Tough Week....Last Chemo Treatment....Or is it?!?!!?

Oh where oh where do I start with this post?!?!!  Let me just first start off by saying thank you to everyone for your continued support and praise the Lord….this has been a very eventful and stressful week to say the least.  So this week was started with excitement and anticipation of Sarah’s last chemo session scheduled for Tuesday but of course things are never easy and sometimes you gotta go through the shit to test your faith and resilience!  Well folks this week was one of those times. 

So Monday came and Sarah had a post-op appointment with Dr. Moore (general surgeon) to evaluate a “mass” that was located at the top of her left breast near the armpit.  Sarah’s cosmetic surgeon Dr. Rhee had seen Sarah last Thursday and was a little concerned but not overly stressed about the mass and therefore advised Sarah to see Dr. Moore and possibly get an ultrasound.  So Dr. Moore “concured” with Dr. Rhee….I like when doctors use concur reminds me of the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio “Catch Me If You Can” where he plays a con man and there is a portion of the film where he is impersonating a head surgeon of an ER department and he is asking all the fellow doctors if they “concur” since he has no idea what the hell is going on or what to do with an ER patient that shows up in the Emergency Room….so the correlation is if you see a doctor saying I concur either they have nothing else to add professionally or they have no idea what is going on and therefore are agreeing with another physicians assessment…LOL!  I love Dr. Moore and she’s a great surgeon….that just pops into my head anytime I hear “concur”….now the same will be true for each of you next time you hear “concur”…yeah you’re welcome!  Smile because you will think of this next time you hear someone say “concur”….haha....So off to Sally Jobe we go for an ultrasound to see what the mass is….we got in on Monday afternoon since they are able to squeeze us in!

We arrive at Sally Jobe and all those same feelings and concerns from February start up again….the wondering, stress, and concern!  I’m sitting in the reception area waiting for Sarah to finish and get called back meanwhile I’m watching house hunters on HG..…nice selection of properties if I do ay so myself…you can get some pretty big houses in Texas for your dollar!  Once Sarah is done they escort me through their maze of corridors to get back to her imaging room where we wait for the radiologist.  The doc comes in and says good news the mass is a “well-defined hypoechoic mass, presumed seroma”….laymen terms it’s a fluid-filled mass which is good…most likely as a result of her reduced swelling and post-operative healing.  And of course the radiologist continues and says there one more thing “your lymph nodes appear to be enlarged and quite noticeable on the ultrasound, perhaps they were missed during surgery, I suggest you follow up with your oncologist to determine a course of action”….yeah thanks doc I “concur”…great check one thing off our list and then add another….appreciate that! 

So with that lovely news we go into Tuesday with excitement that this is Sarah’s last chemo treatment…..FREAKING AWESOME!!!  So pumped that she is through this portion of her care!  Well that was short lived and crushed by the report from the radiologist at Sally Jobe…Sarah’s oncologist reviews the report and indicates that they are recommending biopsy of the enlarged lymph node and the adjacent nodule….”nodule” WTF is a “nodule”…there was no discussion of this yesterday….seriously what is going on!?!?!  Well of course the oncologist has some reservations about what that possibly could be and said Sarah has to get a biopsy of this tissue ASAP so Sarah was appointed for Wednesday at 7am.  So we are down and frustrated at this point and Sarah still has to go into chemo….hang in there honey!  Keep your spirits up….at this point I feel like we are in the ring with Mike Tyson and we keep getting knocked down every time we get up and we can’t even get out of the damn first round of the fight! 

Wednesday morning came fast and she was back at Sally Jobe for her biopsies and again an all too familiar place that started this venture back in February…..yes HG was on again this time I got to watch “Property Virgins”….these people and their unrealistic expectations for their first house….give me a break with all of their wants and demands…I don’t know how you real estate agents out there do it with some of these clients.  Yeah I got to watch about 3 episodes…Sarah eventually came out and said that the radiologist that did the procedures said that he did not see these “nodules” and only saw lymph nodes….seriously damn nodules!!!  Either way enlarged lymph nodes in Sarah on the left side is still concerning and of course enlarged lymph nodes can be for a number of reason that are not associated with cancer but they can also be CANCER!

Let’s just say that the rest of Wednesday, Wednesday night and today pretty much sucked just waiting to hear the biopsy results because if things came back malignant that would mean a whole new course of care (additionally surgery, more chemo, stronger drugs, etc)!  Not what we want at all….so back to the waiting game…and waiting!  So we have an appointment with the oncologist today at 3:30 pm and I’m always conflicted because if they get the report they sometimes call with good news and other times they just do it at the appointment…other times is just takes that long to get the report back and no news is good new SOMETIMES and other times bad news typically travels faster than good!  So as you can imagine you’re constantly trying to assess the situation and convince yourself why you haven’t heard something in a favorable manner but at the same time in the back of your mind your thinking they haven’t called because they want to give us the bad news in person!  As you can imagine this pretty much sucks.

We get the oncologist for the appointment and I was honest with Sarah and said I was worried….that constant positivity I try to embody was just not there and I was struggling to make sense of everything…..why is this happening?  What else can we go through?.........to be honest I think Sarah was feeling the exact same as I was!!!  So they bring us back and do the whole weight, blood pressure and temperature check and then we go sit and wait in the consultation room…..I tell her “if we get good news I’m doing a freaking cartwheel out the front door when we leave”……..yes for those of you wondering I can indeed do a perfect cartwheel!  About 1 minute after that Sarah’s phone rings and she says “How funny would that be if this is the oncologist calling to give us the news even though we are sitting in the consult room”….it wasn’t them but it was Dr. Moore's RN Renee and all I heard was BENIGN on both tissue samples……I screamed for joy in that room and tears filled my eyes….BENIGN no cancer in the lymph nodes.  Then her oncologist Dr. Basche came in literally 30 seconds later and the first thing out of her mouth was “great news the results are benign on both biopsies”.  I had to burst her bubble that Renee from Dr. Moore’s office totally stole her thunder.  You could tell she was elated to give us the news either way…..

So what can I say……this week has been a rollercoaster of emotions amongst other things…….today is absolutely a great day!  All that stress and tension is gone.  Sarah is DONE WITH CHEMO….NO MORE!!  Yaaaayyyyyyyy…..next step is to get her through the next two weeks of post-chemo stuff and then on to “new boobs” first of September. 

Again thank you everyone for everything……large and small!  Everything that everyone does truly matters and we are fortunate to have so many of you out there thinking, praying and taking good care of us during this difficult time.  Today was a victory so congratulate Sarah when you get a chance on her last chemo session and staying strong……she’s a warrior and kicking cancer’s ass at every opportunity!  I will keep everyone up to date as we come close to “New Boob Day”….God bless!!!

For those of you wondering did I do that cartwheel!??!!?……hell yeah I did right through the front doors as we were leaving!

Yo Cancer….You messed with the wrong bitch!

 
Mac

3 down 1 to go! Final countdown....

Only 1 more to go!

Since our last update just shortly after Sarah’s second chemo session life has returned to pretty much normal.  The 2^nd round according to Sarah was a lot more manageable than the 1^st round.  She contributed that to the immune system booster shot that she received the day after her second round.  That particular immune booster shot was longer lasting then the one she received the first time.  She did say her bones and muscles hurt pretty bad for the first day or so but after that she said it was night and day difference.  So obviously that shot is working and doing its job…..at a cost of $1000 it better be!  I have no idea what’s in that vial but it’s like “pure magic” made from unicorns and care bears or just various medications (G-CSF, granlocyte - colony stimulating factor) that stimulates the growth of white blood cells in the bone marrow to fight infection….that seems to make more sense of what’s in the vial but let’s just go with the unicorn and care bear thinking since that’s way more awesome!  But the good news was no infections, no visits to the ER for IV antibiotics and she said things were fairly easy over the last 3 weeks. 

She did make the decision to just go ahead and shave her head because the hairline was becoming patchy and she didn’t think it was cute any longer!  I disagreed and told her she is beautiful no matter what….she went to Floyd’s and had them straight razor the remaining hair.  I wasn’t there with her for that because I was working but the kids were and they seemed to have a good time with the whole event.  I told Belle to rub mommy’s head for luck!  Sarah said she was tolerating the whole situation very well until a gentleman came up to her after her haircut and insisted that he pay for everything.  He told Sarah the story of a dear friend of his that was going through the same thing and the least he could do was to pay for Sarah’s haircut.  Obviously emotion overcame Sarah and the tears began to run!  She was very appreciative of the generous offer but indicated that Floyd’s did it for FREE as a courtesy.  So bald is beautiful and is the new cut for summer of 2015!

Sarah’s 3 round of chemo was on Tuesday 7/7 and as usual she tolerated the treatment very well!  She had Jianna Wright to keep her company and for those of you that know Jianna as you can imagine she certainly made it eventful for Sarah.  She had the nursing staff laughing and she made the whole chemo situation livelier to say the least.  Good times in the infusion room…..Thank you Jianna for taking the time out of your day to spend it with Sarah during her treatment! 

Sarah was a little sore last night and she said the pain from the shot was starting but she is tough and still got up this morning and headed off to work……if you ever need inspiration I suggest Sarah, she truly inspires me every day….I’m in awe of her strength, perseverance and courage!  Keep up the fight honey!

Meal calendar is back up and running for this next week so thank you to those who are taking time out their day to bring us dinner.  We look forward to it every day that we have dinner coming our way!  Sarah is doing well with her nutrition, she was finally able to start taking the vitamin, probiotics and other nutritional items provided by the nutritionist that my Aunt Sandy helped coordinate.  So thank you so much to Sandy for her efforts and assistance in that area, we greatly appreciate you!

Sarah is on full out countdown for the last treatment…..19 days in counting until chemo is all over!  I suggested that we get one of those Christmas countdown calendars and then she can eat a chocolate candy for each day she gets closer!  Her cosmetic surgeon Dr. Rhee has released her to be a little more active but not much so she has started to workout during lunch beyond her 3mph waling limit so now she can so more leg work and expand her workout….she just needs to be very mindful of over extending her arms and just restricting the amount of weight her upper body can take.  This is just a slow process and better not to rush it and be patient so as to not delay the healing process.   She has her 2^nd stage of reconstructive surgery planned for September 3^rd…she will have her expanders removed and she will get her new boobs!  She is very excited to say the least…so everyone can wish her happy new boobs day on 9/3!

Sarah is doing well and so are the kids…..please continue to send your prayers her way that this next round goes well!  They say the 3^rd round is the hardest…..but if anyone can get though it Sarah most certainly can and will! 

Thank you as always to all our friends, family, and supporters helping us get through this time….we are over the hump and about half way through the entire process.  We can certainly see the finish line in sight!

Thank you,

Mac

Romans 12:12  Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 


The Lord is watching over us for sure!