The second chemo is over and today I feel pretty good.
It took the nurses quite a long time to find a vein that would work. They ended up sticking me three times before they finally got it to work. The bad news is that now I have to get a port--another surgery. I know it will be better in the long run. But it really sucked to hear it yesterday.
This time Charlene (my wonderful nurse) started with the A drug. Its the red one administered by syringe through my IV. After that was the C drug. It was a slow process and I'm glad I've got two under my belt.
When I got home I did some work at the table and then moved with my computer to the couch where I sat until Scott got home. I took some anti-nausa medicine as soon as I started to feel a little bad. After that I went to bed for a bit. When Scott got me up for dinner, I was feeling OK and then much better after eating. I took a sleeping/anti-nausa pill and slept really well.
On another note, my hair is falling out pretty rapidly. Not in clumps (at least not yet), but in many strands. It was hard to eat breakfast without getting hair in my food and that's just gross. So tonight I plan to say goodbye to my hair. Don't worry, we'll take pictures!
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Sue Sassmann's fight against breast cancer.
About Me
- Sue Sassmann
- A day after my 38th birthday, I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. As a wife and mother of three beautiful daughters, I never imaged my life would take this path.
Behind the Scenes
Background for what's going on now...I was diagnosed on Friday, March 28, 2008 with breast cancer—infiltrating ductal carcinoma (also called invasive ductal carcinoma). Atypical cells–cells that, for an unknown reason, mutated as they grew–have collected in the ducts in the breast. At some point, these atypical cells broke through the duct wall, and started moving into the surrounding tissue. This is when the cancer crossed the line from DCIS–ductal carcinoma in situ–to invasive (infiltrating) ductal carcinoma–IDC. It’s the most common type of breast cancer.
I am ER (estrogen receptor) and PR (progesterone receptor) positive and HER2 negative. All that basically means is that my prognosis is good and I’ll respond well to treatment. Blood work and chest x-ray are clear!
After the MRI, it was determined that the right side is clear, but they found another spot on the left closer to the breast bone. Because I’m opting for the mastectomy on the left, they don’t have to test it, they’ll just remove it.
Surgery was April 28 and the results of the surgery weren't as good as we had hoped. The surgery and the mastectomy went alright, however they found cancer cells in the lymph gland nearest the cancer. Dr. Radford took out the remaining lymph glands on the left side. We are looking at aggressive chemo in hopes of killing any remaining cancer cells and reconstruction looks like it'll be in three months or so.
I am ER (estrogen receptor) and PR (progesterone receptor) positive and HER2 negative. All that basically means is that my prognosis is good and I’ll respond well to treatment. Blood work and chest x-ray are clear!
After the MRI, it was determined that the right side is clear, but they found another spot on the left closer to the breast bone. Because I’m opting for the mastectomy on the left, they don’t have to test it, they’ll just remove it.
Surgery was April 28 and the results of the surgery weren't as good as we had hoped. The surgery and the mastectomy went alright, however they found cancer cells in the lymph gland nearest the cancer. Dr. Radford took out the remaining lymph glands on the left side. We are looking at aggressive chemo in hopes of killing any remaining cancer cells and reconstruction looks like it'll be in three months or so.
2 comments:
Sue,
Glad you didn't get as sick as the first time. But I remember Dad saying about the time he started to feel better it was time for another dose. Hopefully your medicine will keep you from being that sick. Again my heart goes out to you. You are sooo good at sharing this information with us. The girls at work wanted me to tell you that you are in there prayers also! I love you Sue, just hang in there.
Still beautiful to me.
Post a Comment