Back on the Special Sauce

So yesterday I went to work for four hours or so, headed home for a quick lunch and then I headed to chemo. My mom came with me to keep me company for my 4 hour visit at the cancer center. Here's how it works:

1. Drop the car with the valet (the nicest guys!).
2. Sign in at the front.
3. Get port accessed and blood drawn.
4. Wait for results of blood draw.
5. Go back to infusion room and was treated to my very favorite nurse, Valerie!
6. Start the premeds dripping. Get drowsy from the Benedryl.
7. Start the Taxotere (1hr). Have a visit with my oncologist. She's pleased with the news from the pulmonologist. She tells me I don't need to take steroids this time around! Yippee! This means better sleeping.
8. Start the Carboplatin (1hr). Have a visit with my nutritionist. She suggested I try cooking up some "Magical Mineral Broth" to keep me healthy.
9. Start the Herceptin (1/2hr).
10. Get unhooked and get my car from valet
11. Head home.

After those four hours we went home, had some dinner, walked Red, and sat on the couch (actually I fell asleep on the couch).

Today I'm feeling pretty well. I had my breast MRI this morning and then my Neulasta shot (helps the WBC counts) this afternoon. My mom cooked up a pot of "Magical Mineral Broth" and some yummy risotto.

I'm looking forward to a day with no appointments tomorrow.

clearing my lungs

I finally got in to see the pulmonologist yesterday morning. The doctor was great but I was worried given how lame the office staff was! She took her time, asked a lot of questions, and says it doesn't look like cancer to her at all. Huge sigh of relief!!

Her take is that I had an infection. My lungs sound clear right now, so she's optimistic that I'm on the mend. Just to be sure, I'll have a CT scan next month to check on things. If something still shows up, she'll do a bronchoscopy to get a sample of whatever nastiness is in there.

My records have made it to UCSF, so things are moving along on that front too.

Chemo starts on Tuesday afternoon. I'm a little worried, but mostly I'm anxious to get started and see if the magic cocktail will work again (all fingers and toes are crossed)!

Surgeon's Update

So Dr. Z called me today. The pathology report is finally back from the biopsy. It is the same flavor of cancer as before (ER-, PR- and HER2+). He also reported that he spoke with my oncologist and she told him not to do another biopsy on me. I'm still going to go ahead and have the breast MRI. It will give us a good baseline measure of things prior to chemo.

I'm still working on getting in to see the pulmonologist. Actually I'm at my wits end with the office staff over there. If I don't hear back from them tomorrow, no more patient nice guy, I'm ready to unload. I called Thursday, she said she'd call be back. No call Friday, so I called today, she said she'd call me back. We'll see.

On another note, I managed to make a killer batch of chicken noodle soup! I've been craving it for weeks and the canned stuff just wasn't going to do. I started from scratch and didn't add anything fancy. It is really yummy, if I do say so myself! Keith even said it smelled so good that he'd almost (almost) consider breaking his 20+ year stint of vegetarianism.

The Surgeon

So I had an appointment set with my breast surgeon (Dr. Z) before all hell broke loose. I was tempted to cancel it and just mosey along here, but I'm glad I didn't. He is great! He was mad that I didn't come to him for the biopsy (actually I'm mad about that too), but he's on the case now!! He did a quick ultrasound and sees something in there that he didn't see in July. Now it is small and it didn't show up on the PET/CT so that's kinda strange. He's ordered a breast MRI to get a better look and we'll follow that up with a biopsy if the MRI shows cancer. He's already got a call in to my oncologist to talk some more. Interestingly he said to hold off on the second opinion stuff a little bit until we get these test results back. That way the folks at UCSF will get the full picture of what's going on right now.

Keith and I are off to the snow for the weekend. We're taking Red. I don't think he's ever seen snow, it'll be interesting!!

The Vacation is Over

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! It's back. The biopsy of the rash on my breast is positive for cancer, so I'm headed back to chemo. My oncologist is also suspicious that what looked like pneumonia on the PET/CT could be cancer too. So on January 18th I'm scheduled to start chemo again. The plan is to try the same chemo cocktail as before (Taxotere, Carboplatin and Herceptin). I am not totally convinced that it makes sense to reuse the same chemo so soon, but I'm going to give it a try. The rash on my breast is really easy to monitor so after two rounds of chemo we'll take a close look and if it doesn't look better (or if it looks worse) we'll move on to something new.

In the meantime I'm going to get a second opinion at UCSF (the closest comprehensive cancer center). I spent several hours today figuring out how to orchestrate that and at this point I've done my part. Now we wait first for my records to make their way to UCSF and then we'll wait again while they look over my records. I had a very good experience with the people over there so far. The first gentleman really talked me though the process nicely and then a couple hours later I got a call from the woman who will be collecting all my records as they come. She explained how things would work and even told me she'd call and keep me posted!

My cancer vacation is over for now, so I'll get back to updating here again. More details as they come.

Most Expensive Pneumonia Diagnosis Ever!!!

Sorry it has been so long! I've been happily going along feeling pretty good since my last post.

So last Thursday was a busy day for me; I went to see a dermatologist to have a rash checked and I had a routine PET/CT to check on things. I'll start at the beginning- I went to the dermatologist in the morning expecting a prescription for some kind of cream for this weird rash. I wasn't too worried because I'd already shown this rash to two different doctors and both had said it didn't look like cancer. So here I am sitting there and the dermatologist says he really should biopsy it just to be sure. Hmmm...I wasn't sure this was a great idea since I was going to get a PET/CT later on that same day, so I tried to put it off. The doctor said we really shouldn't wait, so he took the biopsy. After he finished I asked when he'd have the results and he said a month!?!?! Yes, a MONTH!?!?! WTF! Had I known that, there would be no way I would have had him do it! I would have gone across the street to the breast surgeon to have it done and gotten the results in a couple days, urgh! The good news is that when I told my oncologist she said she'd get on the horn and get the results herself.

Now for the PET/CT. I got the results of the PET/CT this afternoon after a day of nervous waiting (yeesh, I hate waiting for test results). My scan showed a clean liver, a little something in the skin of my breast (where that rash and the biopsy happened, so who knows what's going on there) and what appears to be pneumonia in my lungs. I've had a hacking cough and chest cold for a couple weeks, but I don't feel too bad. Who else gets pneumonia diagnosed with an $8000 PET/CT?!?! Really it is all pretty good news. I went to get a chest x-ray today so they can check out my lungs before and after the antibiotics. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm really hoping I have pneumonia!

So that's all the news and then some. Keith and I are off to the U.P. tomorrow morning for Christmas with the Cormiers. I'm off to finish packing. I'll update again when I hear the results of the biopsy. Merry Christmas to all!

All Healed Up!

I went back for my post-op appointment on Monday. She took a look at my incisions, picked some of the glue out of my belly button (TMI, sorry) and told me I'm healing up well. I got to see some photos of my innards; really cool, but so strange. After years of drawing diagrams of anatomy when I taught biology I sort of forgot that I was drawing "cartoon" versions of everything. In reality they don't look quite like that! The good news is that the ovaries and tubes are clear of cancer and my liver at least looks good from the outside.

After we got home, Keith thought it would have been funny to mess with the doctor and ask her when we could start trying to conceive. That would have been pretty mean, but funny none the less...in a demented way. (we've got to have some laughs!).

Now we just motor along until my next big scan. Not sure when that'll be, should be in the next month or two. I'm getting my Herceptin every three weeks and hopefully that's killing any bits of cancer that are still hanging around!