Monday, December 19, 2011

Well, I wrapped up 5 months of pretty intense teaching and almost a month of health limbo land Friday to find that:

1) I definitely have breast cancer in my right breast
2) The masses and calcifications are regional in nature so we’re looking at a mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy
3) If I don’t go with chemo first, I could be in for outpatient (OUTPATIENT!!!!!) surgery as early as the week between Christmas and New Years–and driving a car myself as early as 7 days post surgery
4) I see an oncologist and a radiologist this next week
5) Surgeon feels this is very treatable
6) Won’t know stage of cancer until surgery…nor whether I will need chemo for sure, but it is probable. So much for the hair coloring I had last month…
7) Surgeon claims that pain/discomfort of today’s version of a mastectomy is not much worse than the stereotactic/mammogram guided biopsy I had on Tuesday…I don’t quite believe him on this…
8) Apparently reconstruction is actually more painful and intense than the mastectomy. I’m leaning towards waiting for reconstruction until after I get the cancer evicted from my body. However, it’s been awhile, since I had to pad my bras…
9) Weird to be considered ‘young’ for anything these days, but I am for breast cancer
10) I’m very relieved that I got AFLAC cancer coverage this year
11) Terry is being awesomely supportive
12) My cancer team will be out of East Jefferson Hospital which is affiliated with MD Anderson in Houston
13) My parents and sister plan to come down to be with us whenever surgery gets finalized so Terry doesn’t have to do all of the care giving
14) Surprised at how this whole thing takes over your life.

So, that is it in a nutshell. Terry has had a friend in town this weekend so we’ve been doing some entertaining and the weather has been gorgeous.