King of the Hill

Tonight we were both on our computers and the boy was entertaining himself. We can hear him by the jingle of the 3 tags he wears on his collar. We're on the computers and I hear this sound like a deer gracefully jumping a fence. I get up to see what it was. Sandy is at the top of the stairs lying down. The "gate" is still up at the bottom of the stairs. He has officially managed to jump over the gate, so it is in the closet. He is thrilled with himself. Right now he is sitting at the top of the stairs barking at us, because neither one are looking at him.

David showed me today that Sandy can jump into the bathtub in one leap today also. This was before the gate jumping, so being able to get into the bathtub probably helped with the gate.

We saw Dr. Laidley, my breast surgeon, this morning. She approved of the work that Dr. Hodges has done. See her again in 3 months. She was impressed with how much hair I have.

The Long Hard Year

On December 1, 2006, I had my first chemo treatment. Boy, were we dumb and innocent then! One year later I had my last Herceptin treatment today, ending my cancer treatments. We went out to eat to celebrate after the treatment and reminisced about the many things we’ve gone through this year.

My breast surgeon, Dr. Alison Laidley, told us the first time we met with her “I think we can save your life, but it’s going to be a long, hard year.” Little did we know what all that meant. But I thank God constantly for the medical heroes who have guided us through all the treatments and surgeries and side effects.

We’re still seeing my plastic surgeon, still inserting additional saline into the tissue expander in the right breast until it is sufficiently expanded to accept the real silicone implant to be inserted next year around March or April probably.

One of the blessings out of this year is the opportunity to tell people about breast cancer and have hopefully planted some seeds of action in lives to do self-exams and get regular doctor visits and mammograms. But the most precious blessing is the women who have come to me asking questions because they have gotten their news that they, too, have breast cancer.

One year later I’m glad to be here and be cancer free. Dr. Laidley was right and now the long, hard year is over.

And the Drain Keeps Going

We visited both doctors yesterday, Dr. Hodges first and he was disappointed in the amount of fluid that drain #1 is still producing. He can't start inflating the tissue expander until that last drain is out. He's really proud of his handy work on the left breast reduction that he did. And it does look nice. There will hardly be any scars on it at all in 6 months probably. He told us to come back next Tuesday. How disappointing!

Next we saw Dr. Laidley, who was also very pleased with the progress, except that she wanted the drain out also. This drain is in the place where she removed the 9 lymph glands, so there is more healing going on there. She, too, wants to see me next Tuesday. She did tell me to start "using 'her' a little bit a few times a day (talking about my right arm) to start a little bit of exercise for the mastectomy side. She showed me how to reach up and touch the top of my head with my right arm and do that 3 times. I was thinking----what an exercise!!! Until I did it yesterday. Believe me, it was enough.

Between the visits we had time to kill, so we stopped at a Sonic and had strawberry milkshakes! That was a staple while I was going through chemo and I hadn't had one since my last chemo on 4-6-07.

Both doctors are pleased with my progress. Neither has released me for work, for driving, for exercising or much of anything else except rest. BOY, am I rested!

The Day It Really Hit Home 11-14-06

I went for my appointment yesterday 11-14-07 with Dr. Alison Laidley, a breast cancer surgeon and know a little more than we did. I am scheduled today for a PET scan where you drink glucose and then they do a scan on you to see if the cancer has spread any where else in the body. That will take 4 hours for the whole process. I’m scheduled for an MRI tomorrow at 11:30. The results of these 2 scans will give Dr. Laidley more information as to the strength and type of treatment.

Dr. Laidley did an ultrasound right in the exam room, so she could see the tumors herself and compare them to the films she got from Lake Pointe Medical Center. We had been scheduled in at her office as her last appointment of the day. She had me get dressed and then took us into her office to sit down. She explained the size and type of cancer that I have, she drew pictures to explain the options. What we weren't prepared for was when she said, "I think we can save your life, but it's going to be a long, tough year." That was a shocker! The first thing I thought of and it came out of my mouth was, "Well, just take it out now!" She put down her pen and looked straight at me and said, "Do you want to lose your breast?" I lowered my head and said "No" and David reached up and touched my shoulder and told her that we had already talked about this, but that I was just upset and I didn't mean that. She was hoping that we might be able to save the breast, but could give no assurance of that.

Dr. Laidley said she is going to be very aggressive with my treatment because of the size of the 2 tumors and how fast it has grown in such a short time. She will start me on chemotherapy next week to arrest the cancer growth and hopefully shrink the tumors and if there is cancer any where else, it will stop that also. She wouldn’t even talk about surgery of any kind at this point because of the size and rapid growth. I would have to take the chemo anyway, and doing it first gives a better chance of a successful surgery later. We will start with the chemo, then do radiation and there is also a new drug called Herceptin that has been successful in attacking the rapid cell growth on the type of cancer I have.

Thanks for all the prayers and hugs and encouragement. We’ve got a fight ahead of us----and fight, it’s gonna be.