Checking in on Amy

I have had a great couple of weeks. Lots of energy, many great hikes and walks, and time to focus on healing and resting before radiation starts. Things continue to go well with my physical therapy. My scars are looking better, little by little. My mobility is awesome - I can finally do a snow angel! - and when I keep up with my lymphedema massage regimen I don't have any noticeable swelling. This week was a busy one. I was at the hospital 4 out of 5 days this week. On Monday I had my latest (3rd) heart echo which went smoothly. I haven't seen results for that yet, but we don't expect any changes. On Tuesday I met with my radiation oncologist to find out the plan for radiation treatment. I will be having 20 radiation treatments. 16 will be to my breast and remaining regional lymph nodes. The final 4 are 'boost' treatments that will focus only on the breast. We spoke about side effects from the most obvious to the most obscure. I didn't learn anything completely ...

Here are my selfies from my FIRST chemo eve on April 13th and my LAST chemo eve which is today (August 10th). It's hard to believe that four months have passed since then. I am very glad that this first phase of treatment is finally coming to an end. It has been a bit of a marathon. The image from April is mirrored...I must have changed a setting on my phone since then. Both picc lines have been in my left arm. :) I'm going into my last chemo treatment with a similar mindset to the one I had before the first treatment. I'm glad things are moving along. I trust my doctors. I was nervous the first time because I didn't know what to expect. I am nervous now because I DO know what to expect - that I'll feel great until Saturday, really awful for a couple of days, then suffer broken tastebuds and fatigue for a few more days after that. I know I'll have trouble finding food I want to eat, but that the food will stay down. I know how much it helps to stay hydrated and ...

This morning I had an echocardiogram to check on my heart health before I begin my treatment. Cancer treatment can sometimes be hard on the heart, so getting a good picture of my current heart health will help us identify if there are any changes over time. This was, of course, another opportunity to geek out a little bit. The 'echo' is an ultrasound of the heart. It took about 30 minutes to take the required images. They gather information about the heart muscle, the valves, and blood flow. After all of the images and videos were collected, the technician showed me a whole bunch of them. To look at blood flow they use doppler imaging, so the colour of something (in this case blood) moving towards the probe is different than the colour of something moving away from the probe. Very cool to see. I wish I had an image to share with you.  I got a peek at several different parts of my heart including a really nice cross-section of my aortic valve (which is a normal, healthy tricuspi...