I saw the radiation oncologist again Friday to find out what she wants to do. She said she talked with 3 other radiation oncologists and they all agreed that I should get radiation, but Dr. B herself is still kind of hesitant. Here's a link to the study she was looking at trying to determine what'd be best in my case. She ran through a bunch of numbers and statistics that made me wish I hadn't slept through that statistics class freshmen year, but overall, she said considering my age and the SLIGHT improvement they've seen in patients with the small number of positive nodes and size of the tumor, that we should plan on going ahead with it. I told her they're testing me for the p53 gene and we'll get the results in 3 weeks, which might affect her decision. I'll meet with her again after chemo is over to figure out all the details.
I finally got that last round of the Adriamycin yesterday. My hemoglobin went up to 9.4 and my platelets were 96. My blood pressure's still pretty low. Dr. C is out for the week, so I saw his assistant Phyllis again. I asked her about the pain in my right hand and arm, and she looked at it and noticed it's starting to swell. Yay for lymphedema. Here's a link for some info on it. She said she'd send me to a physical therapist specializing in lymphedema treatment "when [I'm] ready"? I guess she meant when I'm not getting my ass kicked so much by all this chemo. When I went back today for my Neulasta shot, I ran into her again and asked if I could get a referral sooner since I'm going to be flying across the country in a month. I'll need a compression sleeve before I go on that trip since it's such a long flight.
I also asked her about possibly rescheduling one of my upcoming chemo sessions so I can go down to SC to visit friends and family October 28th through November 5th. She said to come in for my next appointment as usual and we'll see how my counts are doing. (Knowing me, they'll be low anyway.) And then plan on getting chemo November 7th regardless since I'm going out of town the week before and that week itself. Tight schedule... But it's good to know they'll try to work with me on it. I'll probably be miserable during my Portland trip thanks to chemo.
Since I'd gone in so late in the day, I guess Phyllis had some free time to chat. She said the fatigue I'm experiencing so much lately probably isn't going to get much better since I'm going into month THREE of chemo and won't be done til FEBRUARY. I also told her I'm thinking about skipping reconstruction altogether or at least delaying it since I'm definitely going to be wiped out by the time I have my mastectomy surgery. She said that's probably a good idea since I'm going to have radiation, and that radiated skin doesn't heal as well as normal skin. So much fun stuff going on...
On to ACTUAL fun stuff: my mom suggested a birthday party since I'm going to be home for my birthday. But most of my friends are still in Charleston, so we're going to try to have the party down there October 29th. I'm looking into renting a house or something and having my mom cook dinner. It'd be nice to have a post-chemo/pre-mastectomy party too in February or March. Lots of time left to plan for that one though.
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