4.15.23

What a busy week!

Easter on Sunday, piano lessons Monday, physical therapy on Tuesday, port removal and church on Wednesday, dental appointment for all the kiddos on Thursday, my third consult about radiation and we went to a softball game for Olivia on Friday, and last but not least Kaden signed up for a trap tournament Saturday!!!

I sort of glossed over it above but my port is out!!! There was a little more involved in that than I thought. 🤣 In my head, I was thinking: I would just go to his office, they would numb me up, cut me open and kind of just pull it out… Which they did. It’s just not what I was picturing. It was done at the hospital (not really sure why I was thinking it would be in a doctor office! 🤣) as an outpatient procedure. I had to show up an hour before the procedure. They numbed me with a local anesthetic, which felt kind of like a bee sting. Once that kicked in he cut me open along the same incision line they put it in and started working at getting the catheter part out. Before he started he asked if he could play some background music. Sure why not, right? The first song playing when they started: ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’. I said “Hey this is a hymn!” Of course he had to ask which one and at that moment it eluded me. 😳 I was singing the words in my head along to the music (instrumental); the title was on the tip of my tongue. He asked if he could give the first word. “Sure.” He said, “Come.” And then of course I said it right away. 🙂 ‘Amazing Grace’ also played. 💗 Once the catheter part was out he applied pressure to my vein for about two minutes to give the area some time to heal itself. After that he worked on getting the port part out. That was stuck to some tissue- which I felt him separating. 😬 At the beginning he told me if I felt anything to let him know. I wasn’t sure how fast things could go from just feeling it to ok, yeah, that really hurts so told him if he was almost done it wasn’t a big deal, but depending on what else he had to do I could feel that. (It mainly felt like I was getting pinched and poked by a needle but nothing awful. On a scale from 1-10 maybe a 2?) He said he was done with that part and then I didn’t feel much else other than a little pressure which he told me I would feel. I am a little sore, but nothing like getting it put in! It feels like when you start exercising for the first time in awhile and your muscles are achy. I can’t lift anything over 10 pounds for a week and I need to watch for infection/bleeding. So far so good!

Friday afternoon we had a consult through my portal with the doctor in Madison. I did not get my “No, I don’t think you need it.” that I was hoping to get. I fall in the category of my cancer case doesn’t “require” me to have radiation but it also doesn’t say no you don’t need it. She couldn’t really give me an exact percentage like the 2nd radiation oncologist did. She put me in the greater than 10% but less than 30% chance for local reoccurrence. The 2nd radiation oncologist said 15-20 percent; he was leaning more towards 15%. She couldn’t guarantee, but she thought IF it were to come back locally it would more than likely come back in the skin. She talked about if that were to happen they would remove it surgically and then I would have radiation, and possibly chemo again. It just depends (on the chemo part). She also talked about putting a gel on my skin to help with my skin absorbing the radiation. She said that by doing that I would be at a higher risk of burning/blistering. With that comes a higher risk of damage to my skin, for example, if I were to burn really bad my incision scar could pop back open, or because the skin is thinner over the expander if I blistered really bad I could end up with an open sore anywhere there. If that were to happen I would have to remove the expander and I’m not sure what would happen to my skin at that point. She mentioned me having to “go flat” while I was completing treatment. I am not comfortable with that. I think that almost scares me more than getting cancer again. Radiation also can make reconstruction harder (the skin doesn’t heal as well). She mentioned that severe burn/blistering happens about 25% of the time. If we understood right, the risk of cancer coming back goes up more after I come off of the hormone pills. I have not made up my mind yet, but I think I am more comfortable not doing radiation and following up with a dermatologist and monitoring my skin closely for any changes whatsoever than to do radiation and have some of the problems she listed.

It’s weird for me to think that I’m done with cancer treatments. When I got my port taken out I had asked a question about one of the possible “side effects” and he said well your cancer free so your risk goes down with whatever I was asking about. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that. I don’t really know when I was considered cancer free… Was it after surgery when we got clear margins? After chemo? Will I really be considered cancer free if I don’t do radiation? I don’t know. I suppose over time the thought of being cancer free will be easier to accept. It’s a life altering thing. No matter how much I want to go back to the girl I was before cancer, I’ll never be her again. (That’s not necessarily all bad, there are things that I wouldn’t have experienced if I hadn’t walked this road. It’s just that things won’t ever be the same.)

We had the whole place to ourselves! 🤣

proof I knew her before she was famous! 😉🤣🙂

We are so proud of this kid! He shot a personal best of 22 in one of his rounds and got a 43/50 in the tournament!! 🙌🏻

Next week will be the first week in five months where I don’t have any cancer related appointments! I have either had labs, chemo, physical therapy, etc. at least once a week since November 7th!