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 ...

I had my first post-chemo appointment with my oncologist today and he had great news to share. My MRI looked really good! Lymph nodes are looking clear and there is only a very small tumour left in my breast after chemo. He explained that they can't even really tell if it is a tumour for sure and that it may just be scar tissue.  This was the good news I was hoping for, but the EVEN BETTER NEWS is that the planned surgery is a lumpectomy and lymph node removal! After mentally preparing for a much more invasive surgery I was surprised and delighted by this news. I don't have a surgery date yet, but it should be sometime in September. If they do a lumpectomy as planned, they will examine the tissue they remove (what remains of the tumour as well as the tissue around it) and that will inform the rest of my treatment going forward.  Tomorrow I have my first immunotherapy-only treatment (the drug is called Herceptin) which happens in the chemo suite where my other treatments were. ...

I'm 9 days out from my last chemo treatment and I'm feeling more like myself every day. :) Although I have probably lost sight of what 'normal' flavours are I'd say my tastebuds are at about 75% today, which is something to celebrate. My mouth has been sore the last couple of days; it was sore last round too and I'm not sure if I mentioned it then. I have avoided getting any actual true mouth sores but there is a tenderness to my gums and parts of my mouth that makes me think I narrowly avoided them.  Our morning walks yesterday and today were the first that have felt good from start to finish, so my fatigue is fading and that is nice. I'm still pretty tired after walks but it is nice to feel the small improvements. My adventures with the open wound meant way less activity than usual for the last few weeks and it feels good to get moving a little more. My brain is also feeling a bit more normal the last couple of days. Brain fog is hard to measure. Sometimes...

Well friends, two new chemical elements have entered this body, so my collection continues to grow. Yesterday morning I had my MRI bright and early. It went well; I'm not more claustrophobic than average, but mine was done lying face down so I actually had no sense that I was in a tiny tube. It was noisy of course, but not too bad. The contrast dye they use for that test contains the element gadolinium, which even as a chemistry teacher I don't really know much about. It sits way down low in the periodic table in an area we don't focus much on in high school (except a bit in grade 12 when we look at electron configurations), but I guess it's good for taking a closer look at tumours! My chemotherapy treatment took less than four hours, and the subsequent visits will be even shorter. I got three different drugs: Herceptin, CARBOplatin, and DOCEtaxel. The Herceptin is not chemotherapy, but just an antibody that blocks HER2 receptors on my cancer cells. They give the Hercep...

This morning I met with my surgeon. How are all of these humans so amazing? It is hard to put into words how wonderful everyone is.  My surgeon let me know more about the pathology of my cancer and outlined a plan for a few more tests in the next couple of weeks. The pathology tells us that the cancer I have is aggressive, and also that there are good treatments available to fight it. Additional diagnostic tests will include an MRI of my breast to learn more about the lump as well as an echocardiogram which is done to assess my heart health before starting cancer treatment.  The plan for treatment is to start with chemotherapy and to re-assess the need for (and type of) surgery after we see how successful the chemo has been. My surgeon did a wonderful job describing in general terms what type of information is considered when making decisions about surgery. She and I also discussed how genetic markers can play some role in these decisions. I had already been leaning towards ha...

I am probably still a little radioactive after my bone scan yesterday. It's neat to know that I have a little technetium inside me. It's completely synthetic (one of the most unnatural things in the world) but can help us spot whether some bad (but much more natural?!?) things are going on inside my bones. It was really interesting to see my skeleton during the scan. I saw the positioning scan image (not the diagnostic 3D image...yet) and it looked like a pretty typical skeleton to me.  Lying still for 30 minutes during the scan was sort of nice. The first time in many days that I've been completely still without any company or distractions but my own thoughts. Probably much needed. Mood today is calm but also a little anxious. Read a little. Walked the dog. Cleaned up my marking and grades since it is likely I won't return to school after March Break. The house has been very quiet as the girls are with my family in Niagara until tomorrow. I really want to know more abo...