Then This Thursday 8/27

Ok. Then this is how Week 7 (of 12 rounds) went. I went in a little later (11am) bc I was scheduled to do a home healthcare shift from 9pm-9am the night b4 & after (I didn’t do Wednesday night as the patient’s discharge was delayed) and they were having issues in the pharmacy with their “chemo mixer”. It was nice to be able to get the boys fed and settled with school before I left. 

They accessed my port & ran my numbers again...my blood counts were low again 😕. It guess it’s becoming par for the course- still get chemo and come back Friday & Monday for bone marrow booster shots. My nurse confirmed my decision to forgo all the premeds again this time, and asked how I tolerated it the last time. “Good.” I said. She just shook her head & said “you have done so well with all this. You have no idea, truly. We will be talking about you for years. ‘Remember that lady?!’” I’ve never been through this before & didn’t know what to expect so it was encouraging to hear that!!

I’m always trying to figure out how to best use the hours while I’m there. This time I went through a chapter of Partners with one of the girls in our youth group. It’s an awesome 10week  1-on-1 discipleship program written by our pastor that goes deeply through the fundamental foundations of the faith! Great productive, rewarding use of time!🙏🏼

And PTL I’m tolerating it well again without the extra meds!

A few updates from last week. As I started to write, I had a follow up 3D mammogram & ultrasound last week b4 my appt with my surgeon to see what all this chemo has been doing, if & how effective it’s been. They couldn’t access my initial results as this was at Saddleback where my surgeon is & I had them done at Mission so the radiologist couldn’t compare & contrast to determine any changes. I had to drive the disc back over after I was done and then wait to get the results til I saw my surgeon. She asked how it was going with the chemo treatments. I said “good.!”  She just laughed. “That’s not the response I usually get!”😊 

Well I got some important information at that appointment. The recent scans didn’t show much change in the size of the 3 inch tumor(s...it’s kinda of 2 connected) that they biopsied and confirmed there’s another lump (seen on the MRI during my initial work up after biopsies were done) as well as lots of calcifications throughout. 

Conclusion: 1. it hasn’t grown which is good 2. The need for a mastectomy was definitely confirmed 3. The lump in the lymph node wasn’t seen & may have shrunk which is good 👍🏻

The doc reviewed the 2 ways tumors respond to chemo- either a grape to a raisin, shriveling it up or from a solid block of cheese to Swiss cheese, poking holes in it. Since it’s not the first, she’s still hopeful it’s the second but that isn’t able to be seen on scans. 

The big news I got was that my surgeon is moving to the East Coast on September 15! Since I’m not done with my chemo treatments til September 24 (fun Bday gift as my birthday is September 26! Lots to celebrate!🎉) and have to wait/heal 4-6 weeks before surgery, she’ll be a USA away when I’m ready for that part of treatment. She said “Dr. Miranda told you, right?!” Well my oncologist who talks to her about me didn’t talk to me about her🥺. I’d heard rumors but thought “surely she would’ve told me!” She has a surgeon she obviously recommends from Long Beach coming to fill in for her until they get a permanent replacement. That would be the plan for me but I wasn’t so sure about that. I was already working on finding a plastic surgeon still that took our insurance, worked with my surgeon & had privileges at Saddleback too. So I started over looking for both together- general & plastic surgeon. When I started my search back in April, I kept hearing how excellent Hoag doctors were and that their breast cancer care was top notch. I shared in an earlier post how I ended up choosing my first surgeon but when she wasn’t an option anymore, I took my search back up north to Newport and again covered it in prayer. He graciously answered & I am scheduled to see a highly-rated general & plastic surgeon the end of September that meet all the criteria. PTL!