Keep Calm and Hurdle On

As most of you know, I live in a small town.  And what happens in small towns? News travels quickly! And like a good ol' game of telephone, the story changes a bit as it goes down the line.  So I decided the best way to share my journey is with this blog...the good and the bad. 

As most of you know, I had my bilateral mastectomy on February 14th.  Recovery has really gone well!  I have visited with both surgeons, and they are both very pleased with how everything looks. My plastic surgeon has placed expanders in to help stretch my tissue and skin for a future implant surgery.  My cancer surgeon was pleased with the tissue removal. 

I visited with my wonderful oncologist, Dr. Miller, today which brings me to that next hurdle on my track we need to talk about.  The removed scar tissue from the original cancerous tumor still contained a few live cancer cells.  Now while they are gone from my body and my margins are clean, and my lymph nodes clean; I need what Dr. Miller and I will call "cancer be gone insurance". Since there were a few live cancer cells in the tissue removed, there is no gaurantee that one rowdy, little rebellious cancer cell or two didn't escape through some hidden route unaware to us.  So unfortunately for any of those little guys that might have thought they got away, I am going to have to do 12 weeks of low dose toxal chemo treatments. As you can imagine, I am not very happy about this, but the future is important to me and I am not missing a thing!  Plus I have a very important doctor's retirement party to attend in how many years Dr. Miller? ;) (BTW...She is close to  my age)

Now like all of the hurdles I have come up against in the last 7 months, this one looks tall and scary as I approaac,h but, we can do this!   12 weeks will go by quickly, the last 27 sure have! We will deal with them as they come. With the low dose, there is a good chance that the side effects won't be too bad. Nothing is more important than making sure that this body of mine is cancer free now and forever!  So look out hurdle #?? (what number is this one?) Here I come!

So please say a prayer for me as a I start this new chapter today!




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