Going under the knife

First day of

School selfie!

It’s been a long silence from me here. This has been a hard season of waiting for me. I’m a planner and I like to know what’s coming next. I’ve been waiting to see if the cancer comes back or not, and waiting to hear what treatment plan the doctors recommend. It feels a little like cancer purgatory. I’m sort of out of the woods because the chemo was so effective, and I’m starting to regain my energy because I’m not in active treatment anymore. But I also feel like I can’t move on with life because of the looming threat that the cancer will pop up again, and I was still waiting to see what further treatments my doctors recommended. 

After, many doctors appointments this fall I have a plan! My scans have all been good. That’s three PET scans and one breast MRI with no detectable cancer. PRAISE THE LORD!! My doctors and I have decided to continue to treat the cancer aggressively. Cancer seems so trixy and hard to understand. There’s no guarantees for anyone with cancer. If there’s one viable cell left it can take hold and grow wherever it wants. I wanted to avoid surgery and radiation, but after the anxiety of the summer, waiting for each scan, I want to do everything I can to keep getting good scan results. 

Thankfully, I still have options with the surgery. I’ll be having a lumpectomy and just a few lymph nodes removed. They will just be removing the areas where I had clips placed during my biopsies last year. I’m hoping that the recovery will be quick since it’s a smaller surgery and that the pathology will all come back negative. After I’ve healed from the surgery, I’ll have five weeks of radiation. I’ve decided to do the radiation at Mayo because they can offer proton beam radiation which has a lower risk of damaging other organs. I’ll be doing both radiation to my breast and lymph nodes as well as the spot on my sacrum. The radiation should zap any errant cancer cells dead. I’m hoping that when I’m done with radiation I will be able to close this chapter of cancer and move on knowing that I’ve done everything I can. 

Dates:

Oct 14th, lumpectomy at Virginia Piper. It’s outpatient, so I will get to go home and recover in my own bed. 

Nov 8th, radiation simulation and planning at Mayo. I will get scanned and tattooed for radiation. Positioning is crucial for radiation. This is the appointment where they figure out where they’re going to shoot all the laser beams   Apparently there’s physicists involved.

Sometime later in November, I’ll start daily trips to Mayo for radiation and hopefully finish up treatment before the end of the year. 

Praise God for the continued clean scans and that the doctors are still advocating for aggressive treatment. 

Praise God for the excellent team of doctors who have been generous with their time explaining all the options and helping me figure out a treatment plan.

Praise God for a great start to the school year for our kids. The kids are in person full time which makes it easier for me to juggle my appointment schedule.

What to pray for:

Pray that the surgery goes well on Thursday. That there is no cancer found in any of the pathology and that I recover quickly.

Pray that the kids’ school is not affected by covid and that they will stay full time through the end of the year.

Pray for complete healing. For many more clean scans to come.