I'm living in limbo land. I know I need radiation but no chemotherapy. YAY for the no chemo part. But I don't know exactly WHEN I'll start radiation.
And I get feeling better each day, which is super nice.
But once radiation starts, I will get feeling super yucky again. I will go every day Monday-Friday for 5 1/2 weeks. 28 rounds of radiation. If you google it, you only see the very worst pictures of radiation burns and permanent skin damage. But what choice do you have, really? I had a grade 1 tumor with a teeny tiny little bit of cancer in the sentinel node that was removed. So maybe that was all the cancer that I had. And maybe it wasn't. So radiation. I had a test called a Mammaprint which is supposed to tell you how mean your tumor was. If it was a mean tumor, that was growing rapidly and likely to have moved beyond the lymph nodes, I would have needed chemo. But my Mammaprint came back as "low risk" so I just do radiation. Sometime. When my temporary expanders are full enough for eventual reconstruction. The drains are out, but the doctor acted like it was too soon to take them out. I was getting less than 25 ccs of fluid out of each drain each day, and that is when they take them out. But she seemed hesitant to do it. She warned me that the temporary breasts may fill up with fluid and I would need to call the surgeon immediately if that seemed to be happening so he can use an ultrasound and manually drain the breasts. So like every time I feel a tiny bit weird, I think my breasts are full of fluid because my drains came out too early, I'm going to get some massive infection and the incisions will open up like an earthquake. I definitely went back to work too soon. I went back two weeks after my double mastectomy, with the drains still in place. I had staff meeting, a really tough court case, and I was supposed to do a supervised visit with the mom of the really tough court case. Fortunately, Val came through and did the supervised visit for me, so I was able to go home after court. I've had a lot of doctor appointments, so I'm not back full-time, but that first day was rough. Today was great. I wasn't tired, I got a lot done. I've found that if I drink lots of water each day, walk as much as I can, and force myself to stop for breaks and lunch, I do pretty well. Pre-cancer, I worked 12 hour days and never stopped for lunch. I lived on caffeine. I never socialized with my colleagues. Now I sit with them in the breakroom and eat a healthy lunch. It's good for my psyche and my body.
The best part of having cancer is that you get to see how much people really love you. I've had so many visitors since all of this started. These pictures barely put a dent in it. I love my people so much <3 p="">
