Monday, June 20, 2011

I was going to tell you about the rest of the tests I had to have. Let's see if I can get it finished tonight.
After the CT scan I had my regular mammogram scheduled for the following Monday.
That wasn't fun. They had to do an ultrasound too. The Dr. came in after those tests were
done and said, "I'm so sorry to meet you like this", great, I'm thinking, "but it looks like a
tumor in the left breast." More apologies. But, the good at this appointment was the technician, Leslie. I told her everything that had happened. She told me to go do something fun the rest of the week and weekend and eat anything and everything I wanted because during treatment I probably wouldn't feel like it. She put her arm around me as I was leaving and told me to keep in touch she wanted to know what happened. She made me feel much better.
May 5th I saw the breast surgeon for the 1st time and she did a biopsy right then and there.
They told me it wouldn't hurt and it was ok 'till she went the 4th time beyond the point she'd
numbed, ouch.
The next day I had my first appointment with the Oncologist. This was my first appointment with her and I didn't have results from the biopsy yet but she told me then I was stage 4. Chuck was with me but didn't hear it. She did give us a lot of information that day so I think he just was overloaded. She also said she wasn't going to tell me how much time I had because she didn't know how much time she had and didn't believe in telling people that. To that I thought, not good it means she can see the end in sight. I was really scared.
The next appointment was with the breast surgeon again. It was when she told me yes it is breast cancer. I missed work a few days work because I was really upset. I had an appointment with the radiologist the same afternoon. He's the one who will be doing radiation soon. It was just a meet and greet and check through my records.
The 20th was the bone biopsy another ouch and took several days to recover. The results were positive for breast cancer, meaning it had spread from the original tumor in the breast.
Then I had my pre-surgery appointment, another appointment with the radiologist and another with the Oncologist.
My surgery was the 7th a lumpectomy with 5 lymph nodes removed and a port put in for medication to start after radiation.
Tomorrow will be two weeks since the surgery. I almost feel like I lost a few days afterwards and it seemed to mess up my sense of time. I'm so glad I'm off for the summer.
I still have pain but it dulls with each passing day thankfully. I have really begun to have some problems with my side where I have the tumor on the rib that's fractured. I don't know if it's because of the surgery or I can just feel it now. It's hard to reach and I can't lift anything heavy but that was part of the limitations during recovery anyway.
I am very grateful that I can feel I'm improving daily. Being able to do little things around the house helps me feel better too. I don't have any more appointments 'till the 30th which is a nice reprieve.

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