Taxol #6 was last week. For some reason, my fingers suddenly stopped feeling all tingly, and the numbness seemed to have leveled off, so I might end up doing all/most of the Taxol treatments after all. My platelets were pretty low last week though, around 60, so Dr. C was a little worried about that.
I met with the breast surgeon for a pre-op appointment last Wednesday. All she wanted me to do was sign a paper basically. She went over all my options again. I told her the plastic surgeon said I couldn't get an implant on the right side since I'll be doing radiation, but she says that's not true. Okay? ...But the plastic surgeon she referred me to, who shares her office, refuses to do it. She also said that moving the fat alone from my stomach into boobs wouldn't work because you need the blood supply provided by a muscle. Otherwise you just have "dead fat" hanging there. Good mental image. Either way, I told her I don't like the ideas of sacrificing muscles for boobs, having foreign objects in my chest for the rest of my life, or, more importantly, extra and unnecessary surgeries at this point. She pointed out that having a mastectomy on the left side could be considered "unnecessary". Except let's remember that my breast tissue is potentially deadly and leaving any of it attached to my body does not seem like a good idea. And that's really the best argument she could come up with to try to convince me to get immediate reconstruction? I can personally live with my decision (and will probably live longer because of it), it's the rest of the society that seems to have a problem with me going boobless. As of now, my surgery's scheduled for April 10th if everything goes according to plan (ha).
I had Taxol #7 yesterday. My platelets and hemoglobin are looking better. Dr. C said he can't even feel the tumor at this point, just some "thickening" from the biopsy. He asked if the breast surgeon examined me and was surprised she didn't. So I took the opportunity to ask him if my ribs would be sticking out once my boobs are gone. Apparently they won't because they leave the muscle intact in today's modified radical mastectomy. Good to know. Kind of wish the surgeon had gone over some of this, except I was at a blank when she asked if I had any questions.
My mom came up to visit last week and cleaned the house for us (thanks Mommy!), even though she might have been trying to kill the dogs by using toxic chemicals to scrub the floors. I almost killed them myself earlier when they escaped out the front door, which was the fault of the HVAC guys who just stood there like idiots with the door wide open as the dogs took off. Luckily Kyle came home for lunch right as Zeus was taking a dump in the neighbor's yard and snatched him up mid-poop. When the guys were leaving, I asked what we could do to make the downstairs warmer, and they gave me another stupid look and asked if I'd gotten a letter from housing saying when the maintenance guys were coming. I thought THEY were the maintenance guys! I have no clue who these men were that I let into my house and the real maintenance people never even showed up. And I'm pretty sure the heat's broken now because the house is freezing.
Very frustrating day. And to top it off, the numbness/tingling in my fingers seems to be coming back, making it painful and irritating to do schoolwork. And the new hair that's been growing on my head since I finished the Cytoxan is starting to fall out. It's about an inch long all over, so this is pretty depressing. I should've seen this coming though since my eyebrows are still pretty sparse and I mysteriously haven't needed to shave my armpits for weeks. Thankfully only five more weeks of chemo.
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