Every day I look forward to the times when Mimi and Papa bring these two in. They are the sweetest most gentle loving little boys to their me. I'm so lucky to be their mum.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
My homemade drain bags
Patients that used to be in Hospital make these bags and bring them into the wards to hand out to patients. I have since upgraded to much cuter pink bags.
Filling in the blanks through April 3rd
The past few months have been the hardest months of my life. I've always been very sensitive to others in times of trial, but I can honestly say in my life I have been so blessed in so many ways that having to endure this trial only makes me feel like I can help others and be there for others in ways I wouldn't have ever been able to. I hope from the emails I posted you can get a just of what we have gone through. I'm going to refer a lot to "we" because what is going on with me is directly affecting my love Joe. I think sometimes when a cancer diagnosis is given it is actually harder on the spouse than it is on the person with the cancer. As far as where I'm at. I'm doing great. I know people a lot of times just say that, but my spirits are high and I really feel like everything is going to be okay. I have faith that I will be healed and restored to health as good as new (just with less hair).
To fill in the gaps in what has gone on I'll write a little timeline.
Tons of appointments after my initial diagnosis, first breast surgeon we decided not to go with and felt much better about the second surgeon Dr. Peter Willsher. He's amazing and works directly with his wife Dr. Chen who is one of the top oncologists in Perth. Dr. Willsher used to do the entire surgery with reconstruction himself, but is so busy he now has a plastic surgeon come in to do reconstruction. Dr. Edward Van Beem is my plastic surgeon and he's great. He is all up to date on the newest latest procedures to get the best result so that's just what I wanted. If I have to get rid of the boobs I have my new ones better be pretty amazing.
Tuesday April 1
I was admitted to the hospital (I'll never forget April fools day) Joe and I headed to Mount nuclear medicine once I was admitted to get dye injected into my tumor that would show where my sentinal node or nodes were. The nuclear medicine Dr. Geoff is my favorite, he was telling us all about how the stuff he just used the FDA won't approve in America and the stuff they have over there is inaccurate and a shitty material. I was cracking up and a little nervous at his comments, not approved in America? I'm in a foreign country and I'm having surgery went through my mind. They inject the dye, we had to wait and then I laid down in the same machine that did my bone scan so they could take pictures. It's crazy, the die immediately lit up on the screen and you could see right where the node was he was looking for. He marked on me where it was and we had to wait another 15 minutes for more pictures. He marked again and that was done. Joe and I then went down and Joe had some breakfast at the cafe (I was fasting for surgery). After the final admitting process they brought me to my room and I had to get undressed and into a hospital gown. I felt so strange feeling so well, but actually being so sick. I also started getting anxiety about being in a foreign county in hospital. When they came to take me to Theatre (the operating suites are called Theatre) it was an hour late and I wanted it to be later. I wanted to tell the nurse that was wheeling me away that I wasn't ready. I felt the same way when i was wheeled into the operating room, I almost wanted to jump off my bed and run out of the hospital. I was going into surgery for double mastectomy with reconstruction using the latissimus dorsi flap. They use the lat dorsi muscle and bring it around to the front to create my new breasts. We only had to use a tiny bit of skin that will be used in my nipple construction further down the track. They also put in expanders for the reconstruction and gave them a small fill of about 100cc. These will be filled over the next 4-6 weeks until I'm the size I want to be. Kinda fun I get to choose. They also took out the lymph node that lit up in the pictures as well as one that was next to it. They did a quick freeze of these to see if there was cancer in them and they came up negative due to the short test. That's why they didn't do the auxiliary node clearence. The surgery went well and was a little longer than expected, 5 hours. I woke up and immediately threw up a few times and could feel my neck was super stiff. This lasted all in recovery all the way up to my room where Joe was waiting. It hurt really bad, like you have slept on your entire upper back and neck wrong x10. The nurses realized I didn't have my pain pump connected, seriously, I was mad. Once they figured that out I was great. I think I slept well that night.
Wednesday April 2nd
High on fentanyl. I came out of surgery with a pain pump of fentanyl which was interesting. Needless to say I had a great day Wednesday, I face timed with most of my family and some friends and that was great. It was really the first time I felt like talking to people. I was in denial and just trying to live my life ignoring it since my diagnosis that I think it just felt good to start treatment and do something about it.
Thursday April 3rd
Still high on fentanyl. This is the day that I figured out how the pump works. The day before I though I was getting constant medicine from the drip, and then pushing my button to get 1 mg more when I was in pain. The pump would give me that 1mg every 5 minutes. I could not for the life of me figure out why if I pushed the button every 5 minutes for 30 minutes I would feel so loopy and make myself pass out. I chose to switch over to oral medication for this reason and it was hard to get used to the balance between pain and nausea was difficult. I finally ended up with a goodnight sleep even though we were struggling with the pain meds.
To fill in the gaps in what has gone on I'll write a little timeline.
Tons of appointments after my initial diagnosis, first breast surgeon we decided not to go with and felt much better about the second surgeon Dr. Peter Willsher. He's amazing and works directly with his wife Dr. Chen who is one of the top oncologists in Perth. Dr. Willsher used to do the entire surgery with reconstruction himself, but is so busy he now has a plastic surgeon come in to do reconstruction. Dr. Edward Van Beem is my plastic surgeon and he's great. He is all up to date on the newest latest procedures to get the best result so that's just what I wanted. If I have to get rid of the boobs I have my new ones better be pretty amazing.
Tuesday April 1
I was admitted to the hospital (I'll never forget April fools day) Joe and I headed to Mount nuclear medicine once I was admitted to get dye injected into my tumor that would show where my sentinal node or nodes were. The nuclear medicine Dr. Geoff is my favorite, he was telling us all about how the stuff he just used the FDA won't approve in America and the stuff they have over there is inaccurate and a shitty material. I was cracking up and a little nervous at his comments, not approved in America? I'm in a foreign country and I'm having surgery went through my mind. They inject the dye, we had to wait and then I laid down in the same machine that did my bone scan so they could take pictures. It's crazy, the die immediately lit up on the screen and you could see right where the node was he was looking for. He marked on me where it was and we had to wait another 15 minutes for more pictures. He marked again and that was done. Joe and I then went down and Joe had some breakfast at the cafe (I was fasting for surgery). After the final admitting process they brought me to my room and I had to get undressed and into a hospital gown. I felt so strange feeling so well, but actually being so sick. I also started getting anxiety about being in a foreign county in hospital. When they came to take me to Theatre (the operating suites are called Theatre) it was an hour late and I wanted it to be later. I wanted to tell the nurse that was wheeling me away that I wasn't ready. I felt the same way when i was wheeled into the operating room, I almost wanted to jump off my bed and run out of the hospital. I was going into surgery for double mastectomy with reconstruction using the latissimus dorsi flap. They use the lat dorsi muscle and bring it around to the front to create my new breasts. We only had to use a tiny bit of skin that will be used in my nipple construction further down the track. They also put in expanders for the reconstruction and gave them a small fill of about 100cc. These will be filled over the next 4-6 weeks until I'm the size I want to be. Kinda fun I get to choose. They also took out the lymph node that lit up in the pictures as well as one that was next to it. They did a quick freeze of these to see if there was cancer in them and they came up negative due to the short test. That's why they didn't do the auxiliary node clearence. The surgery went well and was a little longer than expected, 5 hours. I woke up and immediately threw up a few times and could feel my neck was super stiff. This lasted all in recovery all the way up to my room where Joe was waiting. It hurt really bad, like you have slept on your entire upper back and neck wrong x10. The nurses realized I didn't have my pain pump connected, seriously, I was mad. Once they figured that out I was great. I think I slept well that night.
Wednesday April 2nd
High on fentanyl. I came out of surgery with a pain pump of fentanyl which was interesting. Needless to say I had a great day Wednesday, I face timed with most of my family and some friends and that was great. It was really the first time I felt like talking to people. I was in denial and just trying to live my life ignoring it since my diagnosis that I think it just felt good to start treatment and do something about it.
Thursday April 3rd
Still high on fentanyl. This is the day that I figured out how the pump works. The day before I though I was getting constant medicine from the drip, and then pushing my button to get 1 mg more when I was in pain. The pump would give me that 1mg every 5 minutes. I could not for the life of me figure out why if I pushed the button every 5 minutes for 30 minutes I would feel so loopy and make myself pass out. I chose to switch over to oral medication for this reason and it was hard to get used to the balance between pain and nausea was difficult. I finally ended up with a goodnight sleep even though we were struggling with the pain meds.
After my second surgery
So surgery went well. It was about 2 hours and I only had to be in recovery for around 15 minutes. I couldn't lift my right arm for a little while after surgery so joe had to feed me my dinner. It went back to normal pretty quickly but was strange. I'm already feeling all the numbness under and on the backside of my upper left arm. This will get a little better but is likely to never go away.
As far as how I feel I was able to come out of surgery and continue on the pain meds I had been taking and didn't need to use the pain pump. I was so grateful for this. I feel just the same as I felt going into surgery just with the massaging things on my legs to prevent blood clots and an extra drain that i only notice if I get up. Now I can actually officially say the hard surgeries are over which I am so grateful for. I love you and appreciate all your prayers in our behalf.
xoxo, Tori
As far as how I feel I was able to come out of surgery and continue on the pain meds I had been taking and didn't need to use the pain pump. I was so grateful for this. I feel just the same as I felt going into surgery just with the massaging things on my legs to prevent blood clots and an extra drain that i only notice if I get up. Now I can actually officially say the hard surgeries are over which I am so grateful for. I love you and appreciate all your prayers in our behalf.
xoxo, Tori
Mount Nuclear Medicine
Waiting the 30 minutes until I can get scanned again to find the sentinel node on my tumor
Pathology
Well the Pathology came back.
There is a 2.3 mm deposit of cancer in one of the two nodes. This means there's a 20% chance of cancer being in the lymph nodes under my arm. 20% is too high a risk not to take them all out, so I have surgery tomorrow to do just that. Effects from this are numbness under armpit extending down a little under my arm and nerve pain.
They also found the tumor is HER + which means the cancer is a more aggressive type of cancer and so during surgery the dr will install a port right above my right breast that will make it easier to give me my treatments for that type if the cancer. The medicine for that doesn't really have side effects but it will be administered through the port every 3 weeks for the next 12 months and will be started when I start chemo. Cost for this treatment is $50,000... I'm pretty sure it will be covered, but seriously! Crazy
I have a Stage 2 cancer and the cancer is Grade 2 (which means it's not that aggressive yet) it is considered according to pathology to have both ducal and lobular properties.
They also they got clear margins on everything and there is no cancer in the right breast.
The cancer started just behind the nipple and then branched out in 2 areas (multi focal) creating 3 tumors the largest being 18 mm The tumors are Oestrogen positive 70% Progesterone positive 60% We will use hormone therapy to treat this aspect of the cancer Radiotherapy we don't think I will need because the cancer is not vascular yet. Dr will look a little more into this, but he doesn't think we will need it.
Chemo will likely be for 4-6 months, I have an appt with the oncologist on the 23rd. I love you all so much and want you to know I feel all of your prayers. I have such a sense of peace and comfort in the midst of what's going on. I couldn't ask for better friends and family and we are so blessed.
Love,
Tori
There is a 2.3 mm deposit of cancer in one of the two nodes. This means there's a 20% chance of cancer being in the lymph nodes under my arm. 20% is too high a risk not to take them all out, so I have surgery tomorrow to do just that. Effects from this are numbness under armpit extending down a little under my arm and nerve pain.
They also found the tumor is HER + which means the cancer is a more aggressive type of cancer and so during surgery the dr will install a port right above my right breast that will make it easier to give me my treatments for that type if the cancer. The medicine for that doesn't really have side effects but it will be administered through the port every 3 weeks for the next 12 months and will be started when I start chemo. Cost for this treatment is $50,000... I'm pretty sure it will be covered, but seriously! Crazy
I have a Stage 2 cancer and the cancer is Grade 2 (which means it's not that aggressive yet) it is considered according to pathology to have both ducal and lobular properties.
They also they got clear margins on everything and there is no cancer in the right breast.
The cancer started just behind the nipple and then branched out in 2 areas (multi focal) creating 3 tumors the largest being 18 mm The tumors are Oestrogen positive 70% Progesterone positive 60% We will use hormone therapy to treat this aspect of the cancer Radiotherapy we don't think I will need because the cancer is not vascular yet. Dr will look a little more into this, but he doesn't think we will need it.
Chemo will likely be for 4-6 months, I have an appt with the oncologist on the 23rd. I love you all so much and want you to know I feel all of your prayers. I have such a sense of peace and comfort in the midst of what's going on. I couldn't ask for better friends and family and we are so blessed.
Love,
Tori
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