Well I jumped the gun on believing I was about to get on the chemo and radiation and get this part of life over and done with. There are a few more steps now. I got a call this afternoon asking me to come straight into hospital discuss my options'. He never gave me good or bad news but just asked me to come in. I get there and he drops it on the table that because I never had a sentinel node I have a greater risk of them not biopsying the right ones. So I have to have a full axillary removal. In other words I need more surgery to remove all of the remaining lymph nodes in my left underarm.
I am not excited about this because I am terrified of developing lymphodema. They have encouraged by telling me only a fraction of women actually develop it and its not as bad as I think it is. I just pray I am not another bad statistic who gets hit with that as well. My surgeon just basically said they want to cure me, not just make it go away temporarily but to cure the cancer. If its hasn't spread I have an incredible chance of surviving this, kicking it in the butt and getting on with my life to raise my boys and continue driving my husband crazy and keeping him on his toes. The other complication is nerve damage. I am still suffering with some nerve pain from after the first surgery which he says will go away. If they do 'accidentally' hit the nerve they warned me about (forgive me I cannot remember what it is called) I will have problems pulling and climbing as it hinders my muscles. So again I am praying with fingers crossed all is well, they get the lymph nodes, miss my nerves and I escape relatively unscathed with no signs of lymphodema.
In order to have this surgery it complicates my treatment because I am supposed to have chemo starting within 8 weeks post lumpectomy. So that means I have 6 weeks from now to start. If I have the surgery in 2 weeks I only get 4 weeks recovery from surgery prior to the commencement of chemo which is not ideal. I better heal quickly. Also I had my CT scan and bone scan booked for the 21st, so they changed it for CT scan on the 16th of Oct, and my bone scan on the 18th of Oct followed by surgery on October 25th. I then however got a call saying my breast specialist wasn't impressed with surgery on the 25th and moved it to the 18th because he wants this done asap and I will get my dates for the bone scan tomorrow. What a crazy ride, everything changes so quickly. They are pushing everything through so quickly, it makes me worry they are not telling me something. I hope they are not too worried and that everything will be ok in the end.
I did get some good news today my lovely breast care nurse K will be coming to my Oncology appointment. She is great and such a wealth of information. She even managed to get me a script for more morphine tablets just to knock me out so I can sleep at night. I don't take them during the day but when I move the wrong way in my sleep I wake up with horrible nerve pinching pain and when I take those tablets I don't wake up. It makes things easier. One morphine pill overnight can't be that bad for me, sleep is essential. I also met my occupational therapist H, she gave me some good information, alleviated my fears and gave me some scar cream to reduce the appearance of my scar and to promote healing. Its called Kelo-cote advanced formula scar gel. I will let you know if it works.
I then got a phone call from one of the oncology interns basically telling me I need to see a fertility specialist to determine my options to keep my fertility. I have an appointment to go and meet with them and determine my options and hopefully I can just go on zolodex and I can have babies just like before. Fertility is a key concern for me. I am only 25 and I believe its my quality of life to preserve my fertility and have the option to have more children in the future. So on Monday I will have more information on my options for fertility preservation, but of course this is not covered by medicare and could get expensive.
So all in all things are progressing, they are really moving things along. An extra surgery is just one hiccup I suppose, and I can imagine there will be a ton of hiccups by the time this is all finished. I just hope my CT and bone scan are clear and I can get on with chemo, radiation and just beating this thing so I can go back to my life.
Thanks for sticking around and being here for me!
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