Well, now that I have finally updated what has gone on in 2006, I will fill folks in on what has happened the first 5 months or so of this year.
After asking around a lot, I finally found a new surgeon and a plastic surgeon for reconstruction. All scans and mammograms were clean in January and February, so I felt pretty confident. It was a hard decision knowing that things looked good to go ahead with the double mastectomy, but the emotional roller coaster of the past year and a half had been too much to have to keep doing every 6 months, so the surgery was planned for April 3rd.
I had the surgery, and though I kept waiting for the big emotional meltdown, it never happened. It has been strange to get used to such a major part of your body missing, but it has felt very natural in a weird way. It is not exactly the most beautiful think right now as the surgeon left extra skin to have more to work with when I start the reconstruction. That is comforting, as I know it won't look like it does for the rest of my life....there is hope there. The best thing about it....NO BRAS....what freedom....HEHEHE
About a week after my surgery, I got a call from my surgeon. It is standard of care for them to send all tissue to pathology from surgery, and he was calling to give me the results of that report. I was, of course, expecting it to be nothing, all normal tissue. BUT, as with everything about my case over the last 2 years, nothing is normal. I had 2mm of what they call DCIS, kind of a group of cancer cells confined to a specific area, coming back on the left side. I couldn't believe it. After 6 months of chemo, and a year of herceptin, it was coming back in less than 6 months of finishing all that. By God's grace, it was confined to that specific area and had not infiltrated any surrounding tissue so it has not spread. All nodes they checked were also negative. With the surgery, the cancer was gone with no chance of it coming back now since all the breast tissue was gong. I was shocked, and yet relieved all at the same time.
You see, I looked at this as confirmation that I made the right decision. I knew it was what I needed to do, yet at times wondered if it was really necessary. I had prayed about the decision and God had given me peace about it, but I still wondered if it was what I was supposed to do, if it is what I had to do. Well, with the test results, all doubt I had about having the surgery disappeared. I was amazed by God's timing in all this....if I had done the surgery in January as planned, who knows if they would have been able to see any evidence of the cancer. I was amazed, and incredibly thankful.
During the time I was off work recovering from the mastectomy, I finally had made the decision to go and talk to a gynecologist/oncologist about my ovaries. The genetic mutation I have also puts me at higher risk for ovarian cancer. Every physician that I had seen for the last 6-8 months had been asking me what I planned to do with my ovaries. I had more or less refused to think about it for the last 2 years, the acutal cancer was enough to deal with, I didn't want to think about the maybes....the possibilities. But I couldn't put it off anymore. Especially in light of the results from the mastectomy. This was a persistent disease, and even though I know it is a completely different kind of cancer, I don't feel like I want to take the risk.
When I saw the gyn/onc doctor, he confirmed, yes, I needed to do this. He said they could scan me every 3-6 months and it could still be missed. Ovarian cancer is nothing to mess around with. We don't have very good tests to detect it, and that is why it is so horrible, we generally don't catch it as early.
So, now the decision has been made. The surgery is scheduled for June 15, 2007. Just 2 days after my 38th birthday I will have a complete hysterectomy. This has been a lot harder than the mastectomy, and in some ways harder than all I have been through in the last 2 years. This just seems more permanent. No children of my own, ever. Menopause with a pretty high potential for hot flashes....and in AZ in the summer, I don't see that being very fun. Overall, the whole thing pretty much stinks....but it could also save my life.....a preventative hysterectomy could save my life. My ability to give life will be gone, but I could be saving my own. I don't know, its just really hard.
Anyway, as I said, the decision has been made. The surgery is scheduled. And other than a few bumps along the way, I am doing okay with the decision. God has been working with me on some things, calming a lot of fears that I have, and giving me a sense of peace about it.
So that is what is coming up in the next 2 weeks. After the hysterectomy, they will let me start the process of the reconstruction, so there will be more surgery after that as well. I just figure the sooner I get everything started, the sooner I will be done. Maybe all of it will be done by march of next year....which still seems pretty far away, but at least there is an end in sight.
Well, now that I have updated the details of life in general, hopefully next time I can talk about some of the things God has been showing me through this experience of life.....
till then.
in HIM
anne
