Doctor's appointments over holidays are always challenging, because many patients have time off from work while many offices are doing their best to rotate their staff in order to ensure that everyone can have some sort of holiday.
Waiting rooms are full. Schedules slip. Records and prescriptions aren't communicated as easily. Thus, my "chemo teach" got bumped from 11 am to 3 pm, bumping a mammo/sono to 4 pm Friday.
The 3 pm (+45 min wait, but I was warned) had to be truncated, and so the port will be installed after my first treatment. I was a bit surprised by the dexamethasone burst-and-taper over the next month. I am sorely tempted to cut the pills in half.
So, the mammogram/sono got moved to 4 on Friday, luckily, because there was a last minute cancellation. Yes, there was a 45 minute wait, a snafu with the prescription for the tests, and a lack of records transfer.
As we all knew (or at least I did, my last mammogram records weren't there), the visible dysplasia wasn't going to easily show up on a mammogram. Was I surprised that more detailed photos of my left breast were ordered? You betcha. Same with the ultrasound: we got better images of the problem area. But we also got more thorough-than-expected images of my left breast, including one set gathered by the supervising doctor personally.
Note: My dear ultrasound artist: THANK YOU for putting a space heater in the room!!! She explained that the room was kept cold, and the window wall was cold in winter (though it was an unseasonably warn 55 degrees).
So there are two iffy spots in my left breast, ones that did not show up on the PET scan. My surgeon will decide whether or not to biopsy them. Hope is, whether they are benign or not, the neoadjuvant
treatment will take care of it. Still and all, I won't be too surprised by biopsies, and may even request them. The swelling in one left lymph node detected by PET scan only (not me) may be explained by this stuff.
Whether or not they are malignant, they are a recurrence of the pre-cancer I had in my left breast, which is oddly NOT a spread of the cancer in my left breast, but INdependently co-arising.
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Breast Cancer Redux
Here's part of my story:
Under my old health plan through COBRA, a second surgery was covered, but my mammograms (which generally are two-parters, due to irradiated tissue/need for ultrasound) were not completely covered.
Last year this time, I discovered what appeared to be a keloid on the right side of my sternum. It is exactly where underwrire bras hit me, and so that team and I basically said "check into it". Why didn't I? Doctor appointment exhaustion? Billing & records concerns?
Thus, a year later, the little scar had changed size a bit. For something completely unrelated, after I had visited a dermatology PA twice, I went to the Dermatologist she then recommended. I asked, "so long as I am here, what about this?" He immediately took a biopsy. It was malignant breast cancer involving the dermis.
It is not particularly operable right now, but wer're all happy the PET scan indicating that it is a "when you see is what you get" growth, not metastatic. So, neoadjuvant therapy.
We'll see how much and how quickly the growth becomes operable, excise it, and hopefully go at radition with a cycberknife, because of it's location in "Beverly Hills Adjacent" -- where the last radiation happened -- and then probably adjuvant chemo.
I'm a "no monkeying with my hormones" person as well as a "I will suffer every listed side effect for every drug prescribed." This persists beyond menopause. I know it can be tough when doctors hear this, especially before relationships to patients form.
Many people research their prescriptions and develop listed side effects subsequently.
But others, like myself, without being armed with information, are led to wonder, why on earth do I seem to have chemically-induced suicidal ideation? Where is the x, y, and z problem coming from?
Many people will look up cures, use message boards, or glean information from not particularly official sources. That's not me.
Thank heavens I forewent reconstruction surgery!!!
Under my old health plan through COBRA, a second surgery was covered, but my mammograms (which generally are two-parters, due to irradiated tissue/need for ultrasound) were not completely covered.
Last year this time, I discovered what appeared to be a keloid on the right side of my sternum. It is exactly where underwrire bras hit me, and so that team and I basically said "check into it". Why didn't I? Doctor appointment exhaustion? Billing & records concerns?
Thus, a year later, the little scar had changed size a bit. For something completely unrelated, after I had visited a dermatology PA twice, I went to the Dermatologist she then recommended. I asked, "so long as I am here, what about this?" He immediately took a biopsy. It was malignant breast cancer involving the dermis.
It is not particularly operable right now, but wer're all happy the PET scan indicating that it is a "when you see is what you get" growth, not metastatic. So, neoadjuvant therapy.
We'll see how much and how quickly the growth becomes operable, excise it, and hopefully go at radition with a cycberknife, because of it's location in "Beverly Hills Adjacent" -- where the last radiation happened -- and then probably adjuvant chemo.
I'm a "no monkeying with my hormones" person as well as a "I will suffer every listed side effect for every drug prescribed." This persists beyond menopause. I know it can be tough when doctors hear this, especially before relationships to patients form.
Many people research their prescriptions and develop listed side effects subsequently.
But others, like myself, without being armed with information, are led to wonder, why on earth do I seem to have chemically-induced suicidal ideation? Where is the x, y, and z problem coming from?
Many people will look up cures, use message boards, or glean information from not particularly official sources. That's not me.
Thank heavens I forewent reconstruction surgery!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)