My breast cancer outline on Facebook January 2009 I went to my annual went to my annual oncology appointment for my Hodgkin's Disease. The regular chest x-ray, blood test and mammogram. Everything checked out. My oncologist wanted me to have a breast MRI done because of family history. ok by me. February 2009 The breast MRI came back with 2 tumors found in my right breast. WHAT!! It didn't show on the Mammogram.. One of the tumors was in the duct the other in the breast tissue. I had an ultrasound guided biopsy done on both tumors. The pathology on the two samples came back benign. The radiologist reassured me after the tests were done "Not to worry", the edges of the tumors didn't look like cancer and that they would call me with the results the following week. So the results came back - no cancer. Good news, BUT.... they don't like to leave tumors in the duct so they are going to remove it, and by the way, the other tumor is really close so they are going to remove that one too. Fine by me, you're already in there, take them both out. So the day of the lumpectomy (Patrick's birthday, Feb 24th) they put "guide wires" in the radiology dept before surgery, so the surgeon can find them easily. That my friends is NOT a fun procedure. They stick two REALLY long wires in each tumor, so four wires sticking out of my boob, THENNNNN they squish me in the mammogram machine, OUCHHH, to make sure that they are in the right place. But they have to leave me squished while they read the films. They leave a tech with me holding my back in place "So I won't move". All is in place, they remove the tumors. March 2009 I go to my post-op appointment. The surgeon tells me that there were cancer cells in both tumors. She was shocked since cancer didn't show up on any imaging (Mammogram, MRI or Ultrasound). Which is good news. Cancer is graded 1-4, so she graded me a zero. Good of the bad news. So I tell her lets lop them off. I don't want any worries about breast cancer the rest of my life. The surgeon tells me to think about it over night and talk to my family. The doctor tells me she will call me tomorrow. I assure her the answer will be the same when she calls me tomorrow. I have already thought about options long ago if I ever got breast cancer. She calls me on Tuesday afternoon and tells me if I still want to have a bilateral mastectomy, she will do it and I can have reconstruction done at the same time by a plastic surgeon. Lets get it scheduled! April 2009 My surgery is scheduled for April 21st. I have to have a pre-op clearance done. Uh OH, my heart rate is too fast, my blood pressure is too high. I am sent to a cardiologist and my surgery is postponed until I am cleared. I have another EKG done at the first appointment with the cardiologist, an echocardiogram is scheduled the next day on a Saturday (lucky for me they do those on the weekend) and the lovely stress test is scheduled for Thursday April 23rd. I am cleared for surgery, but the cardiologist wants my BP and heart rate lower. So after I am healed, I will head to the cardiologist for him to take care of my heart. So finally, April 30th rolls around and I have my bilateral mastectomy done I go home late Friday evening, Yeah! May 2009 So Monday May 4th rolls around. I start to have trouble breathing. I call the office, (I work in scheduling at a family practice) ask my friend Chris to ask if Dr L can see me. She tells me to come in right away through the back door. Well, walking to the car from the couch really wipes me out. I call and ask them to bring the wheel chair out to the car. Apparently I looked 'really' bad. My nice friends at work don't tell me this until I am back at work a month later! I tell Dr L I know he probably will tell me to go to the ER but I wanted him to check me out. My O2 saturation level was low, in the 85-94% range, which is too low, I'm coughing up a little blood. They give me a breathing treatment to see if that helps, not really, so Mark calls the surgeon and they agree I should get to the ER. He wants them to rule out a pulmonary embolism and pneumonia. Dad and I go home, I stay in the car, Bob takes me to the ER and we spend all evening there. I have a CT scan done of my chest, another breathing treatment with Albuterol and a half liter of saline through the IV. The CT scan tells them I have pneumonia on my right lung. So I go home with more antibiotics. So now I'm healing, and feel so much better. I would have not survived this whole ordeal without my parents! They came out for almost three weeks and took care of me and my family. I'm not sure how Austin would have made it to school every day without them. My mom made sure I ate, drank and took my meds four times a day. I miss them here but I think Storm misses Nanay and Tata the most. She has been moping around missing my mom too. =) I have the best family ever!!! The plastic surgeon is slowly filling up the tissue expanders he placed under my chest muscles over the next six weeks. After my chest muscles and tissue form a pocket, he will replace them with implants. So that is how my summer will be this year! My wonderful friend Chris has organized meal support for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of my awesome friends who are doing my meals for me. I appreciate it soo much. Love you all!! Therese

May 7th
Mom and Dad take me to my first post-op appointment with Dr D. my plastic surgeon. Everything looks good. The incision looks like its healing pretty well. I was afraid it would keloid and the scar would be much uglier. He adds 100 cc's to my tissue expanders. He only takes two of the four drains from my armpits. The nurse at the hospital shows us how to empty the drains. I could not look them, it made me nauseous. Luckily Bob took over the job of emptying and measuring. A yucky job!!

May 8th
I went to my breast surgeon post-op appointment and received the pathology for the breast tissue and the sentinel nodes they removed. The reports show breast cancer was found on both sides of my breasts. Good thing I had them both removed!!!

May 12
Mom and Dad take me back to the plastic surgeon for the first of five scheduled appointments to increase to my tissue expanders. Thankfully, the final two drains are removed. It's awkward to move around with the drain tubes and the bulbs pinned to my clothes. He adds another 60 cc's this time. My chest really hurts the second day after expansion. Thank goodness for pain medication!

May 20th
My friend Kathy takes me for my second expansion. I ask him to put in less saline this time. My chest hurt really bad last week. So he adds only 30 cc's. I find out that there are 100 more cc's than I thought. During surgery he put in 100 cc's to start the expansion. I am at 290 cc's in each breast.

May 27th and June 3rd
My friend Amy takes me to my next two appointments where Dr D adds 50 cc's each week. Dr D and his staff both weeks comment on how I look so much better. Hmmm, I must have looked really bad for them to mention that to me two weeks in a row. I guess breathing well really makes a difference on your appearance!

June 4th
I return to the cardiologist who cleared me for surgery. Dr V tells me he is moving to Mesa in August. My BP and heart rate are still high. BP is 154/100 and heart rate is 116. He gives me medication for the BP but wants to wait and see if lowering my BP will take care of the increased heart rate. He wants me to check back with my primary doctor in a month. Very easy for me to do since I work at my PCP!

June 10th
Paul is visiting and takes me to my plastic surgeon appointment. Dr D doesn't add any more saline to the expanders. My skin is shiny and tight. He wants me to come back in two weeks. Maybe he'll add more then. It will depend on how my skin is stretching.

June 15th
I started back at work today. Joanna and I job share so I'm not working a full load. Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday. I'm off the Fridays that Bob is off. It went ok. I was tired when I got home but otherwise the day was good.

June 22nd
My blood pressure and heart rate are still high. It was 138 bpm just sitting at work. I had Josie check my BP which is high. I haven't had caffeine for a few weeks so that couldn't be the culprit. I'm home with my exercise heart rate monitor on and off most of the day. Lowest is 97 laying down in the morning, 112-116 reclined on the couch and 120-126 walking around. I'm calling the cardiologist for an appointment!

June 23rd
I am little scared so went into the office (my day off) and brought Evelyn a bag of M&M's to get my referral quickly to a cardiologist closer to home. Referrals scheduled my appointment for Thursday morning.

June 25th
Martha came with me to my cardiologist appointment. We both like Dr M very much. He has a great bedside manner and was very thorough in his explanations on what he thinks is going on, and what tests he wants me to have done. We are doing a stress test with radioactive tracers injected before and after I run and walk on the treadmill; a holter strap which will monitor my heart for 24 hours and a blood test to see if other things besides my heart could be causing the high heart rate. Dr M says the test might be overkill but he doesn't want to take the chance because of the family history of heart disease. All of the tests will be done before my surgery to put in my permanent breast implants. I walk out of the new cardiologists office after the appointment and guess who gets off the elevator - the other cardiologist that I left because he is moving in August. I smile at him as I scurry past...

June 25th
At my plastic surgeon appointment, Dr D takes a look at my skin on my chest. It looks good so he fills my expanders another 50 cc's each. He tells me if I twist his arm he'll add more at my next appointment before my surgery. I'm thinking hard how much bigger I want to go. I'm now a larger cup size than I was, but since I've gone through so much pain, I should go the whole extra perky mile? I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking....

My surgery is rescheduled for Friday, July 24th. Which is better for us, that's Bob's Friday off. The coordinator tells me I am the first surgery of the day. I am so glad. Not eating and drinking from midnight the night before is terrible. The mastectomy and reconstruction surgery was supposed to start at 4:30p but didn't until almost six. I didn't eat for almost 30 hours last time. You know I'm all about the food =)

July 7th
I have two doctor appointments today. My first was at 8:00 am with my plastic surgeon. My skin is shiny and tight so we won't be getting and larger. I believe I am at 440 cc's on each side. The implants are measured in cc's so I don't know what is the equal cup size. I guess I'll find out after my first visit to Victoria Secret! I have chosen to go with silicon after doing a lot of research. I am also going to be involved in a ten year study with the implant manufacturer Allergan. The doctor and I have decided to go with the high profile implant since I do not have any breast tissue.

My second appointment is with Dr O, my oncologist, who I LOVE! If it wasn't for her, I would have found the breast cancer 5-10 years down the line. My pathology reports aren't in my file. Curious since the reports I have are stamped FAXED with Dr Ondreyco's name on them. She tells me she spoke with Dr M after my surgery and she will confirm this after she requests the reports from the hospital, that the breast cancer is DCIS and I will not have to have any treatment, including taking Tamoxifen. So I will wait for her to call me......

July 8th
YEAH! I just spoke with Dr O's PA and we went over the pathology reports. After going over it line by line and getting all the definitions of the acronyms and the number and letters, the bottom line is no other treatment. Bye bye cancer cells!!! I am so happy. So I see her in January for my annual Hodgkin's check-up and now we add breast cancer follow-up. Two more weeks until my tissue expander replacement surgery. I go to the cardiologist tomorrow for the holter strap. I have to wear it for 24 hours. I hope I can take wearing something strapped to my chest in 118 degree heat which is forecasted for the weekend. Ugh, not looking forward to it but it needs to be done!

July 10th & 11th

Wore the holter monitor for 24 hours. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The itching from the super duper adhesive on the contact points were the most bothersome. I hope it didn't mess with the results since I wasn't supposed to fiddle with the leads.

 

July 14th

The stress test was today. Another IV in the hand. I hate it there. The 'pinch' when they put in the needle isn't really a pinch at all, it's real pain. I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance but having an IV there is not my favorite. I always get paranoid the needle will  poke through the other side of the vein, oh and guess what happened? You know it... it went through. The tech had to fiddle with it for the radio active substance called a radionuclide to flow. I had a bruise on the back of my hand for a few days. I almost make it happen because I think it's going to happen!! After the radioactive stuff is injected I had to wait for it to flow through my body in the waiting room. I am brought back into a room and lay reclined on so the scan can evaluate my hearts function and blood flow. After the 15 minute scan I am on the treadmill getting my heart rate up to 85%. When I reached the 85% the tech came in and added more radioactive tracer, while running, and I ran for 1 more minute. I was supposed to back into the room to get scanned again but this old man who was in the waiting room before me, my appointment was at 9:30, his appointment was at 11:00 was in the scanner. I guess the squeaky patient gets the scan. He kept on telling the receptionist he was ready now and tapping the counter for effect I guess. Even though the doctor he was seeing told him his appointment was at 11:00 and she had patients who had appointments before him. Apparently she couldn't take it anymore and jumped him in front of me. I'm just venting!!! I had to wait an extra 30 minutes. Any way..... I went in for the second scan then was on my way home.

 

July 23rd

The follow-up with my cardiologist went well today. We went over my results from the labs, stress test and holter monitor today. The results from the labs were in the normal range. My hypothyroidism medication is the right dose. The stress test officially called the Myocardial Perfusion scan with exercise was also fine. I had taken the same scan after Austin was born and my right side of my heart was not beating as hard as the left side. Both sides are beating strong and together now.

 

July 24th

I checked into the hospital at 5:50 am. I was 5 minutes late, imagine that =) I set my alarm for 'radio' and not 'buzz' by accident. I thought the buzz setting was the first slot but I was WRONG! Luckily for me Bob either set his alarm right or he got up without any help. My surgery was scheduled for 7:20 am. Dr. Desvigne and the anesthesiologist both came and spoke with me before the surgery. Susan the anesthesiologist, gave me two anti-nausea and anti-biotic injections into my IV (on my hand by the way, yuck) they hoisted me on 'three' over to the gurney and lights were out! The next thing I remember was the recovery room. I wasn't planning on spending the night but Dr. Desvigne insisted so I could be monitored over night. Which as probably a good thing since my last hospital stay ended with me coming back to the ER with pneumonia. I was much more aware this time around of checking my oxygen saturation level when the nurses came around to check vitals every couple of hours, including 4:30 am!! My room mate was hard to wake up so they had to yell her name when they came in the middle of the night. I wished they woke me first though. Even though I was given anti-nausea medication before surgery the anesthesia made me sick to my stomach again. I guess it could have been worse.