Flat-Chested

   It's almost been two weeks since my surgery, and I'm feeling a lot better. I haven't needed any painkillers the past few days (even for the chest pain!). The surgery went well and I got out of the hospital Wednesday afternoon. There was some strange swelling on the left side, so I saw the doctor Friday to get it checked out, but they said it was just the tubing inside from the drain (gross). I saw the doctor again Wednesday to get the two drains taken out. Everything's kind of numb in my chest area, and I didn't have those terrible shooting pains from the lymph node surgery this time, so the drains were much easier to manage, but I was still glad to have them out. I ditched the uncomfortable hospital/surgical bra as soon as I could and I've been wearing the As Seen On TV Genie Bra because they had an extra-small that actually fits. It's almost just as hard to find bras now. I'm somewhere between the little girls and the juniors, but most of them come built-in pockets with padding. Our society's obsession with big boobs and oversexualization of pre-teens are working in my favor. Walmart even has $5 "water pads" next to the Buty Pant butt-enhancing panties. While I opted to skip the padded underwear, those cheap bra pads are good enough to make me look a little less like a flat-chested twelve year old.
   I saw Dr. K today for a follow-up. She ripped the steri-strips off both sides, but thankfully I couldn't really feel it. That swelling never really went away, so she just sucked it out with a syringe. Again, happily still numb! It's definitely flatter now, but I forgot to ask about the other swollen part at the top. Hopefully that's not just leftover skin... Everything else looks really good, completely flat and the incisions are very thin, even though each one goes from the middle of my chest up into my armpit. I think she did a great job.
   She gave me a copy of the pathology report, and said everything was fine with the surgery. The chemo obviously worked because the tumor went down from 2 cm to 0.6 cm. When I got home and looked over the report, I realized I don't know what any of it means, but Wikipedia's super helpful. Overall, I had a grade of 1 which is the lowest (and best). Tubular differentiation had a score of 3, which isn't good, but nuclear pleomorphism was only 1 and mitotic count was only 1. Nothing was found on the left side, except that fibroadenoma. While Kyle jokingly said it was a waste of a good boob, I feel better knowing I have almost no breast tissue left to form new cancer cells. Plus, they're a pair anyway; I'd rather be flat-chested on both sides than lopsided.
   Dr. K also went over some massages for my arm when I asked for a new referral for a lymphedema physical therapist. I mentioned the arm pain to the oncologist a few months ago, and they said it was lymphedema, which is why I thought it was a lymphedema... And my right hand is noticeably swollen compared to my left. She said lymphedema doesn't hurt though, it's just the swelling. She thinks it's just the muscles in my arm and I must've overused or underused that arm after the first surgery. She said to keep it elevated above my heart whenever I have a chance, and showed me the massages for both the lymphedema and for my muscle aches. If I'm still having issues in two weeks and want to see a physical therapist, she said to call. Otherwise, I'll see her in six weeks to make sure everything's doing okay. She also asked when I wanted to get the port out, but considering this is my THIRD one now, I'm going to hold onto it for as long as possible. Once I'm done with treatments with the oncologist, it'll need to be flushed every three months to keep it functional. She said they could take it right out in their office instead of dealing with all the hospital stuff. Very different from the last two ports...
   I have an appointment with Dr. B from radiation oncology tomorrow for another consultation. My chest pain finally went away (after seven weeks), but I really don't want to get radiation if it's going to aggravate it in the future. I guess we'll see what she says tomorrow.
   As for the official weight for my boobs: the right one was 439 grams and the left was 427 grams. Less than a pound each! I was expecting heavier.

Skipped Taxol #11

    Treatments 7-10 of Taxol were pretty boring, just the usual tiredness and some numbness in my fingers. But last week sucked. I started to get some chest pains Saturday. No worries because it only hurt if I breathed or moved, not that I need to do those things on a regular basis. I popped some Tylenol and ibuprofen which is what the doctor told me to do when I had chest pain from the Neulasta shots. It helped a little, but it got a lot worse the next day, so I started taking Vicodin leftover from my surgery. Apparently Vicodin and Benadryl are two drugs that no longer help me sleep.
    I called the doctor Monday, since it had only gotten worse and the Vicodin was just making me feel sick. They ordered some kind of CT scan on my chest for later that day. When we got there, the nurses asked if there were any chance I could be pregnant. Doesn't anyone watch "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant"? Even though I had a whole list of evidence of why I SHOULDN'T be pregnant, they got really worried when I said I couldn't remember the date of my last period (thanks chemo!), so worried in fact that they almost wouldn't let me do the chest scan. Really? They were more concerned about a nonexistent fetus with a chemo-induced tail than the fact that I was having severe chest pains and needed a scan to make sure I didn't have a life-threatening problem with my lungs that would have killed the fetus anyway? Good to know the medical community's priorities when it comes to women of childbearing age.
    When I FINALLY convinced them that NO I'm not pregnant, they gave me an IV to insert the dye for the scan. I asked if they could use my port, but they said it had to be a "Power Port" and I had to have a card identifying it. Funny because when I asked about the three little alien bumps coming out of my skin above the port, they said it was like that so other facilities could use it too (easily identifiable). I'll ask the doctor about it next week. Instead, the nurses had to do an IV in my arm, and she so kindly told me, since the dye goes in really fast, they have to use a larger needle. Sweet. But even better when was they put the dye in later, and they warned me that it'll make me feel really warm and like I've peed my pants. "Warm" was an understatement, but it was a really strange feeling. Luckily, the scan itself only took a few minutes. They sent the results to Dr. C and sent me back out to the waiting room. Then they came back out to tell us to go home, everything was normal on the scan. Ok, but my chest still hurt?
    So I toughed it out that night and the next morning. Then I had a really bad wave of nausea and dizziness and heat hit me on the way to the hospital for my appointment. That combined with the severe pain in my chest and not being able to breathe was super fun. Thankfully the doctor has some sense and wasn't going to try to give me chemo that day, but I think it was more due to the numbness in my fingers than the chest pain. But I would've flipped out if he had tried. I think my body has maxed out on chemo at this point. He has no idea what's going on with my chest pain, because everything seemed normal. I think the chest pain's just the same thing I've had multiple times before (costochondritis) and the stress of six months of chemo made it worse. I asked the doctor if it is the same problem as before, won't radiation make it worse? He said it's just a "necessary evil" and that I'll basically just have to deal with it. Then again, he's not in charge of radiation, so I'll discuss it with the radiation oncologist before they start zapping me. For now, he told me to take some ibuprofen and see if that helps. It's definitely helping more than the Vicodin did.
    Besides the crappy week from the chest pain, my fingers and toes have just gotten worse. I noticed within the last week that when I start walking sometimes, both my feet will hurt and tingle a little. And when I dried my hands on a towel, I noticed my palms really tickled, but not in a good way. My fingertips feel really dry and puffy and it's way more noticeable all the time now instead of just when I use them. So I might be done with chemo. We'll see next week if the numbness is any better and if I can get the last treatment. I asked if the chemo'll be any less effective by stopping early, but since I've had 10 out of 12 treatments, Dr. C says it should be fine at this point. Plus, I'm kind of sick of chemo. I just got the Herceptin yesterday. We were out of there within 45 minutes of seeing the doctor. Good thing, because having an appointment after 9 means they run out of seats. Even though the Herceptin alone should be nothing compared to chemo, my lower legs and the top of my feet really hurt last night, so I guess muscle aches are still a problem.
    I also told the doctor I think I'm having hot flashes, and he said it's likely the chemo's put me in menopause and my ovaries have stopped functioning (even though my mother didn't believe that we both could be having hot flashes). That would explain the missing period. I noticed a few weeks ago I'd randomly get really hot at night, but I thought it was just because our second-floor bedroom is a furnace. But then it started happening in the middle of the day too. For someone who's usually cold ALL THE TIME, random waves of heat are kind of alarming, and then afterward, I'm even colder.
    On my To Do list: I'll need to have another MUGA scan to make sure the Herceptin isn't ruining my heart, call Dr. K to reschedule my surgery to an earlier date, call Tricare to fix their stuff as usual, pass the first round of tests coming up in my freshman-level classes, and buy some 100% cotton sheets.

First Bone Marrow Biopsy Awake

   I had my bone marrow biopsy this morning. Awake. They gave me Ativan first though which made the room start spinning. I was much more exposed for this one than the previous ones, but they gave me a sheet to cover up my butt. Dr. C started poking my back bone to show where he was going to do it, and that was probably the most painful part of it all. He numbed my back and the medication hurt going in, but that was it. Watching Kyle's face as he watched him do the procedure was the worst part. Dr. C was having trouble getting into my "21-year-old bones" and was cranking away with a needle back there. Luckily I couldn't feel any of it, I was just trying to not get pushed off the table. It hurt for like a second when he sucked out the marrow. And my leg started to hurt when he broke off part of the bone for the biopsy. But that went away after a few seconds, and they were done. They showed us the two capsules of marrow fluids and the pieces of bone they got. Ouch.
   Then I passed out for a few hours. (Why didn't they wait until the Ativan knocked me out first?) Now my back is sore like usual. I'm looking forward to getting the drain out tomorrow so I can shower (8 days). Aunt Janie and Grandma came up to visit, so hopefully I can go in earlier to have the doctor remove it. And Aunt Janie bought me a fancy blender so we can make smoothies now, since the chemo's probably going to wipe out my appetite.
   Dr. C didn't have any updates for me, the lymph node tests aren't back yet. My heart's fine, as I heard yesterday. The genetics counselor wants to see me again next week to get more tests done.
   My arm pain's getting better, but now it just feels like I'm getting punched in the armpit, repeatedly. The vicodin acts like speed when I'm trying to fall asleep, so I've just been taking extra strength Tylenol. My right arm also won't bend out as far anymore, which might be a good thing, since the double jointedness in my elbows creeps everyone out so much. Everything else is just itchy, itchy, itchy, including the back of my arm, which is numb so I can't scratch it.

Day After Surgery

   They doped me up on a bunch of pain killers last night but it didn't help me sleep at all. When I finally fell asleep around 6, the nurses came in to wake up the old lady next to me, who was wearing a hearing aid. Dr. K's assistant, Donna, came in pretty early to check on me and get my discharge paperwork ready. She told me they did the axillary lymph node dissection because when they checked the sentinel node, they couldn't get clear results whether it was cancerous or not. I asked if that was normal, but she said that it rarely happens (go figure). She said it was just kind of a grey area of what to do and they discussed it with the oncologist during surgery, so they just decided to take everything out that was there. I'm getting the drain out next Thursday and a nurse is coming out to my house tomorrow to check on me again.
   I got home around 1 after fighting with a missing date on my controlled substance prescription (thanks Doc...), but we went to the grocery store and I was feeling fine. I'm supposed to be taking Vicodin every 3 hours. It's making me incredibly nauseous, but it stops the sudden sharp/burning/stabbing pains in the back of my arm. I spent most of the day knocked out on our fancy new reclining couch (very good idea Kyle), while Mommy yelled at the little brats screaming their heads off in our front yard. Maybe I'll go throw up on them next time... But for now, I think the milk of magnesia is finally kicking in! Yes!