape and before cancer I never really tired and could go all day!
I’ve never felt so weak in my life. I’ve tried doing some shopping and can only manage a couple hours and have to rest during shopping. Very tough not having strength or energy to do much…and to feel so weak…..ugh!!! I will say that the side effects from the last chemo treatment of Herceptin alone was much better than the previous chemos I’ve had with the other three along with the Herceptin.

February 6th  MY BIRTHDAY!

So today was my birthday. I woke up with the attitude of being so thankful that I get to have another birthday that I decided I was going to celebrate it today and not think about cancer!
A friend of mine made me this wonderful breakfast and had flowers for me.
For the first time I could taste everything on my plate!! I was so happy!
It wasn’t to a full 100% but it was pleasant tasting…not like even just a few days ago when I had to spit things out.
Breakfast was great, my mood was great. Then the phone rang. It was my surgeons office calling to schedule a bunch of appointments for me before I have surgery. This came as a shock and I didn’t know I had to have these appointments. She started rattling off what appointments I needed and what days did I have available. So much to the point where I just had to stop her and tell her that I was feeling completely overwhelmed at the moment and needed to take a minute to process this. At that point my friend took over for me. I ended up having a breakdown for about an hour or so. I guess having to make all of these pre-surgery appointments really set in that I was really having to have surgery because of breast cancer. Do damn cancer came in and tried to destroy my birthday…I let it get to me for a little bit but then I managed to climb my way out of that dark hole. So many things to think about.

Around 1pm one of my best buddy’s Terri Clark came over and had lunch with us. My other friend went and brought back Mexican food for us all. I could taste most of it as well…again..it wasn’t perfect but it I could tolerate it!!
Terri stayed for few hours and then my other best buddy’s Monica, Lynn and Lisa came over for dinner. We had pasta, eggplant and chicken marsala. This meal…mmm..didn’t taste so great for some reason. Probably because all I did today was eat ha ha!! I did manage to eat some of it though.
Of course I could eat the red velvet birthday cake and the birthday ice-cream cake ha ha!!! Well come on…I have to eat something right? I can’t help that food with sugar is what I can taste the most. My friends left a little after 9pm or so and I went straight to bed. I was tired but still couldn’t fall asleep because of my neuropathy issue in my feet and it’s been going up my calf now as well.
I have been taking Gabapentin for this for about a week now and it really hasn’t gotten much better.

Feb 7 Radiate or to Not Radiate

I’m sure all cancers come with the mental games you play in your head as far as…am I going to live, what’s the best treatment for me, will it come back…too many to list but, I think breast cancer even brings on more parts of the game because it’s your breasts. They can be a huge part of what makes a woman look and feel like a woman. The thoughts that if you keep them they could kill you is upsetting physically and emotionally. I’m tying to base the type of surgery I will have on what’s best for me long term. The choices may seem easy, “just pick one” but as soon as I think I have made my choice I see another doctor and boom I change my mind again. I have already had serious rounds of potent chemo’s, I will have the tumor and lymph nodes removed, possible radiation and will have to be on a pill that’s an estrogen blocker for 5-10 years. Sounds like a lot for a tumor the size of my pinky right? But remember, it’s HER2POSITIVE which is a very aggressive cancer so there’s a lot to my treatment.

Here’s the options and why I go back and forth on what to do.

Lumpectomy: Breast surgeon goes in and removes the tumor, clears the margins, takes out two lymph nodes and tests them during surgery. If they still test positive he will keep removing Lymph nodes during the surgery and testing them until he get’s to the point where he doesn’t see cancer cells in the lymph nodes anymore. Sometimes they have to remove all of them in the arm on the side of the breast that had the cancer. If they find cancer cells in even one of the lymph nodes that means I would have to have radiation. 35 rounds of it daily. Can’t miss one day. The radiation treatments lasts for about 10 minutes at a time. They would radiate the entire breast and the lymph node area.

Mastectomy: The breast surgeon goes in and removes about 95-98% of the breast tissue. The can’t get 100% but they get very close. The breast tissue is where breast cancer lives so if you remove it it really has very little chance of coming back to that breast. The breast surgeon will also remove the lymph nodes just like he would in a Lumpectomy and test them for cancer. If they still come back with cancer cells, he would continue to take them out until he found no cancer in them or removed them all. Again, if cancer cells shows up in lymph nodes I would still have to have radiation but this time instead of doing whole breast radiation as in the Lumpectomy, they would shoot the radiation across my breast diagonally so it’s not really hitting other organs inside inside chest.
Once the breast surgeon is finished removing the breast tissue, the plastic surgeon then steps in and inserts the temporary implants that are called Expanders. These Expanders are what the use weekly to get your breast to the size you want them to be.

A Bilateral Mastectomy: same thing as mastectomy but both breasts are removed and reconstructed.

Reconstructive surgery:  The plastic surgeon puts in expanders in the breast as soon as the breast surgeon is finished removing the breast tissue.  Once the plastic surgeon is finished he will stitch op the incisions.   Once a week you go and meet the plastic surgeon.  He checks to make sure you are healing ok and they work with the expanders to get he the actual size you want your breasts to be.  Once you have reached the requested size, the plastic surgeon goes back in and puts in the actual implants.  Once you are healed from that, you are done with all the surgery.

This may seem like an easy decision for some of you but for others you may be like me. Confused!
I’m trying to avoid radiation because it’s so bad for you. My body has already been through hell with the chemo and I have no idea what long term effects I could have from it. Now to go thru another poison such as radiation really scares me. Radiation can cause other cancers to occur.

I’ve been so upset about the radiation that my oncologist sent me to see a radiologist today. This radiologist told me that no matter what kind of surgery I had I would have to have radiation because the cancer was originally found in my lymph nodes when first diagnosed. That if it had never been in my lymph nodes I would not have to have radiation. This was very upsetting to me. I knew I had a chance of still doing radiation IF the cancer was still in my lymph nodes during surgery but I was never told that no matter what surgery I had I would have to have radiation because it had been in my lymph nodes prior to surgery. This confused me even more now. If I have to have radiation no matter surgery choose should I just do the lumpectomy? It’s an easier surgery and you recover faster. But…nothing is done to the other breast to prevent cancer from coming back there other than the chemo I have already had.

That seems a lot easier right? Most of you will probably say to do the lumpectomy but you must remember, my cancer is aggressive. When takes over a cell it divides it into much quicker than a cancer that is not aggressive. So it grows twice as fast since it has now split the cell into. Cancer had already spread into breast tissue and into my lymph nodes.
To do a double mastectomy is to prevent any cancer from hopefully going to that breast, and you would cosmetically match the other one.

See why I’m confused? And it doesn’t help by getting more doctor opinions because every time I see a doctor I change my mind lol.
Needless to say we left that appointment upset, very upset thinking now that whatever surgery I chose I would have to have radiation of some kind.

After meeting with the radiologist I had an MRI done of both breast. This needed to be done before surgery so the surgeon would know more about what to expect at surgery.

Feb 8

This morning I went to see my breast surgeon so he could put a marker in where the lymph nodes tested positive for cancer cells months ago. Before he did the procedure we told him about what the radiologist had said yesterday. He said I did not have to have radiation IF the lymph nodes showed negative during surgery. That that was what that use to do before they started doing chemo before surgery. They use to do surgery first, then chemo and radiation but they changed that a couple years ago and now to chemo before surgery and that’s what I had. Even the radiologist said the same thing yesterday. That there is a grey area for people who had chemo before surgery…do they really need radiation after surgery if there is no cancer found during surgery?
So, my breast surgeon said NO to radiation..(he is also an oncologists but doesn’t really practice that any more but stays very well educated on all of it).
He is also a world-renowned expert in breast surgery.
So do I have a mastectomy and pray there is no cancer cells in my lymph nodes so I won’t have to have radiation? Yes…to me that would be the best result in preventing cancer from coming back but there is no guarantee for that with any of the surgery’s. All doctors say that a lumpectomy vs mastectomy have the same percentage when it comes to cancer coming back. I personally have a hard time not believing a mastectomy gives a little better percentage of it not re-occuring but that’s just me. Every woman has to make the right choice for themselves. There isn’t a right or wrong choice. I’m just sharing with all of you my choices and why it’s so hard to make the right choice of me. There are pluses and negatives to both of the surgeries. If you want more detail you can google that.

 

Feb 9 Back to being a musician

Today I was blessed to work in the studio with two great friends Jason Cheek and Scott Hundley. We worked a very special project that I can’t discuss now but can’t wait until it’s finished! I manage to work a full day in the studio feeling like an artist/musician again and not just a cancer patient and that felt great but was very tired when I got home. I think this is day number 4 since August 0f 2017 that I’ve actually worked like I did before having cancer. Sure felt good…paid for it later that night though. Legs and feet still hurting very bad. Not sleeping at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 10, 11

These two days were very special days for me. I worked with three people on a project that was a lot of hard work but a lot of fun and I pray the end results gives me what I’m looking for. I can’t talk about it right now but as soon as I can I will write all about it.

Feb 12      Clean MRI!!

Doctors office called today and said the MRI had done on Feb 7 came back clean!! NO other tumors and it looked as if the original tumor could just be scar tissue how! They also said the concerns they had from the original tests in August regarding my other breast was also not showing up! This is all great news!!!! Thank God!!

I ran a few errands and was back home on the couch by 2pm. My whole body is hurting today. Sort of felt like I had the bad chemo’s all over again. I think I wore my body out over the last few days. My legs are hurting so bad I can barely walk. Muscle soreness from the chemo. I have no idea how long this side effect is going to last but it’s been going on for over two months now and just seems to be getting worse….?? Last night I took a Gabapentin pill and around 4am I took a muscle relaxer to try to feel better but nothing helped. I have to lay low from now on and try to let my body rest. I have scheduled my surgery to be February 20th which is 1 week away from today. I thought about it all night long…didn’t sleep at all worrying about making the right decision on surgery. Again, that’s the right decision for me.
From what I’ve been told now and going into surgery on Feb 20th is that with all of the tests I have done since I started chemo in September, 2017…they have all shown NO CANCER any where now!! So, I will continue to pray that in surgery they will find no cancer anywhere and I won’t have to have any radiation!!

Yes, I believe chemo has done its job and reached the goals that we all wanted..for it to reduce my tumor to basically nothing but..I don’t believe it was just the chemo. I firmly believe that God has heard everyone prayers and has put his healing touch upon my body. That he is not through with me here. I still have jobs to do here for a long time. Thank you God for everything you have every given me or done for me. And..I thank you for placing the right team around me and for giving me such supportive friends.