New Doctors and a Surgery Date!

Both of my new doctors are at the Huntsman Cancer Center. This is a VERY pretty building! Very plush and nice inside. I met with the plastic surgeon on Tuesday and the general surgeon yesterday. First I'll talk about the surgeon, as he'll be doing the beginning part of surgery. This surgeon's approach will be a little different than than of Dr.Lloyd. He will do whichever surgery I decide to do, and I'm still leaning toward bi-lateral mastectomy. He will be removing  ALL lymph nodes on the side that had cancer, this is different than Dr. Lloyd. Remember she was going to take a few and check for cancer and only remove those that were positive? This doc believes that if he were to do that we could get a false negative because I've already had chemo. Not knowing which nodes were infected to begin with leaves us now knowing which ones may have cancer cells lurking. This news was very shocking to me. But now that I've had time to think about it I'm comfortable with the decision. The surgeon had not had time to review my imaging to see the before and after pictures of my tumor. He is going to have a radiologist review them and  get back to me on whether he thinks I'm a candidate for nipple sparing. If the cancer was to close to the edge then I will lose them. If it looks like I'm in the clear he will still do tissue testing during surgery from under the nipple to make sure there are no positive cancer cells, if there are then the nipples will have to go. Overall I thought this surgeon was nice, not as friendly as Dr. Lloyd, but I think he'll do a good job.
The plastic surgeon Tuesday. I thought he was a nice enough guy. I'm going to have to get used to have a resident Dr. and extra nurses in tow though. That's how the U and Huntsman work, they are training grounds. He'll place my expanders and do all my follow up visits, which means I'll be seeing him on a weekly basis for a while. One week after surgery I'll have my 1st set of drains removed (there are two drains on each side), and then at the 2 week appointment he'll remove the last two. Around 3 weeks after surgery will be when they start filling my tissue expanders, and this will continue on a weekly basis until we get to where I want to be. Depending on healing time and how long it takes to fill the expanders will determine when I can start radiation.

Surgery was scheduled for September 15th. They'll call me the Friday before and let me know my surgery time and instructions. I can expect a one night stay at the 4 Seasons resort called the Huntsman Cancer Hospital, which means I'll come home some time Tuesday. The only reason I would stay longer would be if there were complications or I am having pain management issues.

The surgery info has been sent over to my insurance to be preauthorized. There is a chance that they won't cover a bi-lateral mastectomy. Dealing with the Insurance is a big head ache!! I should know something before surgery I hope!!

I have moved my herceptin chemo to September 5th at 9am. I will not need a driver to this appointment.
I have also rescheduled my echo cardiogram to September 11th at 9:30am. Again, I can drive myself and won't need a driver.
It'll be nice to have those done before surgery for comfort sake :) Depending on how I'm feeling I may need to push my September 26th chemo back a week. For that chemo I most likely will need a driver, but I'll ask for help when it gets closer.

I am enjoying having my kids back in school! I plan on getting my house back in order and organized better while they are at school and before surgery. Cleaning makes me happy! And feeling good enough to clean is awesome!

Thank you for your continued prayers! My journey is far from over! This next part is very scary for me! Keep praying for me, your faith and prayers will help carry me through this!

I love you all!

New Doctors and a New Hospital

These past few weeks I've learned my insurance didn't cover my plastic surgeon. There are NO plastic surgeon's at St. Marks that take my insurance! After talking with an upper management at my Insurance they thought they could work out a one time contract with the plastic surgeon that I wanted, however, I received word yesterday that they did NOT want to pursue the one time contract as there are other doctors at the University hospital that I could choose from. I kind of thought this may happen so I've spent time this week looking into the surgeons and plastic surgeons at the U. I had one doc recommended to me that does plastic surgery. I talked to ladies in my support group and several of them had him as their doc and they loved him. The good new is, he takes my insurance! Of the 3 surgeons he works with only 1 of them takes my insurance. I've made appointments with both docs for this next week. If all goes like I'd like, I should have a surgery date set by the end of the week, but if I had to guess, I'd say surgery most likely will happen the week of September 15th.
So with the new doctors comes a change of hospital. I'm not too excited to go to the U, but hopefully as the surgery date gets closer I can have a change of heart and attitude.

Herceptin Treatment #1

Quick update of what's happened since my last email!
A huge thank you to my family for putting together the Caramels for Christy night! I loved being able to visit with each one of you that came. And I especially loved all the hugs! For those of you who were there during the sudden down pour of rain, wasn't that awesome?! I have a pretty amazing family, on both sides, and I'm so thankful for all that they do to support me and help me out!
My surgery date is still tentative. The reason? The short answer is that I'm working with my insurance to find a surgeon and plastic surgeon that BOTH take my insurance and work at the same hospital. I am really hoping to have this resolved by the middle of this week. I may have to switch hospitals for surgery, but I'm still holding out hope that we can find a resolution that allows me to stay at St. Marks.
My MRI was on the 8th of August. It was just as nerve racking as I thought it would be. And to say I'm glad it's over and done is an under statement! My veins are pretty hammered from chemo so they IV didn't go too well. While the contrast was being injected my vein burst, which made for a fun bruise. While the MRI wasn't pleasant the results from it are INCREDIBLE! The lime size cancer tumor is completely gone! Which means there was a complete response to the chemo!! I got to see the results with my own eyes, and it was pretty cool! They showed me the MRI imaging from March and the one from the most recent so that I could see the difference. Just because the tumor is gone doesn't mean there aren't some single cancer cells left behind, so there will still be a surgery and radiation.
Last week I met with my radiation oncologist. It was a very educational meeting that explained why radiation after surgery is so helpful. Once surgery is over and I get the green light from the plastic surgeon I'll meet with the radiation oncologist again to get mapped out with a few very small tattoo's for treatment. Radiation could begin as soon as a month after surgery, but it ultimately depends on my healing from surgery. Back in March I was told I would have 30 treatments of radiation (5 days a week for 6 weeks), but it looks like it may only be 25 treatments (5 days a week for 5 weeks). Guess we'll wait and see how it all works out.
My herceptin treatment was last Friday. My son Bradley was my chemo buddy. He loves going to my treatments with me. Maybe he should be a medical oncologist when he grows up...
My port access went very smooth and wasn't uncomfortable at all! Wahoo! That always makes me happy!
I met with a Doctor that I had never seen before. He's a retired doc that comes in occasionally to help out. My wait to see him was almost a 30 minute wait. My longest wait to see a Dr. We talked about my finger nails, which are showing signs of a reaction from taxotere. A couple of my nail beds are bruised and have fallen off. Not very pretty.
We scheduled my next treatment and my next echo cardiogram.
Here are the results from my visit:
My weight was 142
White blood count: 3, normal is between 4.2-10.5
Red blood count: 2.98, normal is between 4.04-5.48
Hematocrit- 30.9%, normal is between 38-48
Platelet count- 101, normal is between 140-450

The herceptin treatment is much quicker than the original chemo appointments! And there are no nasty side effects! This past weekend I felt great!

My next treatment will be September 16th at 8:50am. I will need a driver to this appointment because I will not be able to drive after surgery for about a month. A driver has already been found for this chemo.
My next echo cardiogram is on September 23rd at 10am (Aundrea's birthday!!) I have already lined up a driver for this appointment as well. I will have an echo cardiogram every 3 months, so the next one would be the end of December.

Thank you for continuing to pray for me! My journey is not complete! I'm excited that the hard chemo's are done! That's a big relief! I know there are still hard days to come, but with all the love and support I continue to receive I know I'll get through it! Thank you for loving me and strengthening me! I love you all!

Chemo #6, The last of the hard ones!!

After the most amazing family vacation I came home to have my last and final hard chemo! I'm so grateful to have had a vacation! We spent a week up in Jackson Hole hiking, playing in Jenny Lake, String Lake, going to a rodeo, riding Grandpa's motorcycle, canoeing at Colter Bay and canoeing from the Jackson Lake dam down to Cattleman's Bridge. The food we had was so yummy! The cousin and family time was wonderful! This was a much needed get away from reality and I'm so happy for the memories that were created!

My amazing husband took the day off to be with me and drive me to chemo! I'm love having him with me! He is my ROCK!
My appointment was at 9am. I was taken back to have my port accessed pretty quick. I had a nurse I'd never seen do the access and it didn't go to well. It as pretty uncomfortable and then the blood wouldn't flow. She tried flushing it with saline and heparin, but it didn't work. She ended up having me lay on my back with my right arm behind my head. I made coughing sound while she flicked a syringe trying to unplug my port. I eventually started laughing because I sounded so silly fake coughing and that got my blood to flow. And to top it off my access needle was placed crooked. :(

After a quick visit with the Louise (a Dr. I have never seen before) I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for my drugs to be mixed in the chemo room.
My weight today was 140lbs.
My Blood work:
White blood count- 6.2 (down a little from my nadir, which was 6.3)
Hematacrit- 33.4 (up from 30 at my last nadir)
Platelets- 176 (at my nadir I was at 135)
My kidney functions was good too.

My chemo buddies today were Gaby Monroy and Amy Petersen. My husband stayed for a while and then went home to get my 3 youngest kids so they could be there for the bell ringing! Ringing the bell was everything I hoped it would be! It was quite an emotional experience! I cried! I know I'm not done, but to be done with this part of chemo is so exciting! I'm ready to move on!

I scheduled a consult with the Radiation Dr. for August 12th at 11am. This appointment is usually 2hours and they do the tattoo dots, but because I will not have had surgery yet they will postpone the tattoo part and the appointment should only be an hour.

My MRI was scheduled for August 8th at 4:30pm. I'm going to call my family Dr. to get a prescription to 'chill' me out for this appointment. This is the test I live the VERY LEAST!! They will do a contrast IV and I will get to lay on my face for 45 minutes. Anyone want to take my place and do this for me?!

My herceptin chemo is August 15th and we will be discussing my MRI results. The herceptin treatment will much faster than the chemo I've been receiving. With the port access, visit with the Dr. and the drug administration it should only be an hour to hour and a half. Bradley will be my buddy at this appointment. He loves the cancer center! :)

After meeting with the surgeon and plastic surgeon earlier this month we set a tentative date for surgery of Sept 4th. This could be a one night stay in the hospital, but depending on my pain level it could be a two night stay. I am currently leaning towards a double mastectomy, but I'm waiting for the peace of mind that this is the right decision.

I can't say enough how much your love and support mean to me and my family! We couldn't do this without your love, service and prayers! It's true what they say, you don't know how many friends you have until you go through something hard! I hope that I am able to give something back to you as you watch me travel this path. And I look forward to the day I can pay it forward to someone else in need!

I love you all!

Nadir #5

Before I give you the info from today's doctor visit I wanted to give you a quick run down of how this last chemo went. This one was by far the hardest on me physically. On my birthday, the day after chemo I felt ok in the morning so I took Bradley, a friend of his and my other kids bowling. We went to lunch after too. By early afternoon I was beginning to be sick. I frosted our cake, took a nap on the couch and by dinner time I was too sick to think about eating so we had cold cereal. Bradley really liked having cold cereal (he doesn't eat much anyway...) and then the rest of my family had birthday cake. I went to bed early as I was feeling pretty crumby. Saturday was a hard day, felt pretty nauseated and blah, but after taking a 2 hour nap I ventured out to get ice cream with Bradley. After our fun outing I had overdone it and came home and was sick. Sunday morning I was feeling good enough that I thought I could sit through sacrament meeting so I went to church. Came home from sacrament meeting and took a 2 hour nap. After my family came home from church I started feeling lousy and in a quick instant I thought for sure I was going to throw up!  It was the strongest nausea I felt from chemo! It was followed by diarrhea and I soon found I was so sick I couldn't move. Dave came to my rescue with a nausea pill and carried me to my bed to wait for it to kick in. While we were able to get the nausea and diarrhea under control I stayed in bed for the rest of the day. Monday I felt better than Sunday but very weak and with no appetite. Monday Drea went off to Brighton Camp to spend the week, which was great, and she had a great time. Dallas took the boys to Old Navy to get a fun 4th of July shirt and to gave me some quiet time. Tuesday I continued to have low energy and no appetite but decided to start a crazy project despite my lack of energy. Tuesday was the beginning of repainting Drea's bedroom while she was gone. This day I taped off all her baseboards and crown molding and I was wiped out! Tuesday night Dave, myself and a friend of mine started the painting process. Wednesday I was feeling ok, not as nauseated, but still had no energy. Dave did another coat of paint and we were hoping it would be the last one, but it wasn't. Thursday I was very weak, nauseated and could hardly move around without getting winded. Despite my not feeling well Dallas and I did a final coat of paint in Drea's room. After painting I spent a good chunk of the day either on the couch laying down or in the bathroom. Thursday was a hard day! I went to bed early and Friday morning I was feeling much improved! I was able to go to our ward 4th of July breakfast, my family BBQ and to fireworks that night. Saturday we took the kids up Big Cottonwood canyon to hike Lake Mary. I only made it about 1/3 of the way and was too winded, so we went back down and walked around Silver Lake.

Ok, now on to today's visit...
My nadir buddy was my Aunt Denise. She is someone I look up to and admire, and she has a great knowledge of the medical field so it was nice to have her at my side. There was really no technical stuff discussed but it was nice to get her insight on questions to ask at a later time for the surgeon and radiation oncologist.

My blood work results:
Hematocrit- 30. Normal is 38. (no wonder I'm so tired!)
White blood count- 6.3. Normal is between 4-10.
Platelets- 135. Normal is between 120-420.
Today I weighed 144. They are not to worried about the weight gain because I'm healthy. :) I'm not too upset about it either but I am sad that I have very few clothes that fit.

We talked about adding a pro-biotic to my daily routine to help get my gut back on track before the next round of chemo.
I have been experiencing neuropathy in my fingertips adn toes. He said I'm lucky that I haven't experienced it sooner as most chemo patients do. This might get worse with the next chemo but once chemo is done the neuropathy will go away.

My MRI will be 2 weeks after my next chemo. This will give them a better image of what's going on in my breast and where there are still cancer cells. The MRI will help the surgeon know how to proceed with surgery. (However, I still have a say). My doctor mentioned to me today that a lumpectomy + radiation have the same outcome as a mastectomy. I'm really struggling to wrap my brain around that! It feels to risky in my opinion.
My plan is still to do my 1st herceptin treatment before surgery, but the doctor said this treatment can be postponed a week or 2 and it would be ok. Once chemo is complete and I'm doing just the herceptin treatments I most likely will get my periods back. BUT, once I start tomoxifen (after radiation is complete) I will go back into an induced menopause, or at least there's a 50% chance.

I made an appointment to meet with my surgeon. Dave and I will meet with her this Wednesday to go over my options and choices. I'm really looking forward to this meeting as I'm hoping to gain some peace of mind as well as become more educated so I can understand what's going to take place. I most likely will have to meet with her again after the MRI to go over it's results and confirm the plan of action, but I'm ok with that.

I am meeting with a fellow breast cancer survivor this week who has experienced surgery and just started radiation. I hope to gain from her experience some insight as to what I may experience as well. Strange as it may sound I'm looking forward to this meeting and our conversation.

Thank you for continuing to pray for me and my family! Thank you for loving and serving us! There is not a night that goes by that we don't pray for those people who are blessing our family! We are so grateful! There are times that I feel your love so strongly that I get emotional and cry. Your service strengthens my spirit and gives me strength to fight on!

I love you all!

Quick update on blood work

I forgot to include in my email yesterday that my results from my echo cardiogram were good. No concerns.
For those that are interested here is my blood work results from yesterday as well.

Potassium- Low
WBC- 6.1, Normal is between 4.2-10.5
RBC- 3.14, Normal is between 4.04-5.48, so I'm low. No surprise as I feel tired quickly!
Hematocrit- 31.3%, Normal is between 38-48%, so I'm low.
Platelet count- 116, Normal is between 140-450, so I'm low.

So far today I'm feeling just ok. I feel pretty bleh. I slept good last night, which is always a plus!
This morning Bradley and I went shopping for our birthday cake ingredients and our cake is made! Just gotta wait until its cooled so we can put it together. Bradley chose a white cake mix and wants chocolate pudding in the middle, and frosted with cool-whip and sprinkled with mini chocolate chips. I told him he could pick out what we have for dinner, so far he hasn't made up his mind.
Thank you so much to all those who have wished Bradley and I a Happy Birthday! And also a big thank you to those who have dropped of flowers or sent me pictures of flowers! These acts lift my spirit and I feel your love!

Thank You!
And, I Love you all!

Chemo #5

A big thank you to my sister-in-law for driving me to my chemo appointment! Thanks Judy! I love you!
Today’s appointment was pretty smooth. I was in and out by 2:30pm. My port access was done by a student, and was not too painful, but didn’t feel so great either. I’ve done my good deed for the year now. A students gotta learn somehow…
Today was the last time I will see Dr. Harker. He’s retiring at the end of the month. I am so happy to have had him as my Dr. What an amazing doctor he is! My new doctor is Dr. Call, however I will only see him after I have my next echo cardiogram in 3 months. For my next nadir and chemo I will see Rick the P.A. I’ve seen him for most of my nadir appointments and have really liked him. The reason I’ll being seeing Rick and not my doctor has to do with the volume of patients Dr. Harker had, there were so many they had to share patients around. For the ‘important’ stuff I’ll see Dr. Call and for the stuff Rick can do he’ll do. I’m cool with that.
Today I weighed 140 pounds, down 1 pound from my nadir. My blood pressure was like 106 over 69.
 *We talked about my menopause. The chemo ingredients are what are causing this induced menopause and once I’m done with the hard chemo I have a 50% chance of remaining a menopause state while doing the Herceptin treatments. After radiation I will be taking tomoxifen and will continue having  a 50% chance of continuing on in menopause. I will take tomoxifen for 5+ years, so by the time I’m done taking it I’ll be in my late 40’s, which means I may not get my periods back. We discussed some of the side effects of menopause, which I will spare you as it will make you blush, and maybe me.
 *After my next, and LAST hard chemo I will make an appointment for a consultation with the radiologist. This is just an appointment to talk about radiation and what they are going to do and what I can expect. Within 2 weeks of my LAST and FINAL hard chemo I need to have an MRI done to see what’s going on in my breasts, and then within a  few days of the MRI I need to see Dr. Lloyd,my surgeon and discuss surgery. Dr. Harker thinks I’m a candidate for a lumpectomy because I’ve had such good response to chemo. He said to talk to Dr.Lloyd and get her feelings, this cancer was quite involved and big and she may not be comfortable doing a lumpectomy. To be honest I’m nervous doing a lumpectomy. I have a 12% change of getting breast cancer again whether I do a single or double mastectomy. Interesting that the percentage doesn’t change by doing a double.
 *The plan is still to do the herceptin treatment 3 weeks after my 6th chemo and do surgery the following week. BUT, I need to see when the surgeon is available, so that’s just my tentative schedule. For my Herceptin treatments I will not need to see the doctor, but I will need to have a blood draw. I will also not have a nadir appointment. After my 9th treatment (My 3rd only Herceptin treatment) I will do another echo cardiogram and at my next herceptin treatment I’ll see Dr. Call.
*After surgery I will be given 3-4 weeks of healing time before radiation begins. They will be radiating the whole breast and it will be penetrating deep enough to get my rib wall and everything in between. The side effects of radiation begin to be uncomfortable around the 3rd or 4th week.
 *I talked to the radiation advocate about co-pays at my radiation appointments. They will not bill me a co-pay until they know how my insurance will pay. They do payment plans if I end up having to pay my co-pay every day for 6 weeks. I can also call my insurance and ask about coverage, but I was told that they may not even know until its been billed.
 My chemo buddies today were: My sister in law Judy, my good friend Becky Bench, and 3 of my kids- Dallas, Drea and Colter. Drea and Colter only came to see the therapy dog Trent. Turns out Drea is quite the dog whisperer! Trent loved her and plopped himself on the floor for her to rub his belly, this lasted for quite a while. It was fun playing games and visiting.Dave joined us at lunch time and brought me the best Jimmy Johns sandwich! Thanks honey!! Becky brought me a yummy chocolate raspberry cupcake which I ate after chemo. It was delicious! Thanks Becky!
 One of the highlights from today’s chemo was watching my friend Merna ring the bell! It seriously made me emotional! Before she rang the bell she could see I was almost done with my chemo so she waited. She came and held my hand while I received my nuelasta shot, which I think is the most painful part of chemo!! I got some great pictures today, but my phone won’t download to my computer for some reason. I’ll post a few on Facebook until I can figure out how to download them and send them via email.
 Thank you to those who have surprised me with flowers! To say thank you doesn’t feel like enough! I love the support, the encouragement,and your generosity! I love the text messages, the emails and phone calls! You are all the medicine I need to get through this! Thank you, thank you, thank you, and I love you all!