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Re: Still Missing NEDenise
AMY! When I come on here...it's been four years now since my 3b treatment and i am still alive and been so lucky, I open the link for this site which I have set to the single worst moment in my trip...the post where Denise says she has brain mets....and this is how i access this site. So you can imaginge when I just saw this thread how I felt my prayers were answered. Yours and all of you women who wrote on it, THANK THANK THANK YOU. It is an honour to have the Survivor guilt I have...to have shared with Denise a short unique and significant moment in time....we both get diagnosed at relatively the same time, she was ahead of me but inside a year...and we are both teachers, good middle class irish catholic girls, me in canada, she in Pennsylvania. Exact same (we thot) level of breast cancer, exact same type (non hormonal; HER2 only) except she with a happy marriage and two sons.....and then she dies. The reason I keep that one post she made telling us she had brain mets as my opening page for this site, is to continue to honour her; to never forget. And one day my Survivor guilt will dissipate. This fall I will send her widower another dozen roses on her anniversary. Thank you Amy. This helps us remember the truth: THEY CAN AFFORD TO DEVELOP MARS AS A FLIGHT OF FANCY FOR A BILLIONAIRE YET ONE IN EIGHT OF US HAVE A TERMINAL, TRAGIC DISEASE...
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fall 2008: mammo of rt breast worrisome so am asked to redo mammo and have ultrasound of rt breast.I delay it til january 2009 and the results are "no cancer in rt breast. phew."
found plum sized lump in right breast the day before my dad died: April 17th 2011. saw it in mirror, while i was wearing a top, examining my figure after losing 10 lbs on dr. bernstein diet.
diagnosed may 10 2011
mast/lymphectomy: june 7 2011, 5/20 cancerous nodes. stage 3a before radiation oncologist during our first mtg on july 15th says he found cancer on the lymph node of my breast bone. Now stage 3b.
her2+++, EN-, PN-. Rt brst tumors:3 at onset, 4.5 cm was the big one
chemos: 3fec's followed by 3 taxotere, total of 18 wks chemo. sept: halfway thru chemo the mastectomy scar decides to open and ooze pus. (not healed before chemo) eventually with canasten powder sent by friend in ny (illegal in canada) it heals.
radiations:although scheduled to begin 25 january 2012, I am so terrified by it (rads cause other cancers) I don't start til february, miss a bunch, reschedule them all and finally finish 35 rads mid april. reason for 7 extra atop the 28 scheduled is that when i first met my rads oncologist he said he saw a tumor on the lymph node of my breastbone. extra 7 are special kind of beam used for that lymphnode. rads onc tells me nobody ever took so long to do rads so he cannot speak for effectiveness. trials had been done only on consecutive days so......we'll see.....
10 mos of herceptin started 6 wks into chemo. canadian onc says 10 mos is just as effective as the full yr recommended by dr. slamon......so we'll see..completed july 2012.
Sept 18 2012: reconstruction and 3 drains. fails. i wear antibiotic pouch on my job for two months and have 60 consecutive days visiting a nursing centre where they apply burn victims' silver paper and clean the oozing infection daily. silicone leaks out daily. plastic surgeon in caribbean. emergency dept wont remove "his" work. He finally appears and orders me in into an emergency removal of implant. I make him promise no drains and I get my way. No infection as a result. Chest looks like a map of Brazil. Had a perfectly good left breast on Sept 17th but surgeon wanted to "save another woman an operation" ? so he had crashed two operations together on my left breast, foregoing the intermediary operation where you install an expander. the first surgeon a year earlier had flat out refused to waste five hours on his feet taking both boobs. flat out refusal. between the canadian health system saving money and both these asses, I got screwed. who knows when i can next get enough time off work (i work for myself and have no substitute when my husband is on contract) to get boobs again. arrrgh.
I have a blog where I document this trip and vent.
www.nora'scancerblog.blogspot.com . I stopped the blog before radiation. I think the steroids made me more angry and depressed and i just hated reading it anymore
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