Hello Friends and Family. Some of you may know and some of you don't know that I have been diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, breast cancer on Friday, May 4th. I apologize if you are just finding this out. I have been asked by many to let them know ...now what? Please tell others if you wish as I do not have everyone's email. Word is getting out as someone shouted to me on the bike trail the other day, "I heard you have cancer". I met with the surgeon yesterday. It went well and I feel like we're making some progress instead of being stuck at the train station. He was very nice and does check the ego at the door. He patiently gave us much of his time.
Plan of attack is: Tomorrow, Wednesday, I have a bilateral MRI of my breasts to get a better picture of what is going on with the tumor, what is going on in the rest of that breast and potentially what is going on in the other one, ie., any pre-cancerous conditions not being picked up by the mammogram. This could affect my surgical decision. I am scheduled for a lumpectomy with sentinel node section and biopsy with potential auxillary node section and biopsy for next Tuesday, May 22nd. If I elect to do this then I will have to have radiation for five weeks, every day. I will be in the hospital for one day barring any complications. Post surgical treatments are not etched in stone yet without knowing the node involvement. The tumor is growing on estrogen and progesterone. So I hope I have been starving it by not going out for sushi! No yams for me. I hate yams. This usually means tamoxiphen for 5 years. That will put me into full blown menopause. I will borrow Barb Wree's fan. I could still have chemo and again won't know until the nodes are out. One test hasn't come back yet revealing the crazed fast growing tumor. I hope to hear about that today. If so then there is a specific treatment for that. The tumor is on a scale of 1 to 3, a 1 on one scale and a two on another so we'll call it a 1 and a half on Stephanie's scale.
Chris asked Dr. Dickinson what would he do for his wife and he responded lumpectomy with radiation. Dr. believes that the tumor is still small, is not attached to the muscle wall and has not grown into a star shape indicative of an army on the move. I want it out of me and when I mentioned breast reconstruction if I elect a mastectomy, the timing was out another 3-4 weeks to coordinate with a plastic surgeon. Again, I'm at the deli counter, number 53 please! I could still have a mastectomy without the plastic surgeon option and go back in later. It is harder to do reconstruction surgery without the initial part of keeping the skin stretched. I can't wait another 3-4 weeks! I have a slightly greater chance of it coming back with a lumpectomy but that is reduced by radiation and post surgical treatments . There is a chance that Dr. will not be able to get a clean margin with a lumpectomy and I would have to go back and then have a mastectomy.
I am a black and white kind of gal. Right and wrong and this is so gray. What a strange place to be in? What a strange decision to make? Oddly enough Dr. says it probably has been growing, starting out as one cell and then doubling in size every 2 to 3 months for about 5 years, contained in a duct, until it was big enough to see. Was that about the time I started drinking beer again?
What do I need from all of you? Hugs, prayers. Support for all the four guys in my life. Chris will just continue to work and will expect me to do the same but inside I know he is worried. Brian and Dan have just been hit with a big reality check as young men. This has got them finally doing the dishes! Devin keeps wondering where I am at all times. This not a death sentence but there is definitely fear and uncertainty. I go forth into battle surrounded by family, friends, a couple of saints and some nuns. God has his hand in this. Peace to all of you. Stephanie
Elvis has left the building and his alias is Mr. C! They FINALLY called my number at the deli line! Hello family and friends. Just wanted to let you all know where I'm at in my new adventure. I had my lumpectomy yesterday at 4:00 PM and was home by 7:00 PM. A lot of time waiting as I was at the hospital at 8:00 AM. I asked for a pastrami sandwich in my IV but had to be satisfied with watching Dan and mimicking him eating pretzels. So it went well and we are hopeful there is no lymph node involvement. Mr. C spent today at Pathology and we are waiting to hear if his distant cousins, Mr and Mrs. Sentinal Nodes are truly clear. I will need to have a PET CT scan next week to determine once and for all if it was all contained. There was some concern going into the operation that a lymph node on my sternum was not quite right and needed further evaluation. This was found during the MRI but I also spent forty minutes lying on my stomach with a bar between my breasts and the two them hanging down in cups with my arms out like I'm going though a tube at Waterworld. Any ones nodes would be unhappy about that procedure. Good news is that no other cancer or pre-cancerous items were found in either breast. The injected dye and sentinal node procedure indicated lymph flowed in the other direction towards my arm pit. Dr. thought that was good news but we will go ahead with scan next week because you never assume anything. So Dr. cut a golfball out of my chest so if you see it on the links....I am doing well without much pain, more stiffness. I get to take the bandage off later and see my divot. The dye also made me blue for a while and yes, I peed blue. I thought about going to Vegas and joining Blue Man Group. My first oncology appointment is Friday. I'm pretty sure radiation is part of it considering its size and location on my chest. Won't know about the rest until we get the last test. My throat is sore from being intubated. Dan thought it was funny that I had an operation at 4:00, under general anesthesia, home by 7:00 and ate a plate of spaghetti and sour dough bread. I was really hungry! I've already stopped into work today to fix a problem. Hey, I'm a problem solver. But I will be sure to take it easy, I promise. The boys are being my nurses and are very attentive. Thank you for all your prayers going into this and for continued prayers until we know all results next week. Keep positive and be strong and cheerful. Love Stephanie
Hello dear friends and family. So where am I on my new adventure? Mr. C is currently residing in a glass jar at PVH Pathology. Went for the post surgical consult this past week. Dr. said while he was in there, he found something else he took out. Asked if I minded. Do I mind? Hell if you find anything remotely related to Mr. C or his long lost cousin from Alabama with no teeth, take it out. Could it be that bouncy ball Devin lost? Dr. took it out and it tested negative for any cancer. As did the nodes. Margins came out clean.
So then I also had the PET scan this past week and I came out thinking I'm Superman! I have krypton in me! I am invincible! It's a weird feeling when the substance they are injecting into you has a lead container, a lead shield protecting the tech and a lead syringe and then they tell you, you can't hug anyone for an hour as you are glowing. Doesn't radioactive substances cause cancer? In the mean time if you see me fly by or need forest fire put out....I am now Devin's night light. That too came back good as the nodes in my chest, my liver, my lungs, brain and bones appeared to be clean. One added note. Thank God I have cancer because I found out that I have a calcification on a coronary artery that needs evaluating, per the PET scan. Find the good in all the bad. If I hadn't found out I could have dropped dead of a heart attack at 50 now I can live to 100! See you at my party, Alpine Slide, Winter Park, June 28, 2060.
Friday I went to the oncologist and she diagnosed me with officially stage one breast cancer but I am back at the station waiting for the next train. Because I had the ticket saying you have A plus B plus G with a stopover at J. I get the new test. Oh lucky me. This one is the Oncotype DX, are there any wayward cells going to sit and hide and then play peek a boo later test? If so, then it's chemo for me. So I have plan A, 30 radiation treatments beginning the end of the month and five years of tamoxifen. Or plan B, 4 rounds of chemo in 8 weeks, followed by 30 radiation treatments (6 weeks) and five years of tamoxifen. Oh what a fun summer I have planned! Good thing I didn't choose the mastectomy as Dr. said with the placement of the tumor so high on my chest wall she might have recommended radiation anyway (some women choose mastectomy to avoid radiation). It was close to muscle wall and rib. So I made a good decision there.
So what do I do now? I have to wait and see. June 19 is the date of knowing. Radiation will become a daily appointment either now or later and I will get to take naps. I like naps. If I have to have chemo then I am glad for once in my life I am curvaceous. By the time 8 weeks go by I might look like that supermodel I always wanted to be. I will likely be sick and then recover and then crap I'm sick again but two down and two to go. I'm three and one and then ah...it is finished. I will start out with a Halle Berry do, proceed to GI Jane and then end up Persis Khambatta - Wrath of Khan. Fantasy Island"s Ricardo Montalban playing Khan and Persis this beautiful bald member of the Enterprise. I store really useless information in my head. Ah yes bald can be beautiful. Dan had mentioned before all of this started that he wanted to shave his head and grow a beard this summer. Watch what you say Dan, as mom may be right with you. I'll grow a beard too.
Know this. I feel well. I don't think I look bad. Okay, I’m not pretty in the morning and then a magical transformation happens... But cancer is a weird disease whose treatment may make you look bad. Every night Devin says I don't look sick and he tells me how beautiful I am. I am hopeful I will not have to have chemo but preparing myself if I do. I will persevere. I will conquer this and I will go forth helping others. Chris and I had an interesting discussion today that if he was sick he would just go and hide in his bed. I can't do that. I get my strength from all of you. You encourage me to be positive and fight the good fight. Chris said, You are going to hold court right here in our bedroom aren't you and I said damn right! Thank you for all your support and prayers. Stephanie
Live simply. Love generously.
Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
Hello friends and family. It's been awhile and I have been trying to compile good info to pass on. I'll start with I met with the radiation oncologist (consultation) on Friday, June 8 and found out that she was from 'Joysee" and we did this comedy routine for several minutes asking each other, "You're from Joysee, I'm from Joysee, which exit?" (Rich and Bonnie you'd understand, everyone else think three stooges; you'd have to be from Joysee to understand). Come to find out she is from Mount Holly, New "Joysee" where Chris's sister lives and where we used to live (next town over) when we were first married and Chris worked for his Dad. Ah yes... we reminisced about the pleasant odor of Sunnyside Farms and an ice cream on a hot summer day. I like her.
So then I got the low down on radiation and started reading the fine print. They didn't offer that to me before deciding on a lumpectomy. I must not have had the reading glasses on. I didn't sign up for the no shave arm pit routine. What do you mean six weeks? How much hair can you have in an armpit in six weeks? So I'm trying to figure out if I have armpits with a little hair or more like a monkey. I have one son like a monkey and the other with little hair. They also told me I couldn't go swimming. What no swimming? That's it, I'm going to water world this week (for real this time). Then there were the permanent changes to my body like I will have the breast of a stone statue, firmer that any silicone implant able to stop a locomotive. Guess what I'm doing for my 50th birthday! New ones!
I am actually waiting for one more test to come back and in the mean time got a few more covered. I am the testing queen. I have gone from two papers in my file at my GP to an entire book. The test I am waiting for is the genetic test to see if I inherited a faulty gene which could tell me then why I have breast cancer. Yikes, if I have it then I'm getting a full body makeover, ie., ovaries come out and both breasts off ( I will get the new ones here if this happens, small C cup and pass the pencil test). That would be a surgery in the fall. There will be nothing left but a mini me! I have had a CT scan of my heart (remember the calcification found in the Pet Scan), an echo cardiogram and a nuclear medicine scan thing-a-ma-gigger. The CT scan was another donut thing they slide you in and out but this one had the voice of the train at DIA asking me to hold my breath here and there. "Attention please we are now approaching the terminal". The other two tests show that I have a calcification but still have a working heart in good working order with some plaque on the inside in one spot. It will need to be looked periodically and if I begin to have symptoms, I will need further evaluation. Don't worry if I'm having chest pains I'll call 911 or I could be like my father who had a heart attack on the golf course, finished the tournament and then drove 30 miles home. Thanks Dr. Brad for seeing me this past week! For now, aspirin, lower the low cholesterol even more, diet and exercise. I am an anomaly as I have low numbers for all the cholesterol and triglycerides and no other plaque to speak of in my heart. I'm thinking I inherited something? Was I born with something? Dad?
I seem to spend all my time either at a doctor's office, getting a test, waiting for a result and speaking to the insurance company. Whew no wonder people with cancer get so tired. I do things when I get blood work like ask them, "Do you want me to hold that for you"? They always ask if I'm okay, like I'm going to pass out or something. Hey, I see dead people. They don't seem to understand how my days go at the office. So recently someone asked how I really was. I'm kind of tired of this whole thing and wish it would just go away. I get a little down in the mornings when after a good nights sleep with no bad dreams I still have this issue but then the day takes off and I'm busy and don't have too much time to ponder it. I've been feeling a bit anxious late at night, waking up. But I go back to sleep (the wonders of Valerian root) and get up and it's a whole new day!
Dan has started working for us to help out for when I can't be there. He's a quick study and an asset to helping us out with some technology issues. I keep trying to teach him something and he's already figured it out. He had a second job this week at his chiropractor's office helping out with a relief situation at that office. Dan was never meant to scoop ice cream for a summer job. What a waste. He needs to work in a office. In fact I think he's a better me than me. This is giving me some time to be with him before he leaves for college. By then will I be so sick of him I'll be happy he is leaving! Somehow I doubt it. He was always an extension of my body. He is a good son.
Got the test back from the Oncotype DX, you know the one that sounds like a sports car. And I fell into ....the gray zone. Oh let's call it the Neutral Zone as I am talking stardates here. It means I was seriously considering chemo last Friday but then low and behold I got my Calcium CT scan back right after which indicated I probably need to see a cardiologist. Timing was interesting. Is someone trying to tell me something? My doc said no chemo until the ticker got looked at. He said he couldn't believe I am dealing with this at the same time. I told him I'd try diabetes next. So I had me some "chemo edumacation" this week just in case. Chemo is tough on the body with short term and potential long term effects. This week of the heart thing has given me more time to evaluate the good, bad and the ugly about chemo. My dad had chemo for his cancer and it came back and he died. He never recovered from the chemo - his immune system was so compromised that I don't think he had a chance. So I'm looking outside of the box perhaps on this one. To my knowledge I could gain up to 4% better outcome for a ten year distant re-occurrance with chemo. Most folks say they wouldn't do it for so little but if it was 10%, maybe. I need to make this decision by Monday morning. If I don't do chemo and let me tell you I'm not jumping up and down saying pick me pick me, I will do a clinical trial of a shot that shuts down the ovaries, take tamoxifen for a while and then switch to aromatase inhibitor. The plan is to starve any other existing cancer cells that could possibly be floating around in my bloodstream of all estrogen and progesterone. I think it's brilliant and it's getting some accolades in Europe and Great Britain. I will starve you puny ass cancer to death hahahahahaha (Evil laughter, speak like Arnold S) This is all about statistics and mathematical equations. You can probably tweek the numbers any way you want. As I was thinking chemo and psyching myself up last week to consider things like mouth sores, killing red and white blood cells and lowering platelets, nausea and vomiting, hair loss and extreme fatigue, long term risks of leukemia, heart failure. Doesn't that sound like a fun summer! It would make for an interesting essay at the beginning of the school year. I wrote a song and a top ten list.
Chem-o. CCHHEEMMOO. Appointment comes and I want to go home. (Sing along here. You know the tune.)
Chemo, she say hey, she say hey, she say hey.
Appointment comes and I want to go home.
Come Medgyesy tally me da' mycin.
Appointment comes and I want to go home.
Come Medgyesy tally me da'mycin.
Appointment comes and I want to go home.
Top ten best reasons to have no hair
10 Save money on shampoo, electricity for the hairdryer
9 Ability to make it to work on time
8 No bad hair days
7 Pool caps fit better
6 Cooler in the summer
5 Hate your current 'doo - just start over
4 Blame someone else for the clogged drain
3 Easy Halloween costume - be Jean Luc Picard
2 Top of the head can be used for an emergency reflective device
1 No hair in the breakfast muffins
All for now. Pray I make the right decision and be guided in this one. I let you know next week of the big decision. Love, Stephanie
Jeez louise where have I been? And so in case you didn't know by now, I chose no chemo. After careful and prayerful consideration, I could not justify the short term and potential long term effects of such a harsh treatment to reduce the chance of a distant re-occurrance within 10 years by only 3 %. If they could give me 13%, I would have taken it. So per the result of this test I took, remember the one that sounding like a race car - Oncotype DX, I needed something besides just tamoxifen. And thus I went forth to try a clinical trial. Which was by the roll of the dice, tamoxifen alone, tamoxifen with ovarian supression, aromatase inhibitor with ovarian suppression. But alas I couldn't do it "my way", sing along 'ole blue eyes, as I was not willing to be guinea pig. But I will make notes for anyone who is interested in what I have done and the long term results. And so de plan is: I started radiation on July 11th. I had my first shot for ovarian suppression on July 20. I start tamoxifen on August 8th. I'm shutting down the ovaries, turning them off. And so I will have hot flashes or what I like to call my dewy heated moments. I don't like the words cancer nor oncologist either so I'm working on some new words for these too. Here's the funny part. If I had had chemo, I would have had hot flashes ( chemo kills the ovaries). I take tamoxifen and I have hot flashes. A shot to turn off the ovaries and I have hot flashes. Aromatase inhibitor, hot flashes. You get it...I'm going to have hot flashes. So far a few days into it, I have had some dewy moments. Hot flashes could help with global warming. No heat in the winter, just your own. Dr. M said per the clinical trials they are thinking (all results are not in yet) that stage one breast cancer ( no node involvement) using ovarian suppression plus tamoxifen "is as good as chemo" for reducing a distant re-occurrence. I think I am on the right track. My compromise with Dr. M was to try ovarian suppression first with the shot and if I tolerated menopause well, I could have the ovaries removed later. After two years I will go on an aromatase inhibitor and continue that for three more years.
So Monday through Friday, at 3:30PM, I go to radiation. I bear my breasts to a machine that looks like something out of Starwars. It is not a donut type machine. When I saw it for the first time I asked where Padme was. Radiation set up went something like this. Here, lie on this partly naked, while nurses are on the floor molding a foam insulation substance they got at Home Depot that hardens to take the form of my back. They said they needed a table. I promoted the nice folding ones at Sams. Told them my youngest uses his to sell lemonade on the corner. One nurse stands up and asks if my son holds a no uranium mining sign as he is doing this. It's a small world! The set up machine was another donut thing. It makes me want donuts. I like glazed ones the best. No filling. Then they tatooed me. I asked for little flowers but they gave me boring black dots that hurt when they did it. I will never go through the pain of a tatoo. Let's step on a bee over and over again. And so begins the no shave armpit routine. Maybe we can make it into a fundraiser - Mr. Boda, Mr. Lopez, Mr. Smailes? I am finished with the pool for the summer which will give me more opportunity, if I'm not too tired, to work with the horses. I can sit in their trough to cool off just not in the chlorinated pool. I so wanted to break the rules and go swimming this past weekend. I kept thinking about swimmers in the English Channel and what they coated their bodies with to keep out the salt water. I am going swimming in North Carolina in the Sound (we will be there for a week before taking Dan to Philly). It is less salty than the ocean. I keep thinking these are guidelines and not rules. They also say not to use any product with alcohol in it but then they give me the "dermatologist recommended" Aveeno brand lotion that has two kinds of alcohol and Vaseline in it. They ask if I use my lotion everyday and I respond yes. They just don't know I use it on my feet. Shhhhh... In my other life, I am known as Medicine Woman Who Rides Crazy Horse. So I have some tricks up my sleeve for dealing with the skin issues of radiation. Think weeds and not that kind you smoke. We'll see if my experiment works. I struggle with applying something that keeps heat in and contains alcohol. This week end is poultice weekend. For those who don't know what that is, take your weeds mix 'um with water, spread on the mixture, cover with a cloth. Old time horse remedy. I am going back east with Dan but have to fly back on Monday the 27th in the morning to have my last week of radiation. They gave me one week off. Chris will drop Dan off on Tuesday morning at Swarthmore and then head for home with the van in a couple of days. Dan will be so busy beginning at 9:00 AM on Tuesday, there is not going to be a lot of parent time. The college does have a couple of things for parents that Chris will attend on that Tuesday. I will stroll the campus on Sunday with Dan and see where he will live. Dan is allowing me to shop for his linens and things and this seems to satisfy my need to go and make his bed at Swarthmore.
I took Devin with me to get the ovarian suppression shot last week. I told the nurse Devin would come in with me for the shot. She responded, it's a really big shot. So I asked Devin if he wanted to see Mommy get a really big shot and he said yes. Remember this is a seven year old who has seen more than some adults have seen and refers to the crematory as the fiery furnace. So she brought in a shot of lidocaine and gave me that in my stomach all the while talking about how big the other shot is. When she brought in the big shot, Devin responded, (think Crocodile Dundee) "That's not a big shot, a big shot is this big and we gave it to my pony. We drew a triangle in marker on his neck". Nurse asks, "Did you give the pony lidocaine first"? "No we just stabbed him". Shots are with a large gauge needle much like the pony shot and the ovarian suppression drug is a cylinder that gets shot in with a spring that then dissolves over the course of a month.
All for now. I am moving along and gaining much information to pass on to the next person who might have to go through this. I'm feeling strong but I have developed an unreasonable wariness of plastic. There is discussion out there that plastic water bottles left in cars and heated up might be contributing to cancer. If you think about it, cancer is on the rise and how many plastic water bottles do we drink from. Well I've gone one step further. How can I be assured that the plastic bottles are not sitting in a truck or warehouse and heating up. So I now drink my water out of a glass dairy bottle. I will start a new fad. Who wants nalgene when you can have a dairy bottle ? Love and peace to all of you. Stephanie
Hey baby! What's your sign? God, mine's Cancer. I should have changed my birthday. It was destiny. Dad's sign was Cancer also. What if everyone who has or had cancer is also ....a Cancer. Sounds like a Steven King novel. So how, pray tell, did a constellation in the sky called Cancer looking like a crab become synonymous with a carcinoma? Why don't we just call it a malignancy? Why don't we call it a carcinoma? Could the common man not pronounce these words? No, we have to call it a zodiac sign. Why don't we call it Scorpio? Scorpions are far more deadly where as crabs...well they're just good eating. I have wayward decapod crustacean disease and are having some dewy heated moments. Doesn't that sound nicer that I have cancer and am having hot flashes?
Barbecue anyone? Pass the sauce. Pork rinds? Pig picking (North Caroline term)? Radiation has been the worse part of this whole thing. My skin is a mess. It itches, it's rashy, it's blistering, it's oozing, it's peeling dry, peeling wet. I stand in front of the mirror in the morning with my assortment of creams. Place this one here, this one there. Oh hell, mix them all together and slather it on! Just close my eyes and then it's not so bad. The only good thing about radiation was no hair growth in that armpit. Remember how worried I was about hairy pits. Shhh... one day, like girls smoking in the lavatory, all of us women in radiation admitted we had shaved our armpits before our skin got really bad. Don't tell the nurses.
We went to North Carolina as planned. The drive out was a bit uncomfortable for me as I was a gooey mess from my personal BBQ and all my own sauce. The car was a dump, reminiscent of our sojourn to Colorado from North Carolina in '93. Except there were no pee breaks from the side of the road. One hour into the trip, parents you know, Devin said it... "Are we there yet"?
We arrived in Dixie by entering L'allville. That's Louisville, KY to those who aren't in the know. Arriving in the south to land of grits, where one can find an entire row in the local Walmart devoted to anti-frizz products, I could hear the cicadas in their song, cut the thickened air with a butter knife, taste the limp vegetables, burgoo and corn bread laden with lard. Sweetened tea consumed in mass quantities on the veranda cause it's just too damn hot to do anything else except drink and gossip on the porch about your neighbors. This is something I am good at, as that is how I spent my summers years ago. We drove past Ashland where I learned to speak. We took the highway through West Virginia instead of the back country scenic route where you might see the child barefoot with a dirty face roadside holding a shoe box full of worms. That child would have been me 42 years ago stating with a thick drawl, "I'm fruum Mass-a-chu-setts". We tried to sing the John Denver song. We ran into a man from Petersburg, Virginia who had the southern gentile plantation accent. I understood everything he said. Chris and Dan couldn't understand a word. The South is like an old worn shoe to me. To Chris, it is a like a stiff leather loafer he might have to chew on.
Once in NC, it was hotter than hell and I always ask myself, how did I ever live here and wear pantyhose? Sweat made my wounds ickier and itchier. I did get to the beach on the day after we arrived and placed my chair in the sand near where the waves could wash over my legs. And the waves came and then got my shirt wet. And then I thought. I grew up on the beach. How can I stand to stay here? What will happen? My skin will fall off and it will hurt. Hell, it already is falling off and it hurts. So I stood up took a breath and ran into the surf, dove into the first wave and came up on the other side. I swam quickly to get beyond the break. Aaaaaa...this is nice. It's cool. It doesn't hurt. There is no sand as I'm out in water way over my head. I still worry about the sharks but it's not 4 PM. I spent an hour or so doing this. I took my shirt off and washed it out and put it back on inside out so the seams wouldn't bother me. Don't worry, no one's out where I am. Time to come back in. That was the hardest part, to catch a wave but not ride it in but just get behind to allow it to pull me in farther to the shore. Catch another. Oops, misjudged! Dive back under. Wait, wait get behind another and now run. My skin began to heal as I went into this mineral based treatment on several more days. No boogie boarding this time. Sand ground in would huuurrrrrttt! North Carolina was good for me as I also got to get my fill of seafood and visited with old friends and family.
Oh God, I had to come back for one more week of treatment. Dan got to Philadelphia and Swarthmore. Chris was to follow through with that and I flew home. Day one, blisters set in again. Part of me said stop! My body is revolting again. Part of me said go! Just do it. Burn baby burn! And so I did and then graduated this past Friday. Isn't that an odd thing to say. Graduation. I graduated from radiation and they gave me a cake inscribed with "Happy Day". And so when I left it was an odd feeling of completing something. Not really a sense of euphoria. Just an oh well you're done. I did sing "Oh Happy Day" in the car. So I asked what my grade was....A for ablaze, B for burn, C for charred, D for damaged and F for flaming. They said I did well and so I guess I'm ablaze. Okay, so I will do the victory dance, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Where do I go from here? I have a team of doctors now that I will continue to see through out the year. I will continue to get my monthly shots for ovarian suppression and take tamoxifen for two years and then another drug for three more. I could sit and wonder if this will come back or go and live my life and say I'm cured. I choose the latter. There is the five year milestone that a cancer survivor works towards and I will mark off the months and the years. I got it early. There are things that I need to change in my life and cancer was a two by four over the head. What I don't get is how heated dewy moments happen. If I don't drink alcohol, hot drinks, hot or spicy food, sweep the garage on a 100 degree day then it's not so bad. But I keep wondering if an atomic bomb will drop one day.
I will miss the daily smiles of the ladies at radiation. It became such a part of my routine and they all became my friends. I saw them 32 times while receiving my 6000 rads. Radiation reminded me of play dates with moms or a coffee chat. It is mostly women there and mostly women patients. So we chatted about the kids, exchanged recipes. We laughed alot. I would joke about nipples falling off and would always come out of the long dark radiation hallway assuming the Home Alone stance of McCauley Caulkin saying, "Yes". There was always donuts, cookies, ice cream bars and chocolate zucchini cake. I gained weight in radiation and began to tell them I came for the cookies and that radiation was an added perk.
By the way, I did not have the cancer genes. I think I'm on the cutting edge of new treatments for women with breast cancer (ovarian suppression). Saw it on a couple of other research university sites saying early results from clinical trials show it is as "good as chemo". Now if we could work on other cancers in the same fashion. Do we have to always poison them and ourselves? How about preventing them in the first place? How about changing our lives? Stress is a killer and if I could put this on one thing I would say stress is the culprit. Did stress effect my immune system to be able to get rid of a stray cell? Hmmmm.
I am constantly analyzing things like what is in a bag of microwaved popcorn? What is fractionated palm oil? Cousin to hydrogenated? And after reading about lung disease from breathing in the aroma of the popcorn bag, I'm back to the old air popped corn with real butter. You can find these at garage sales. How about Jiffy Pop? All natural butter has got to be better than the messed up palm oil. Why do we have plastic everywhere? I just saw that there are aluminum water bottles. How about we bring back army canteens?
I am a bit tired with all the activity of the last month and so some of you have asked if I need a meal or two. You know this could linger into Thanksgiving. Turkey? Christmas roast? Brian is hungry. I do have to be on tamoxifen for two years.....Thank-you all for thinking of me but meals are much smaller with two less starving young men in the house and I am enjoying tomato sandwiches from the bountiful garden.
So then you are wondering what if I don't continue to write you to in these emails. Now when I call you for a question or to talk, you ask when I'm sending out a new email. See you could start a new thing. Communication in long emails rambling on about whatever instead of this code people speak in. I think those are called blogs? So I say good bye for now. I will continue to be in touch. Just not these rambling words I type out. The journey has been long but somehow short. I go forth to help others. In some ways, this has been a journey of not just experiencing but of somehow looking at it from the outside. I have tried not to focus on what it was doing to me. It had a surreal quality all its own. I have said it was an inconvenience and it was in the sense I didn't have the summer I had planned. But there are no guarantees in life and no convenient times to plan to have something like this. However I always thought September would have been a better time to have this. This was my journey and in my crazed way of handling such stress, I made it funny and light. I figure it is where I failed at preventing cancer. Laughter had taken a sabbatical. I did sit down the other day and said to myself !@#$%^& I had cancer. Thank you for all your prayers and support. And as Randy Quaid said in the last moments of the film, Independence Day, "Hello boys, I'm back"! Peace to all of you. With much love. Stephanie
In honor of breast cancer awareness month, I thought I would come out and speak to you about breast cancer... go figure. Number one. Get a mammogram. Don't be late. No excuses. Remember to to self exam monthly. Best time is right after that monthly thing if you still have that monthly thing. Otherwise the day you change your contacts is probably a good day to self exam or the ninth of the month (buddy check 9) Guys, you can help here but remember it's SERIOUS and not foreplay. Ladies remember to exam all the way up to your collar bone. I bet you didn't know your breast went all the way up to practically your chin. I know it's hard to remember all your lumps and bumps like some kind of Rand McNally road map, but try and remember where they are. Feel for a pea but also a thickening under the skin. When I found my lump, I kept saying I was going to go on tour with it so women could feel what a tumor feels like. Fortunately it came out and there was no time for the tour. The best way to describe it was like a small hard lump of gum under the table. Not on the surface of the skin but you had to push on it to feel it. So go find a picnic table at the park and feel for gum. Look for weird changes in the skin texture, swellings. And if there is anything coming out of your nipple and you don't have a baby attached to it, please see a doctor immediately.
Digital mammography. It will be available in Fort Collins sometime next year but in the mean time Northern Colorado Medical Center in Greeley and McKee in Loveland have it and you can self refer, just need someone to send the results to. If this is for your annual mammogram, no problem. If you are like me and need more frequent ones you need special permission from insurance or pay for it yourself. Cost around $400. If you are in another state, seek it out. Digital mammagraphy is now recommended for pre and peri menopausal women and women with dense breasts. Remember, you are in control of your health and you are not at the mercy of a doctor and what might be available in their office. Greeley and Loveland or another city are not that far.
If you have a result that needs further examination, ask your doctor to make that appointment for you ...the soonest one. If you call, you may get a scheduled appointment (get in line) versus a triaged one. Doctors and their staff can get quicker appointments. Get creative. There are other hospitals and other diagnostic places to do things like ultra sounds, biopsies, etc... For instance, here in Fort Collins, you could go to Harmony Campus Imaging, Poudre Valley Hospital, Medical Center of the Rockies or McKee Medical Center in Loveland. You could go all the way to Denver. The nurses at PVH told me this. Check with your insurance first. Doctors say a few days or a couple of weeks don't matter. I don't buy into that one. I would bet all doctors with a result needing further examination for themselves or a loved one, has themselves or the loved one in for that appointment as soon as possible. Cancer does not say, look I'll give you a couple weeks before I start doing things. We don't know when it starts doing things.
Inflammation. There is some connection between cancer and inflammation. So try not to be inflamed.... And there is some connection with inflammation and being out of balance with omega 3 and omega 6 oils. And consider all the processed foods you eat and the fact they all contain soybean oil which is an omega 6 fatty acid. Go ahead, go to the store and try to find something processed that doesn't contain soybean oil. Make it into a field trip! Cottonseed, palm and other polyunsaturated oils all are in the same category. Olive and canola are the monosaturated oils that are good for you. So STOP eating so much processed junk! Go buy a cookbook. Gather grandma's treasured recipes and make it homemade sometimes. At the same time, balance this with increasing your omega 3 fatty acids with pharmaceutical grade fish oil, walnuts, flaxseed, fatty fish like salmon. Trade tuna for canned pink salmon and make a nice sandwich or spicy under the broiler toasted with a bit of pepper jack cheese and old bay seasoning. We call it the Dan San. Eat a handful of walnuts each day and pop one or two of those huge fish oil pills. Use a water bottle to make it go down. I know, I know your throat is only the size of a number two pencil. Get a coffee grinder and grind some flaxseed and keep in fridge. Now make toast, spread a bit of honey and then sprinkle flaxseed on top. You can add some wheat germ as well. Yummy. That extra zucchini you're looking to find a home for, make the bread and add walnuts and flaxseed. Stop buying peanut butter with hydrogenated soybean oil that you feed to the kids. Read the label! Kraft mac and cheese and the orange powdered stuff can't be good for you! Have we lost the fine art of making homemade mac and cheese? Why have Asian woman historically have low rates of breast cancer? They eat lots of fish and soy but not processed foods with soybean oil. Mrs. Lim told me this. There is an increase in breast cancer of late with Asian woman as they adopt the western diet and life style. I think we should really pay attention to this. We will all be better off if we just change our diets. I ate lots of fish as a child. Now I eat more shrimp which doesn't have the omega 3 fatty acids. We'd rather have a steak and shrimp than the lowly fish. Make Friday fish day again. Instead of eat mo' chikin, eat mo' fish!
Hormones. They do not belong in the animal flesh we consume. And they are. We have enough hormones already. Ever wonder why boys and girls are maturing earlier? Extra hormones? Little girls are getting their period at 9 or 10? When I was growing up 13 was the magic number. And by increasing the number of years with estrogen you are increasing your risk of breast cancer. Estrogen and testosterone are fed to cattle, pork, chicken to "better the product". In a womans' body, testosterone is converted to estrogen by way of a protein called aromatase. Is this the same for the testosterone we consume? So here is something to ponder, if you are ingesting more than your fair share of estrogen in animal products and ingesting more that your fair share of testosterone that could be converted to estrogen do you have way too much estrogen in you? Is it a coincidence that there is such a rise in estrogen positive breast tumors? Now there is a study out that says alcohol increases your risk of cancer. Well the old liver filters out estrogen and if the old liver is feeling pretty old with alcohol and couple that with ,you guessed it, too much estrogen, you may have set up a great incubator for breast cancer.
Lose weight, eat a low fat diet and exercise. This is the hardest part! You know this helps with heart disease as well. If you eat a low fat diet, you are usually limiting the amount of animal product that could contain hormones and thus increase your chance of breast cancer. Do you see how this all goes back to the hormones. Let me hit you with a two by four. NO HORMONES!!!!
Pay attention to your doctor when he or she says at your annual appointment, do you self exam, do you know what you are looking for, do you know how to do it? We have all gotten lazy and like how we are so attentive to the flight attendant who stands up and shows us all how to buckle a seat belt (we're reading a book or flipping through the on flight movie pre-views) we say yeah, yeah, yeah, I do that, when you know full well you do not.
There, this email should get you all through until I send out the Christmas letter. One more thought. Get a no hormone, antibiotic free turkey this year. Last year I got one from Vitamin Cottage instead of the Butterball. First my brother and I marveled for 10 minutes over the color of the bird's liver and other organ meat. Then when we went to boil the gimblets, there was NO KILLER FOAM. I am never buying a butter ball again. I basted it myself with a mixture of olive oil and real butter and it was to die for. Actually the butterball might be the one to die for.
