Surgery is a Go!

Last week, I got my CT results (I get CAT scans every 3 months) and I always feel super nervous beforehand. I imagine that I have cancer in my pelvis, brain and lungs and then I get stressed out.

Luckily, none of those places in my body have cancer. This oral chemo that I'm on seems to be managing the tumors I do have pretty nicely. I have 2 breast tumors in the left breast, 3 micro-tumors in the liver (0.4 cm, 0.3 cm and 0.8 cm) and tumors in my spine. All in all it's pretty good.

Because the Xeloda (chemo) isn't keeping the breast tumors in check, my medical team wants to go ahead with the mastectomy a lot now. Woo hoo!! Finally, everyone wants what I want, merry Christmas to me.

I've got my headphones, pajamas, slippers and people standing by on take-out food duty for surgery on Jan 25th. Kill and I are also seeing a great healer in Sedona before surgery; every little bit helps, I think. My auntie R3 and Uncle G as well as my reiki family have guided me the healer's way. Wish me luck although, we don't need do we:)?

Reconstruction and Metastatic Disease

Yesterday was weird, not bad, just weird. I went in to the meeting with Dr. Temple-Oberle like Cindy Lou Who, all sugar peas and light with no idea that I was an anomaly.

It turns out that in Dr. T-O's career she has never even been referred a stage 4 patient for reconstruction and that the Foothills hospital has never done a breast reconstruction on a metastatic breast patient! I did not realize this because I forget that I'm not perfectly standard but it turns out that I'm not :). So, my other doctors kept pushing me through the system to meet more people until I got to Dr. T-O (really liked her by the way). I think that they thought if she could meet me then I might have a chance and I think that I do. That's what we discussed, I mean, at the current time, she does not have her colleagues approval but I think that she's willing to perform a single reconstruction if she can get enough people on board. I've been referred to an anesthesiologist who, I assume, will have to decide if I'm hale enough for anesthesia and that extra hour under general slumber that reconstruction requires. Interestingly, I would be cleared to do a double mastectomy without reconstruction, weird huh? But there's a precedent for that and doctors rely on precedents just like lawyers.

I discovered that stage IV's were not offered reconstruction because it was felt too dangerous because we are, supposedly, frail? I guess that we are weakened but aren't babies and elderly people too? I mean my grandpa, Bobbyboy, went under general anesthesia at the age of 73 and they do infant surgeries like the one that was done on Kill's cousin. I think that I'm easily in their realm.

In an ideal scenario I'd be able to get a double double as my mum calls it (double mastectomy with both breasts reconstructed using implants) but in this current realm I could settle for doing one now and the right one on the future when research catches up. Because I don't have cancer in both breasts the other isn't a necessity and doesn't merit the risk of infection and death on the operating table.

Cool huh? I think that both Dr. Temple-Oberle and I are mulling today but we'll see what happens and frankly, I'd love to be an innovator with she and Dr. Mew.