Decisions, Decisions
Today I had my every-three-months oncology checkup. And as a result of a decision I've made (more in a sec) I now only have to go every six months! This may not seem like that big of a deal, but when you start out seeing a doctor every three or four days, anytime you can put some distance between those visits is a huge milestone.
I had the normal blood work done and the part that they run in the office came back as normal while I was there. I can call Monday or Tuesday for my tumor marker scores. I have noticed some swelling in my arm/armpit on the cancer side, so I've been letting my imagination run wild there. He felt around and said he could feel the swelling but nothing discrete (no lump) so it wasn't really anything to worry about. I did have some lymph nodes removed with my original surgery, so in all likelihood it's just a very mild case of lymphedema from that. If it gets worse, there are things they can do, but we're no where close to that point. Other than that, everything looked good and I checked out as "normal." Or as close to normal as I'll ever get.
The big discussion was around the decision I referred to earlier. I have decided to have bilateral mastectomies. This was my original inclination when I was diagnosed, but everyone kept talking about "saving the breast" and I convinced myself that I was okay with that. I remember my surgeon telling me that if I ever changed my mind, we could always go back and do it later. Well, folks, I've changed my mind. One way or another, I want to have kids sometime this decade and I really don't want to have a child, get diagnosed with a recurrence or a new primary and then have to deal with the whole drama again. To me, it's much simpler to do what I can now to reduce my chances of that ever happening. I understand that this does not completely eliminate the possibility of breast cancer as they can never get every single breast cell, but for someone with my history, it does really reduce the chances.
Dr. S supports my decision. Medicine doesn't have a whole lot of experience dealing with women my age with this disease. The goal that Dr. S and I share is getting me to 80 or 90 or 100 and letting me die of something else. Since most patients are more than twice my age, there just isn't a lot of information about what happens 30 or 40 years later. Basically, there is a lot of time left for something to go screwy again. This decision eliminates a lot of the opportunity for that to happen.
When I was diagnosed, my singular focus was on odds of survival. And mastectomy and lumpectomy with radiation have roughly the same statistics. But now that I've got some distance on the situation, I worry less about surviving the original cancer and more about going through it again. Once in a lifetime is really more than enough.
So without boobs that need to be checked, I can move my visits from three months to six. I'm sure I'll make up for that in doctors visits to actually get them removed, but it still seems like a small victory.
I meet with my surgeon two weeks from tomorrow to actually begin discussions about doing this. There are still a lot of decisions to be made, so it's not something that's going to happen this month. But it will happen this year.
I had the normal blood work done and the part that they run in the office came back as normal while I was there. I can call Monday or Tuesday for my tumor marker scores. I have noticed some swelling in my arm/armpit on the cancer side, so I've been letting my imagination run wild there. He felt around and said he could feel the swelling but nothing discrete (no lump) so it wasn't really anything to worry about. I did have some lymph nodes removed with my original surgery, so in all likelihood it's just a very mild case of lymphedema from that. If it gets worse, there are things they can do, but we're no where close to that point. Other than that, everything looked good and I checked out as "normal." Or as close to normal as I'll ever get.
The big discussion was around the decision I referred to earlier. I have decided to have bilateral mastectomies. This was my original inclination when I was diagnosed, but everyone kept talking about "saving the breast" and I convinced myself that I was okay with that. I remember my surgeon telling me that if I ever changed my mind, we could always go back and do it later. Well, folks, I've changed my mind. One way or another, I want to have kids sometime this decade and I really don't want to have a child, get diagnosed with a recurrence or a new primary and then have to deal with the whole drama again. To me, it's much simpler to do what I can now to reduce my chances of that ever happening. I understand that this does not completely eliminate the possibility of breast cancer as they can never get every single breast cell, but for someone with my history, it does really reduce the chances.
Dr. S supports my decision. Medicine doesn't have a whole lot of experience dealing with women my age with this disease. The goal that Dr. S and I share is getting me to 80 or 90 or 100 and letting me die of something else. Since most patients are more than twice my age, there just isn't a lot of information about what happens 30 or 40 years later. Basically, there is a lot of time left for something to go screwy again. This decision eliminates a lot of the opportunity for that to happen.
When I was diagnosed, my singular focus was on odds of survival. And mastectomy and lumpectomy with radiation have roughly the same statistics. But now that I've got some distance on the situation, I worry less about surviving the original cancer and more about going through it again. Once in a lifetime is really more than enough.
So without boobs that need to be checked, I can move my visits from three months to six. I'm sure I'll make up for that in doctors visits to actually get them removed, but it still seems like a small victory.
I meet with my surgeon two weeks from tomorrow to actually begin discussions about doing this. There are still a lot of decisions to be made, so it's not something that's going to happen this month. But it will happen this year.
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