7-21-09 And We Start Again

I had a regular 3 month checkup with my oncologist this morning. Dr. Brooks is the one who always tells me that I am BORING. I did the blood test stuff and sat in the little exam room waiting for him. After much waiting, Dr. Brooks opens the door and asks how I am. I told him that I was great! To which he said, "Well, what's the deal with your liver counts if you're great?" That's when I heard the proverbial other shoe hit the floor. He showed me my blood test results. My ALKPHOS (translated liver) is at 502, with the normal range being 25 to 150. For the previous 4 tests it has been at 139/129/141/134, so that was a red flag to him.

He asked all the questions: Have you been around anyone with hepatitis? been sick? started new medicine? No, no, no. Then I remembered a little 'catch' I've had the last 2 weeks in my right side, so I told him about that. He examined me and poked especially up and under my right ribs. Ouch! yes, that was tender. Dr. Brooks immediately left the room and went to order a CT-scan to see what's going on inside me.

His nurse came in and put a syringe thingy in the top of my left hand and brought me two tall glasses of that barium junk to drink in the next hour. They were squeezing me in between 11 and noon. The barium settles where the cancer is and lets them see it, as was explained to me, from the top of your head downward. His nurse then walks me down to the CT-scan place.

Everything was going just fine until the CT-scan tech has to give me the COLD dye stuff through the syringe in my left hand. When he did that, I yelled because he hurt me!!! He apologized profusely and said that the line came apart on him. The top of my hand is still swelled up from that damage. Hope they don't have to do that again tomorrow. . . . I'm not supposed to have any blood drawn or anything on my right arm because of the mastectomy.

About 4 p.m. Dr. Brooks called with the results of the CT-scan and told me that it looks like the breast cancer is back, that there are multiple large tumors in my liver. To be absolutely sure that's what kind of cancer it is, we're doing a biopsy tomorrow at Medical Center. David & I have to be there at 9:30 and the biopsy is at 11. I don't know the time frame we're looking at for the results. Dr. Brooks told me that whatever it is wasn't there on April 29th when I saw him last and now it is huge, which is exactly how my breast cancer was. So it is almost 100% sure that it's the breast cancer again, that has travelled to my liver. He said that from there he will decide what treatments we need, that he will be very aggressive with the treatment.

Emotions of all kinds have ran through my head since this morning. Fear---of the known and the unknown. But also strength that I've done this once and I can do this again. Regardless of what we face, God is always there to carry us in His hands. One of my favorite quotes from my last treatment was from Sir Winston Churchill:

Success is not final, failure is not fatal.
It is the courage to continue that counts.

I pray that God will give me the courage to continue.

My New Friend, Abbie

Sometimes people come into your life that you just really like and bond with even though you aren't together all that much. Through another member of the breast cancer club, Janell at work shared an email with me from her son's mother-in-law. Abbie recently found out that she has breast cancer. Hers is the same kind that I had, fed by the Her2 gene. I emailed Abbie to tell her I would be thinking about her yesterday.

Tonight my cell phone rang and it was Abbie. We talked and talked. She is starting Herceptin Monday, November 3, and then the hard chemo stuff on Tuesday, the 4th. By the time we finished talking, I felt like I had known Abbie forever. I shared some of the side effects I faced and the remedies I found that could help her through the journey.

Please place Abbie and her husband, Gary, in your prayers. They are starting down the long, hard year that David & I did. They are Christians and know that God will supply. What a blessing!

Biopsy Results - IDC

I had still heard nothing from the doctor's office, so I called back around 10 a.m. The nurse told me that she saw the report on Dr. Gillean's desk, but that the doctor was the only one who could tell you what was in the report. Ping.

Dr. Gillean called me at 1:20. When my cell phone rang, I went into the office supply room across from my cubicle at work and sat on the step stool in there to talk to her. She told me that the preliminary results of the biopsy indicated cancer, I asked her what kind and she said it was probably invasive ductal carcinoma and was in a milk duct. She apologized and said she was so sorry, that she was so surprised since we had just done the mammogram 5-2-06 and it was clean. She told me that her office would be calling me back to set an appointment with a breast surgeon. I was crying and shocked and scared.

I grabbed my security badge and left the building to go outside so I could call David. I sat on a bench outside and just cried. I tried and tried to call David, but he was in a meeting. He finally called me back and I just cried more. He told me to go home, asked if he needed to come pick me up, no I could get home. This meant I had to go in and tell Gabe, my boss, what I had found out. I turned off my computer, got my purse and went into Gabe's office and told him I needed to go home and what the results were. Bless his heart, he apologized and told me to go home.

On the way home Dr. Gillean's office called me back with my appointment for the breast surgeon. I was crying, so I asked her to wait for me to pull over. I pulled over in the parking lot of a building at IH 635 and Forest Lane. It took me forever to get paper out of my purse and could hardly hold the pen to write. She gave me the name of "Dr. Laivley", the address at Medical City Dallas and the time and date next week. She asked if I was alright to drive home. I said yes. I sat there in that parking lot for a while just to get a grip on myself.

Peggy Calls With Her News

Peggy, my sister-in-law and best friend from high school, called late Sunday night to let us know that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Peggy hadn't had a mammogram in a few years and she got a notecard in the mail telling her that the mobile unit would be in Spur and she decided to go have one done. She got a call telling her that there were problems with her mammogram, but then discovered that it was the wrong person they were calling. After that however, Peggy received her call telling her that there was a spot on her mammogram that she needed to see about. She had gone to her doctor on Friday, the 27th in Lubbock and the doctor removed the lump that day.

I cried and told her how sorry I am and hung up with her and told David. We were in shock.