Relatively quiet week, so far..

My Oncologist talked to the Oncologist from the Mayo clinic on Monday. The Docs there agree we need to be aggressive with treatment due to my young age and lack of luck last time. They also agree that they would not stage my cancer or move forward with treatment without getting some lymph nodes, so another surgery is on the horizon. We have an appointment with the new breast surgeon, Dr. Kort, this friday @ noon to discuss the axillary node dissection surgery and see if we can do an abbreviated one rather than a total. I would hope to get that surgery scheduled within the next week or two although I am still pretty sore from surgery two weeks ago and draggin this morning as I didn't sleep well. There, you got it, I am human and I do have bad days!

Other agreed upon news from Mayo was in regards to the Positron Emission Tomography (PET Scan), my father in law asked that i spell things out the first time before using abbreviations, there you go Bill!  The PET scan is a test usually used to image the nodes more closely to help with diagnosising and staging, but because I did just have pretty extensive surgery in the area they need to scan they think it will "light up" due to the surgery and disruption caused and won't give a definitive yes or no on the nodes, so we are skipping it. For some, this would be the test that helps tell whether or not to do Chemo, but because we are doing the node dissection and chemo anyways, we will hvae information we need to support that.

I went yesterday for an Echocardiogram. This is a non invasive procedure where they image your heart, much like a sonogram, goopy jell and a cold paddle. I passed with flying colors. I will be having lots of these Echos. Apparently one of the chemo. meds can affect the heart, so they get a baseline and check it often to make sure it isn't doing that to me. Thanks to Dr. Mark Charlamb and his staff for getting me in so quickly and for doing such a great job. This isn't mine, but this is what a normal Echo looks like:

Still waiting on the HER2, BRACA, and ONCOTYPE results.

I resigned from my job @ Psychiatric Wellness Care, effectively immediately, to focus on all this stuff. It makes me very sad having to do this because I enjoyed working there, the staff was great, my boss was great, and of course I will miss all my patients, but it is time to take care of me! They are all being very supportive and that certainly makes it much easier for me.

I am still trying to fullfill my part time duties @ Ramsgard Architectural Design, but Mr. Ramsgard has been on me about getting to bed early, taking naps, and taking it easy. I don't know who he thinks will do all that I do if I do that!

So today, other than this blog, I did NO work and that is alot for me. I took it easy. I had tea with a breast cancer survivor friend who is just finishing her chemo and radiation and got lots of useful tidbits about what to expect and how to get ready and care for myself during the process. She is very holistic, so while they are new ways of knowing for me, they have really helped her, and I am willing to give anything a try.

Had lunch with friends and another breast cancer survivor who is one week post bilateral mastectomy & doing fabulous, we even had a drink to celebrate at lunch! 

Time for kids to come home and time to start carting them to and from activities, my relaxation time is over.