Late at night, the poison man called

I know it's been a long time since I posted. The good news is, that during this time I haven't had to do much fighting of that nasty triple negative breast cancer. While I still feel the effects of the chemical warfare the chemo has been waging inside me, I spent the last few weeks gradually getting back to the kinds of things I used to do in my life before cancer, i.e. working, cooking, exercising and more. This kind of stuff was so ordinary, that it would have been boring to blog about -- and so I didn't. It was a nice relief not to have anything worthwhile blogging about. Come to think of it, for a cancer-related blogs, boring is a very good thing -- at least for the cancer patients! Thus I'm happy to not be reporting on my egregiously boring life at this time. After all, I can never be sure how long such boring times may last.

This past week and a half brought more news worth reporting, though, as it began with my first post-chemo checkup with my poison man. As always, DH accompanied me on my trip to Dr. V's office at the cancer center. Having had a lucid moment, I had scheduled my doctor's appointment right after a port flush appointment (this needs to be done ever 4-6 weeks if the port is not being used), so they could draw the considerable amounts of blood needed for tumor marker tests, chem panels, and all the other tests I was supposed to take. Then, I went to see Dr. V -- and barraged the poor man with all kinds of questions regarding where we go from here, and how I can/should live my post-chemo life. 

As expected, he would prefer that we wait another year and a half before thawing out any of our dozen little frosties in an attempt to get pregnant. It takes roughly a year for the effect of the chemo drugs to wear off entirely -- and for TNBC the risk of recurrence is highest in the first two years after diagnosis. So in order not to harm any baby with chemicals, nor to have a baby just to turn it into a half-orphan shortly thereafter, it seems advisable to wait a while. As far as everything else is concerned, he recommended that I stick with a low-fat diet (with only about 20% of daily calories from fat), as it has been shown to reduce the risk of recurrence by about half. Beyond that, he mentioned that there is an ongoing study in which an osteoporosis drug is administered by IV once every six months as there is reason to believe this drug may also prevent breast cancer recurrences. Once the study begins recruiting again Dr. V's office will call me to see whether I might like to participate. So far so good. 

The other thing I asked about was to get the chemo port removed while my boob man exchanges the tissue expander for the permanent silicone implant. I want to get rid of my frankenboob and get a step closer towards final reconstruction. After all, the implant will need to settle for a while before they can fix the other side to even things out on that end of things. And while they have me under, I figured they might as well yank the chemo port out of me before I develop some more fancy blood clots around it. 

But before the poison man would give me permission to have the port taken out, he insisted on a few more scans -- just to be sure. After all, during my August hospital stay a chest CAT scan had shown some "ground glass opacities" that needed to be followed up on as they could represent many things, including lung metastases. Furthermore, I had never had a bone scan to see whether anything funky had gotten into my bones. So the good doctor sent me to get both of those scans taken care of before I schedule the surgery. 

So last Friday, I went for a fun day of getting poked, prodded, and scanned at the Cancer Center. Yipee -- so much fun to have be needled again, and shoved into huge machines in which the camera with the big bull's eye type hatchmark on the cover comes to within an inch of my nose. This sort of stuff is always extra fun for a gal like me, who tends to have twinges of claustrophobia on occasion... But luckily some deep breathing got me through it all. 

Of course the weekend required more deep breathing, as during our workout I noticed a sore spot on my ribs. And naturally, the funny way in which the brains of cancer survivors work meant that I immediately began worrying a bit that this may be a bone met on my ribs. Why else would that funny little spot be hurting? Well, I didn't really think that -- or at least not constantly, but there always is that little nagging voice inside that whispers "what if this is a bone met and you're now officially stage IV?" Not a pleasant thought for any cancer survivor, but one that brings up particularly dark visions of an imminent demise for TNBC gals, who tend to do very, very poorly once they're stage IV. 

This weekend brought a big rainstorm on Saturday, but a stunningly beautiful Indian Summer Sunday. So I suggested to DH that we take a daytrip up the river to enjoy the last of the colorful fall foliage. And so we did, having a grand old time exploring places neither of us had ever visited before. The leaves and the weather were absolutely gorgeous and DH and I enjoyed the trip so much that we vowed to go on similar excursions again in the near future. Plus, this was a very beautiful way of keeping busy in a positive sense and recharging our batteries. This kind of stuff keeps my mind from straying too much in dangerous directions...

Today I could finally call in for my test results. But of course, Dr. V is a very busy man, so I had to leave a message. Tonight he finally called back at 11 p.m., which oddly enough is not at all an unusual time for him to respond to my messages. (You've got to love a dedicated oncologist who works this late.) In any case, despite the late hour, the poison man had excellent news to share: both my chest CAT scan and my bone scan were clear! Yay!!! So I can go ahead and schedule my next surgery. "You're doing good" Dr. V said. I like hearing that...because it means my life gets to stay as boring as it has been these past few weeks. And that is most excellent news worth reporting: that I do not anticipate I'll have terribly much news anytime soon.