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Posts Tagged ‘tamoxifen’

Back to (Radiation) Reality

Posted in Boston, Cancer, chemotherapy, Decisions, Denial, hair, radiation, recovery, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

For about two weeks life was almost normal – no treatments (just visits to the hospital), work five days a week, some of the chemo side effects fading and my hair (slowly) growing back. I felt myself slipping back into the good old denial and fooling myself that cancer doesn’t exist in my life. But starting tomorrow, it’s a new reality: radiation.

Just like with the chemo, it’s been a bit of a crash course in radiation. I admit I haven’t exactly been paying as much attention as perhaps I should have (part of the denial thing), but now I’m cramming. The folks in Radiation Oncology at Dana-Farber are – like everyone I’ve encountered at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s – great. They talk and walk you through it all so even those of us who aren’t too medically inclined have a clue what’s happening. I had the mapping session where they figured out the treatment field (on me) and gave me six tiny tattoos to help them correctly position me at each appointment. Then on Friday I had the dry run, where they took x-rays to make sure they got the mapping right, and walked me through what will happen for each of my next 25 visits.

Radiation Therapy (From the Breast Radiation Guidelines sheet from Dana-Farber): Radiation therapy is a painless treatment, similar to an x-ray. It uses high-energy x-rays to damage the DNA of cancer cells so that they are unable to repair themselves. Radiation also affects normal, healthy cells. Unlike cancer cells, normal cells are able to recover from radiation damage.

So starting tomorrow, Monday-Friday for 25 days (except Christmas and New Year’s Day) I’ll end my work day by running over to Dana-Farber for radiation. Several friends have given me tips on getting through it, and I am hoping to sail through. Then reinflation, a few months of rest, surgery for the implants, nipples, more tattooing, and then…

Tamoxifen. You may have heard the news last week: the results of a big study were just revealed and it determined that 10 years of tamoxifen is better for life expectancy than five years. Of course. That’s just my luck – just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse! So frustrating…

But at the check-up with my oncologist Friday (well, substitute oncologist, as mine just had a baby – her first, yay!), she said that I shouldn’t worry too much about it right now. A lot happens in the medical field in five years, and by the time my five are up, who knows what the recommendation will be. With my luck it will be to take it forever, but whatever. We’ll see.

There is some good news. I get to have the port taken out of my arm soon, which will be wonderful. And the best news of all: I ran today. Well, that was preceded by some not great news. I asked the oncologist when the numbness and tingling in my feet, legs and fingers will stop and she said it could be six months, a year or even never (although that’s rare). I had been waiting for my feet at least to be normal before getting back to running, since I’m such a klutz anyway. But there’s no way I’m waiting that long – I can’t stand being this out of shape, and want my clothes to fit right again. So this morning I went for my first run in practically forever.

I actually cried (happy tears of course) as I walked into the cool air in my running gear. It felt so good to get back out there! Of course, that only lasted a short time. It was like I’ve never run before. I was only doing 1:1 intervals and I was hurting by the time I hit a mile. I only did one more because I had a pain in my side and felt like I was going to throw up. (So pathetic how out of shape I am…) But I was proud I didn’t fall and two miles is better than none. It’s a start.

And tomorrow – uh, today, as I just realized it’s after midnight – is another start. Radiation. And it will be fine. I got through chemo just fine and I can get through this.

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Done – but Not Really…

Posted in Cancer, chemotherapy, Decisions, hair, Planning, radiation, recovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 21, 2012| 4 Comments »

“Doesn’t your body know you’re done? Can’t it just be back to normal?” Tara and I mulled over how wonderful this would be as I laid on the couch following my nap. To just snap my fingers and be normal me again. Week 24 of chemo, week 12 of Taxol: done. Only it’s not the end I hoped for.

I know everyone wants me to be excited and to celebrate but I honestly don’t feel it at all. (Although I loved the congratulations card Tina gave me from my Goddaughters, including the Thanksgiving picture eight-year-old Nadia drew me that said “p.s. One thing I am thankful for is that you don’t have Taxol!”)

My body aches more than ever, the tingling and numbness in my feet and fingers has steadily increased and now I have phlebitis in my right arm. So in addition to starting radiation, I am heading back to physical therapy, too. Doesn’t seem like an end to me. I really wish I could be happy, but I’m not.

I did, though, appreciate how the nurse practitioner put it to me today. She said, “It’s just like you’re in a triathlon. You’ve made it through two huge parts: the surgery and the chemo. Now for the third part: radiation.” I liked the sound of that, but also can’t help thinking that it’s even more than that – then there is the implant surgery, which now won’t be until summer, then the two follow-up procedures to that, which brings us near the end of 2013. Then the five years of tamoxifen. As I said last time, it’s the never-ending saga. I need to just suck it up, accept it and stop whining about it – I’m getting sick of myself! And I will, I just have to get back on my feet and then I will start to feel better.

I think I just keep feeling like every time I take two steps forward, it’s followed by one step back. Like the pain that’s been growing in my arm the last couple weeks today turns out to be phlebitis and so I now need to add PT back into my regimen. At least it’s coinciding with being able to take ibuprofen again, now that the chemo is over! And then I was excited because I signed up for the Jingle Bell Run in mid-December thinking ‘Of course I can be running again a month after chemo!’ I didn’t realize how bad my feet and legs would get – and today the nurse said it probably won’t go away for a month, maybe more. So yet another race I paid for but won’t be able to run. (Note to self: no more signing up for races until I am actually fully back to running!!!)

I know I need to give my body time to rest and heal. I just get so impatient with it and simply want to be normal again. And look half as good as Giuliana Rancic.

Giuliana and Bill were on Katie today, as I was dozing on the couch. My ears perked up as I heard them start to talk about her breast cancer. I knew she had, like me, a double mastectomy. But, even though they said she had an aggressive form of breast cancer, instead of chemo and radiation she opted to go straight to the five years of tamoxifen. I don’t get it: why and how??? That certainly wasn’t presented to me, I thought as I looked at her beaming at me from the TV, looking so beautiful with her long dark hair. (Yes, that is jealousy you sense.) I just don’t get it – how can you go through that major surgery and not do the other things to lessen your chance of recurrence? I know it’s a personal choice, but I guess I never felt like there was really much of a ‘choice’ at all.

Jealousy will get you nowhere – and it’s not like I lost my hair so Giuliana could keep hers. And hey, my hair is starting to grow back – it almost covers my head, so soon I won’t look like a middle-age balding man anymore. The aches, pains, numbness and tingling will go away. I will be able to run again. I will lose all the weight I gained. Yes, radiation will have its own challenges, but they will be less than the chemo. If I made it through 24 weeks of that, I can make it through 25 sessions of this. And then I’ll be that much closer to the finish line… and maybe then I’ll feel like celebrating.

Update, 9 a.m., Nov. 21: It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do! I woke up with a new perspective and felt the need to update this post. As I just posted on Facebook, “Today I am thankful for mornings where you wake up with a new perspective! I feel better – more energized, determined and like my old self. Crappy cancer can’t change me!”

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The Never-ending Saga

Posted in Cancer, chemotherapy, Decisions, Discovery, family, lymphedema, Planning, radiation, recovery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2012| 4 Comments »

I can be very stubborn. (I can hear the laughs and see the nods of agreement!) But I will listen, particularly when someone is using terms like “survival rate,” and it’s hard to argue with statistics.

Mom and I both went into this morning’s meeting with the radiation oncologists at Dana-Farber inclined to “just say no.” I was fairly sure I knew what the rates they’d quote would be, based on our initial discussion many months ago. What I didn’t realize was how much things changed when my specific details were factored in post-surgery. Everything from (you guessed it) my “young” age and the size of my tumor to the fact that it had spread to my lymph nodes and there was lymphovascular invasion (LVI) influence the recommended treatment.

So what convinced me? The numbers. The fact that right now my chance of recurrence is approximately 15% and by doing the radiation it brings down the chance of recurrence to 5-7% . That’s a lot more than the 3% improvement I was expecting. I can say no to a 3% improvement – but 7-10%? Even as much as I want this all to just be done, I can’t ignore that.

Tuesday is my last chemo session. But it’s not the end I wanted. It’s like the end of the last chemo session – it’s just the conclusion of another chapter in this never-ending saga. In the next week I will have to go to Dr. H and have him partially deflate my left tissue expander so it won’t get in the way of the radiation. Then the Thursday after Thanksgiving I’ll go in for the radiation planning session where they’ll tattoo marks on me to make sure they radiate the right area each day.

Yes, each day. Monday through Friday for five weeks – 25 sessions. Luckily they will only be a few minutes each time, so I will be able to continue to work through it. The biggest side effects are continued fatigue, redness and soreness. And, since my lymph nodes were removed, the increased risk that the radiation could trigger lymphedema. (I will be praying about that one – really don’t want that!)

And the biggest bummer of it all for me? Postponing the surgery I was supposed to have on January 2. I thought I’d start 2013 with surgery and pretty much be done, but now I’ll be doing radiation and have to wait six more months to switch out the tissue expanders for implants. Then a few months after that will be the nipple surgery and then a few months after that will be the tattooing. Oh – and then the five years of tamoxifen. It really is the never-ending saga…

But it’s worth it. To do everything I can to be cancer free. To fight every step of the way. To not have to look back and wonder, “if only I…” because I have, in fact, done everything within my power to get rid of it and prevent it from coming back. So I can continue to wake up each morning, breathe in and breathe out, and thank God for another day.

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