Massive Thank Yous to
Jen, Karen, Jim
and all the good, good people at CottageDreams.org

On October 3, 2010, I will run for the cure.

You can join me in this effort to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation by sponsoring me here.

Many thanks,
Andrea

And guess who’s featured.

Me!

What an honour.

You can listen in as I share my thoughts about facing breast cancer here.

Thank you, Mark, for your support, your encouragement and your pride. I love you.

We love Andrea’s radio-oncologist. He’s an incredibly nice and patient man. We experienced a remarkable trait of his during our consult with him last week; even though he may know where we’re going with a particular thought or question, he waits until we’ve finished speaking before responding. He doesn’t jump to conclusions or feel it necessary to cut short our thoughts.

Andrea will have a CT scan in the next few weeks. During that appointment, a technician will mark the two locations at which the radiation treatment will be directed. This ensures the treatment is always directed at the same spot.

Beginning in May, Andrea will have radiation treatments each weekday for six weeks. Despite the frequency and duration, radiation seems much less scary to me than did chemo. There are no meds, and no physically- or emotionally-crippling side effects.

We’ve been told to expect Andrea to feel fatigued over the course of the treatment as her body works to regenerate cells that are being killed off each day (just as it got the regeneration process underway from the previous round). We’ve also been told to expect that Andrea will present sunburn-like skin irritations and discolouration beginning in the treatment area around week four of the program.

After she powers through radiation, Andrea will begin hormone therapy. Given what we’ve been through, that’s not as far off in the future as it sounds.

Eleven days after my First Surgery This gruesome* photo was taken 11 days after my first surgery (Oct. 26, 2009, lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node removal). * don’t click if you’re squeamish

Four months after my Second Surgery This much less gruesome* photo was taken exactly 4 months after my second surgery (Nov. 13, 2009, complete auxilliary lymph node removal). * don’t click if you’re squeamish

Unbelievable. I am so grateful to the magic of the human body.

• Can I avoid the full week of Taxotere-induced agony this round? If so, how?
  The answer was pretty much “Not really”. My oncologist entered the room shrugging and saying “I told you Taxotere would be bad”. She recommended I extend my steroids (dexamethasone) further beyond the 5×8mg doses and to take any combination of my many prescriptions that may help, as needed.
• What’s her opinion of my long-debated bilateral mastectomy?
  My oncologist is not against the bilateral mastectomy and would support it if it puts my mind at ease. Apparently, though, there is no evidence that would prompt her to recommend it. She gave us the bad news that recurrence in the breast is not as likely as spread elsewhere in the body. Obviously, I can’t remove every organ in my body so I don’t think I’ll put myself through this major surgery “just in case”.
• When does radiation start? And is it still within walking distance of our place?
  We will meet with our radio-oncologist in the near future to address these questions. It sounds like radiation is no longer available walking distance from our place, though. darn.
• Can I ask now about plans for my ovaries?
  Yes, I was allowed to ask. The answer was, “We’ll see.”
• What’s with the sunken, bright read hollows under each of my eyes?
  After hearing about the various possibilities of recurrence and spread of the cancer, I really didn’t care about the look of my face.
• Is my 105 year old skin here to stay?
  See above.

Scary news or no, I still plan to survive and thrive.

Maybe not long enough to grow my own 105 year old skin, but for a long — healthy, happy — time.

• lasting 3 weeks — and counting — without entering a store, coffee shop or restaurant
• grinning and bearing various brutally insensitive so-you’ve-got-cancer remarks
• surviving Christmas Day without coffee or chocolate
• juicing and guzzling a potent veggie combo every single morning for 10 weeks, and counting
• popping more pills and supplements than in my entire pre-c life combined
• wearing the same 8 or so tights, T & hoodie day in and day out for weeks
• enduring outrageous family flare ups without losing my mind
• peeing red (Epirubicin portion of FEC chemo)
• peeing blue (radioactive dye)
• sharing my home, against my will, with … wait for it … RATS (yup! the vermin moved in 4 weeks into this challenge and have yet to vamoose)

Ta da! (AD)

So, while the medical gurus cut, stitch, poke, scan, radiate and infuse me, it seems my role in building a new, improved, bionic me is to grasp the many opportunities for learning and then to choose and use new beliefs, patterns and perspectives that will build a stronger, happier, healthier me.

Journey Learnings.

I’ll track them here, one at a time, in no particular order.  Let’s start with a big, small one:

Journey Learning #1: I can survive without coffee, sugar and red wine.

Whodathunkit?

Encouraging words from Cheryl Swanson’s Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won’t:

Somewhere in the midst of surgery or treatment or chemotherapy, your own genie is going to claw her way out of  your core. And there’s no putting her back in the bottle once she’s free. And that’s a good thing, even a great thing, because she’s going to help you sing your song and live your life for the rest of  your days.

The person you were before cancer? She suffered from an overload of personal anxiety and cultural repression.  Frankly, she wasn’t having as much fun as she could have had.

But she’s about to do something huge — survive a devastating disease

[...]

So, brace yourself [...] It’s time to bust loose.

Cheryl Swanson, Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won’t.
Zumaya Publications, 2009

That party happened last night (view photos). And with it, comes the launch of this website, WeCanRebuildHer.com.

We invite you to follow our journey to making Andrea a breast cancer survivor. We’ll blog our experiences and thoughts and share audio, video and photographs of the process — from diagnosis on Oct. 6  to Survivor.

Opening theme prepared by John Meadows. Closing song, Session, by the Robert Farrell Band.

Click here to subscribe to our blog/podcast.