On Thursday Herceptin chemo went off without a hitch! I went into the BCCA they ran the drug over 30min and then I was outta there! Off the Thrifty's to buy dinner......it was a Monique night!
I woke up Friday with no symptoms and am carrying on as usual....ie. making lunches, taking out the garbage & compost, put on a load of laundry, cleaning up cat poop in our family room.....you know the usual.
I thought I would write an extension of my last post talking about telling my kids that I had cancer. I don't think there is really a way I can write about how that all went down, there is so much more that I could say. There is another part to our family battle that I thought was important to share with you.
To set the stage, from the beginning of my diagnoses I was told that my lump was "tiny" and that was really "good." This came mostly from my medical team and then the odd person who would ask and try to give a piece of encouragement and reassurance. My surgeon (Dr. Ross), had walked me through the probable and most likely course of treatment for my "type" of case. That proposed plan had been reiterated to me throughout the months of October and November through surgery and recovery (which I might add was very painful and lasted 4 weeks.)
The plan was simply laid out, I would have surgery, then radiation for approximately a month (20 rounds.) The treatment would start no sooner than 6 weeks after surgery. I would have to go to the BCCA to see an oncologist to discuss the radiation treatment.
My BCCA appointment was for December 5, 2013. The day that further changed my life forever.
This appointment was with a radiation oncologist, who is the doctor that will treat and follow you through radiation. Dr. Sally Smith was her name and she sat before my auntie, Phil and myself and delivered the news that I should undergo radiation for approx. 28 rounds in her opinion, however she would not begin treatment now because I needed to have
chemotherapy because the kind of cancer I had (HER2 +) was so aggressive and harmful particularly because I was a very young cancer patient that I should undergo chemotherapy.
My heart sank and we were all in complete shock.
Chemotherapy was my worst fear, I did not want to be sick. I didn't want my kids to see me sick. I am one of those people that just does not hold up well when it comes to changes in my body. My pregnancies were not great due to nausea and vomiting so I didn't have a good outlook on what chemo would do to me.
We saw a my medical oncologist for the first time 5 days after I saw the radiation oncologist. That was when the plan was unrolled. I spent the next 7 days talking to people I could get opinions from and maybe get someone to say I shouldn't do chemotherapy. No one would say that! I agonized over the decision, you see the information you are given to make a choice is all statistics. Dr. Bernstein also gave me a hypothetical analogy which was a tool in my decision. The survivorship analogy:
The PARTY
In ten years we are going to have a party.
We will invite 100 women that are exactly your age, with exactly your tumour size, shape, exactly like you.
75 of those women will come to the party just having surgery to remove the tumour.
83 of those women will come to the party if they have surgery and then radiation.
91 of those women will come to the party if they have surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
9 women are not coming to the party.
Those nine women have recurrence, metastasis or death.
In the end I ended up making my decision. I turned down the course of treatment that was originally proposed by Dr. Bernstein. She had said she wanted me to undergo 15 months of treatment. I knew in my heart of hearts that would break me. I told her over a phone conversation, and she accepted my decision with no judgement. She then ninja kicked me with another treatment course she wanted to try with me, I was so stunned, I had no idea there were other "options." I was exhausted emotionally and mentally. There are so many things to consider. The new proposed plan was the one I have been following, 4 rounds of intense chemo, 1 year of Herceptin chemo, and radiation. So here I was back to the agony of making a decision.
The next couple of weeks I spent trying to figure out a way to NOT do this. I wanted something to show me that it was not necessary. I had to tell her my decision on December 24, 2012. OMG!! This was unbelievable.
In the end after 2 weeks of battling in my mind and going over and over it with Phil and my Auntie, it was one morning that I was lying in bed when I made my final decision.
There I lay waking up for the day, and the two little kids, Stella and Vinnie, came into bed with me before they got ready for school. It was just the right time to talk to them. All snuggled together, I began to tell them about what the doctors wanted me to do to make sure that this cancer didn't come back. What was potentially going to happen to me, ie. getting really sick, having to be germ free and that overall I was going to be not quite myself.
Well, they had so many questions about chemotherapy medicine, and their own ideas of how it should be done and so on, and then as if it was a no brainer to them, they both said
"Mama you got to do whatever you have to." That was it. Decision made.
Throughout all this deliberating and processing Phil and my Auntie just kept saying "We just want you at that party!"
Believe me I've already RSVP'd to that party......... and I'm going!
