Chemo and Gene Testing Update

Hi Everyone,

It’s hard to believe that I first wrote you 6 months ago with the news about my breast cancer. How quickly time goes by, even when you’re not having any fun. I do have a lot of really great news and I will try to make this quick.

First and foremost I am done with chemo. Yeah! I can’t tell you how much I hated chemo and everything that it has done to my body. But it is over with. I will miss the nurses and patients at the oncologist’s office very much. Doctor Bowers and the nursing staff was terrific, they made a truly awful experience a bearable one and dare I say, some of us even had a little bit of fun together. I can’t even describe what I feel for the other patients, there is something truly bonding between women who are battling breast cancer together. Although I may never see most of them again I will think of them often and hope that their struggles are minimal. I am so glad to have chemo behind me I feel like doing cartwheels. J.R. was out of town for training for my last session, we were both sad about that, but since he made every other Dr. apt. and chemo session it was OK. Steph came home a couple of days early and Mary took time off work to be with me. And as an added bonus, our friend Kris Edberg Lasserud showed up to the last session. So I had plenty of support. We also took a cake in as a thank you for the nursing staff, and everyone, including the other patients, had cake. We share that way. I was so elated to have the last session done I think I skipped out of the office. Later that evening JoAnne came over and made Steph and I dinner and took care of me. I really love all of my family and friends, I am so thankful to have you in my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you! So chemo is done!

So what is the next step? Well, it goes like this. The next step is surgery. I am fully expanded now and have to wait two months at full expansion before they can do the implant surgery. I have scheduled my surgery for Thursday, May 24th, Memorial Day weekend. If you can believe it this is an outpatient surgery that takes about an hour and a half to complete. Wild huh? The recovery time is practically nothing. My surgeon said that most women go in on a Thursday or Friday and are back to work the following Monday. They send you home with some Vicodin and tell you to rest. Hell I’ve already got the Vicodin so I’m ready to go!

About a month after surgery I will see my oncologist again and have another blood test done. This blood test should be able to determine whether or not I am cancer free. They can’t get an accurate result now because I still have chemo in my system. They will look at what they call my tumor markers and be able to declare cancer free or not. Once that is done I will start my hormone therapy. If you remember from one of the earliest e-mails, my type of cancer is estrogen and progesterone receptor positive. What that means is that if there are still any cancer cells in my body, then they are fed by the estrogen and progesterone in my body. What the hormone therapy will do is block the estrogen and progesterone and prevent any cancer cells from growing, essentially cutting off the “air supply” so to speak. If any one is interested, the hormone therapy drug I will be taking is called Tamoxifen. I am not sure what to expect from hormone therapy but I am pretty certain it will be unpleasant. I do know it will put me into menopause so I have that to look forward to. Let’s see, menopause or dying, menopause or dying…hmmm, I’ll take menopause for $200 Alex! As for treatment options, that’s about it for me. Life goes back to normal pretty quickly. The books say that it’s common for patients to miss all the activity of treatment and being the center of attention but I can tell you that for me, that is not the case. I am so ready to get life back the way it was before all this started and I am already not missing the Dr.’s office.

Yesterday was my last set of “labs”, which is my weekly blood test to see where my white blood cell counts are, and while I was there, I got some really great news. If you remember, a few weeks ago I took a blood test to see if I carried the cancer gene. The results came back and I do not carry the cancer gene. Why is that important? Well, by not carrying the gene, I do not have to worry about developing ovarian cancer, outside of normal percentages. A high percentage of breast cancer patients who do carry the cancer gene develop ovarian cancer at a later date. As a preventative measure most elect to have a hysterectomy. Also, the chance that my sister or niece carries the gene is highly unlikely, so they do not have to do anything out of the norm for breast cancer detection. Just knowing this information is a load off my mind. It’s just one less thing for me to worry about. Although I’d like to know what caused my breast cancer, was it a fluke or did I do something to cause it, I’m just not going to stress my self out over something that I can not change or do anything about now. Someday I will know the answer to that question but for now, it’s just not that important.

Let’s see, the last good news that I have is that I am getting my hair back. Oh sure it looks like new born baby chick hair and sticks straight up, but it is hair. It’s coming in baby soft and really blonde. I haven’t been this blonde since I screwed it up in 9th grade, so that’s kind of fun. I haven’t the slightest idea what my hair is going to look like when it comes back, I honestly don’t even know what my real color is so anything is going to be a surprise. My eyebrows and eyelashes can not come back fast enough for me. Today I noticed that my right eyebrow is darker than the left one and quite frankly I think I look like an idiot. But looking like Uncle Fester when I am out looks even funnier so I continue with the eyebrow drawing.

So that’s pretty much it for me. I’ll be going back to work on April 16th and I can not wait. I’m glad I was able to take this time off because I truly needed it. But now that treatment is over with and the surgery is fairly simple, I am so ready to get life back on track. I know this is not the end of this journey, but it is certainly the end of this chapter. I can not thank you all enough for your love and support through this whole experience. I am truly blessed to have you all in my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I probably won’t send out any more updates until after my surgery is over with, but please feel free to touch base with any questions you have at any time.

I hope this finds you all well! Have a great day!

All my love,

Jen