My life now

 Yay! I have an appointment scheduled with Mayo for December 3rd! I’m so thankful to get this appointment in before my next chemo infusion on December 7th. They already have all of my medical records and reports, and they are requesting my actual scans and tissue samples to review prior to my appointment. It is such a gift to have a complete and thorough review by Mayo. My diagnosis and treatment could stay completely same after this second opinion, but the peace of mind in knowing that we’ve weighed all our options and nothing has been missed is worth all the effort to get this appointment. Bonus! We don’t even have to go down to Rochester! Thanks to covid, we’ll be doing it as a virtual appointment. 

 I’m five days out from my first chemo infusion, and so far, I feel like I’m getting off pretty easy. My worst symptoms have been feeling extra tired and achy. I’ve been forcing myself to rest even though I don’t feel terrible. I know exhaustion can sneak up you during chemo and I don’t want to be digging myself out of hole. It’s a struggle not to feel useless when my typical speed is go, go, go. I’m thankful for everyone who has brought us meals and helped out with the kids this week. I know their support is the reason why this first round of chemo was not nearly as bad as I expected.  Looking forward to what’s next. I’m still struggling to understand what my stage IV diagnosis means. It was hard to get the diagnosis over the phone without much time to ask questions or digest it. I was expecting to get more answers and perspective November 30th; when I go to Mayo for a second opinion on treatment. But, I learned yesterday, that Mayo had me scheduled with the wrong type of onc...

The good: My first infusion was a breeze! My port worked great, my nurses were kind and supportive, and I didn’t have any reactions to the chemo. They gave me a bell to ring in case I felt any immediate reactions to the chemo. It took every ounce of will power not to ring it for fun. The nurses apparently don’t like those kinds of jokes because a ringing bell send them all running to help. I kept myself busy with Marco Polo, texts, audio books, knitting and Netflix, so the time actually went by pretty quickly. The set up is a big room full of recliners, and, bonus, the recliners are decked out with heat and massage features. I was lucky enough to get a chair by the window with sweet rays of sunshine falling on me. Really, the worst part of chemo so far was sneezing in my mask.  Now the bad and the ugly: My biopsy results came in after I got home from chemo. My oncologist called to give me the news that cancer was found in both biopsies. Crap, that sucks! Now instead of the stage II...

 I forgot to add some details for tomorrow on my earlier post. I have my first round of infusions Monday, November 16th. I’ll be going in at 7:30am to meet first with my oncologist and do bloodwork. Then I’ll have 5 hours of infusions. My full day at the hospital will likely be 6-7 hours. They start with anti-nausea drugs and other meds to combat side effects and make the chemo more tolerable. Then they move on to the two chemo drugs(docetaxel and carboplatin) and two targeted therapies (herceptin and perjeta). It sounds like they do them in succession one at a time. A side effect of the docetaxel is neuropathy of the hands and feet, so they recommend icing my hands and feet while this is being delivered. My understanding is that the ice restricts the blood flow to those areas, therefore limiting the amount of chemo delivered there. Some people will also do cold capping, which is icing their head to try to keep their hair a little longer. We all know I have a beautiful bald head, s...

This last week was a roller coaster of emotions and a whirlwind of appointments and scans and pokes. I’m getting very good at driving down to Abbott hospital and navigating the parking and buildings.  My port placement on Monday went well, but between my anxiety the night before and the discomfort the night after, I was a wreck by Tuesday from lack of sleep. It was surprising to me how low my mood sunk and how devastating my diagnosis felt in that state of exhaustion. Now, I’ve been more intentional about getting good sleep, and the payoff has been incredible. Pray for me that throughout chemo I’ll be able to sleep and get the rest I need.  I also found out this week that there was something of concern in my blood work. I don’t exactly understand what it was, but it prompted my oncologist to order a PET scan to determine if I have additional tumors in my body. Kind of like a cancer hunt. The results of the PET scan were not terrible, but not great. They found that more lymph n...

 Here's the schedule from now until my first infusion. I wanted to give an overview so you know what our week is looking like a how to pray for us. Monday, November 8th, I’m having a small surgery in the morning to place a port.  When it’s done, I’ll have a small bump under my right clavicle where they’ll have quick and easy access to my veinous system. They’ll use the port to take blood samples when needed and it’s where I’ll receive all of my infusions. To be honest, I’m completely grossed out by the idea of having this tube thing running directly into my vein, so I’ve tried not to google it too much. It should only be painful while it’s healing, and hopefully it will make life easier for me through treatment. The biggest win for me is that I won’t have tubes in my arms during infusions so my hands will be free to knit! Tuesday, I’m scheduled for an echocardiogram. There is a small risk that the chemo could damage important organs like my heart and liver. The purpose of this...

 It’s hard but also good that the kids are so little. I don’t know if they have ever heard the word cancer before, so they don’t know enough to be really scared or anxious. We haven’t had anyone close to us who they’ve seen go through it. I had a really hard time holding it together and not crying all the time when I first got diagnosed. All we knew was that I had cancer, so my mind raced to the absolute worst scenarios. It wasn’t an option not to tell the kids. They needed to know why mommy was a wreck and crying all the time.  We’ve tried to tell the kids what’s going on in as straight forward and plain language as we could. They know I’m sick and I have cancer. They know that I’m not contagious, so they don’t need to worry about catching it from me. Thorsen’s first question was whether it was covid. We told them that I’ll have chemo which will make me feel really icky, but will also kill all the bad cancer cells. They seem almost excited to see my hair fall out because they...

 Here’s the high level treatment plan. I’ll be in chemotherapy for the next five months. I’ll get infusions every three weeks starting November 16th. After each infusion I’ll feel terrible for the first week while the chemo is working it’s magic. I’ll start feeling a bit better in the second week. By the third week I might be feeling almost normal. Then I get to go back and do it all over again! Yay me! For any cancer junkies, here’s the chemo details as I know them right now. The treatment I’m getting is called TCH + pertuzumab. The chemo drugs I’ll be getting at each infusion are docetaxel, carboplatin, trastuzumab and perrtuzumab. I’ll also be getting targeted therapies herceptin and perjeta. According to my oncologist this is a fairly aggressive chemo treatment, but she’s expecting/hoping that it will kill and shrink all the cancer cells in my body so that they will have almost nothing to remove come time for surgery. Now that sounds amazing to me! I’m going to keep that though...

 We have an awesome army of friends and family supporting us. Everyone keeps asking how they can help us and what we need. Here are my first thoughts of what we need and what you can do to help.  Pray, pray, pray and then pray some more. We have been covered in prayer already, and I know that’s why I’ve been able to experience so much peace and even a little joy in the midst of this diagnosis. I know that God is good, and he loves me immensely. Along with praying for healing, pray that I will remember those two truths about who God is and who I am.  Pray for my kids and this stupid Covid. One of my biggest worries right now is that I will be immunocompromised during treatment which is not a great thing during a pandemic. I’m worried about having to isolate myself and my family to keep me safe. Eva is in kindergarten and Thorsen is in first grade. Their schooling has been hybrid this year, so they get to go into school two to three times a week. It’s been going well, and I...

 We met with our surgical oncologist today. I will have many many appointments and a whole cancer team with me for this year. The surgical oncologist is just the first step in wading through my diagnosis and figuring out what my whole treatment plan will be. I went into this appointment expecting the worst, so I was probably a little too happy about the small wins. I left feeling hopeful and happy even though the next ten months or so are going to be pretty painful and grueling.  First off, my cancer is triple positive which means it is has receptors for estrogen, progesterone and HER2. This is good news because it means that chemotherapy will be better at targeting those receptors and therefore more effective. My second “win” is that so far it doesn’t seem to be in too many of my lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are good to have and keep. They filter out bad stuff and keep your arm healthy. Thankfully, I may only need a couple removed when it’s time for surgery. My last “win” is that...

 Wednesday, October 28th, 2020, was Thorsen’s 7th birthday and the day I found out that I have breast cancer. It amazes me how quickly I went from feeling mostly healthy to picturing what my family would look like without me and wondering how much my kids would remember me.  The Wednesday before I went in for a check up and asked about a lump I had found which lead to a mammogram the following Monday, a biopsy on Tuesday and a cancer diagnosis on Wednesday. One week was all it took to completely change my thoughts and plans for the future. It’s been a whirlwind of events as they are moving quickly to get me into treatment. I had an MRI on Friday and we meet Tuesday, November 3rd, with an oncology surgeon. At this time I don’t know much about my cancer or what treatment will look like. I know I have invasive ductal carcinoma and it’s in my breast and lymph nodes. I’m assuming I will get the full gamut of treatments, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone therapy.  I ...