September 10, 2005

Hi everyone. It’s been a long time (again). Sorry I’m neglectful but there has been so much going on. From my parents 50th Anniversary party, to my son Cory breaking his leg and having surgery, to my daughter Jamie moving into her new apartment up in Keene and then having hip surgery at Children’s Hospital in Boston, it’s been a rough summer.

Here goes. Last I wrote, I went to Florida on vacation and finished up on the million dollar meds. I only had a 5-15 percent chance of NOT getting the infection again. Well within nine days of being off the meds, it was back. I was put back on them (Thank God for insurance), the doc removed some more saline from the expanders, and surgery was scheduled to have the tissue expanders removed. The plan was to remove the expanders and let things heal for two months and then start reconstruction again in the fall. Not something I was looking forward to. I certainly wasn’t going to go through the tissue expander reconstruction again. My other option was a tram-flap which is where they cut your stomach muscles and weave them up your abdomen and into your breast pockets to fill them. There’s less chance of rejection because nothing foreign is going into your body. But it’s very invasive and recovery time is two to three months.

I had to see the Dr. Chatson (plastic surgeon) a few days before the surgery, and he said things looked so good that maybe my body just needed to be on the meds longer because the infection had only come back on one side. He called the Dr. Stampher, the Infection Disease doc and they decided to cancel the surgery and have me on another six-week cycle of the meds. I was told that my chances of not getting the infection back were only about 5 percent now, but he wasn’t willing to throw in the towel yet.

I finished the meds on July 16th and guess what? No infection. Yahoo!! I saw Dr. Chatson on September 1st and he said things looked great. He told me that he didn’t expect me to pull through the way I did but hey, someone has to be in that 5 percent, right? He scheduled me for surgery to remove the expanders and put in the implants on October 18th. They’re going to put me on Vancomycin through IV when I get to the hospital, which is a super strong antibiotic, and then the Zyvok for a few days after the surgery. And he’s going to remove the drains two days after the surgery. He’s doing everything in his power to prevent another infection. He said that my chances are higher than someone who had never had an infection but my chances are good. This is a surgery that I’m actually looking forward to. I’m hoping that he’ll have a cancellation sooner than that and they can move me up. They put me on a list anyway.

I also saw Dr. Rao, my oncologist, last week. We discussed having a PET scan done because I need to know that my body is clear and that cancer isn’t lurking somewhere else. I’ve lost a sister-in-law and an aunt to lung cancer since May. It’s everywhere. I’m waiting for that appointment.

We also discussed the fact that I’m going to need to go on Tamoxifen as soon as my surgery is done because my period came back. That’s been a blast, NOT. I hadn’t started the Tamoxifen earlier because I needed to get through the infection and surgeries before I started on it. We need to know where certain symptoms are coming from and if I had too many things going on at once, we wouldn’t know how to relate them. She had said to me that if I hadn’t gotten my period by August, she would schedule a blood test to see if I was in menopause. She would put me on the new alternative medication for menopausal women rather the Tamoxifen. Supposedly the side effects are minimal. Oh but my friend reared it’s ugly head at the end of July. A few months before that happened, I was put on Zyrtec by my primary care physician for the hot flashes. They were brutal. It really seemed to work. That along with vitamin A & C and the hot flashes were gone. Now I’m not sure if was the Zyrtec or just the fact that my hormones were flowing again. But I need to be on a sinus meds anyway so I’m going to stay on Zyrtec because I know the Tamoxifen will stir up come junk.

I've been back to work full time since May, when I came home from vacation. It feels good to have a semi-normal life again, but I'm anxious to take the next step.

To conclude, I saw my friend, “Not So-Bald Wendy” at a fundraiser called Seacoast Concert for a Cure, in which Breastcancerstories.com was one of the beneficiaries. It was a great time. It was so good to see her. She’s so cute.

 
With "Not So-Bald Wendy at the Seacoast Concert For A Cure in Portsmouth, NH