Everything will be okay

Today was great, I was finally able to tour around our beautiful city with my parents. We had the day kid free thanks to my good friend Eliza who is awesome. We ended up having a late breakfast at Voyage. Joe and I love this restaurant and every time we go we get Norma's Salsa. It's amazing, toasted ciabatta, poached egg, avocado, grilled tomatoes and the yummiest herbed feta.

Next, we toured around Subiaco a kind of a trendy suburb with a lot of restaurants and shops. My parents love to drive around so it was a perfect day for me to sit back and enjoy, I only wish I had brought a pillow. All the driving made me tired and a little uncomfortable.  

Then we headed into Cottesloe and they loved the beach there. When you come over the hill and the beach comes into view it's beautiful. One of my favorite things about living here is the views from the road. You can drive up and down miles of coastline and the crystal clear blue ocean is in view the entire time. 

As we drove up to Cottesloe I got a phone call from my doctor. I was anxiously awaiting his call and we had been playing phone tag all morning. I quickly picked up the phone and he explained to me what was discussed with the radiotherapist and the oncologist. He explained to me that they removed 23 lymph nodes during my second surgery and the pathology on those came back clear (meaning there was no cancer in them). This is fantastic news as this will lower my risk for reoccurrence. He went onto explain to me that I still had quite a few risk factors which are as follows...

Number one, my age. Since I'm so young the cancer has longer to come back in the same spot. 

Number two, I have no family history so no one knows why I got this. 

Number three, the size of the cancer. It was a multifocal cancer meaning the largest tumor they found was 18mm. With the way the pathology came back it leads them to believe it's all one intertwined connected tumor which would mean collectively it would be quite large maybe more like 65mm. 

Possible number 4, I'm not quite sure, but there was a little talk of the margins possibly being close in some parts?... not quite sure on that one. 

Because of all of these factors collectively they decided that my treatment plan will include Chemotherapy, Targeted therapy with Herceptin, Radiation, and then the hormone therapy for either 5-10 years. 

The only thing that I had a hard time hearing was that they feel strongly that I need radiation. I was super hopeful that I would be able to avoid having it. Radiation is just another thing to draw out my treatment and to take more of a toll on my body. I do feel so thankful for my doctors and the trust I have in them. They truly have my best interest at heart and are trying to give me the best chance of a cure.

After talking to Dr. Willsher, we headed to grab lunch at a yummy Thail place nearby and then to pick up the boys so I could make it to a doctor appointment.

Joe took me to my appointment at the hospital. It's about 20 minutes away without traffic. I'm glad it's not further, but we have already done this drive a ton of times and I know it's only beginning. My plastic surgeon Dr. Van Beem was out of town, so I met with his nurse. I went in thinking my last drain would be removed only to be told it had to stay in until the drainage goes down. For some reason it keeps draining quite a bit. Frustrating. So I continue to carry my pink bag with me everywhere I go. Then she looked at how I was healing. She removed all the bandages off my back, ouch, and replaced them with smaller strips. I had a little swelling where the muscle was removed from my back so she had to stick a huge needle and syringe into the swelling and drained over 55mL of fluid... double ouch! Then she took all my bandages off the front, I was pretty shocked and scared about what I saw. My boobs looked like something out of a horror movie, with staples holding them together. Seriously like 30 staples in the left breast and 15 in the right. I had to turn my head and close my eyes as she removed each one. She then placed thinner bandages over each incision to keep them together and aid in the healing process. It made me feel much better as the nurse reassured me that my end result will be amazing and that the staples will make the scars super thin and almost invisible with time. I have already been surprised and thankful for the advances in medicine and that I was able to wake up from surgery with breasts. I always thought a mastectomy meant a scar and nothing there. Things have really changed so much and they are able to do amazing things. Joe and I headed to the shops after this to grab a prescription and a few other things and then home to the family. We were so lucky to have a friend bring over dinner again tonight. It has been so nice to be able to spend time together with out the worry of what we are eating for dinner. 

I really feel through all of this that I am blessed. I have had such a great life full of joy. Things have been relatively easy for me and I am grateful for that. I am grateful for my wonderful family and friends that lift me up and keep me going. This year has already proven to be a hard one, but through it all I have developed deeper relationships with those I love. I have been able to grab ahold of what's important and hold it close. I feel like my senses are heightened and I am able to appreciate everyone and everything around me more than I did before. The one thing that at the end of the day makes me feel so much better is when I kneel to pray and feel the overwhelming love my heavenly father has for me. I know he knows exactly what I am going through, he knows my fears and is able to calm them. He is aware of me and I know because of this everything will be okay.