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Re: Honoring Our HER2 Lost
KDR and others: thank you so much for this. I believe the supermoderators etc should really listen to our need for a full comprehensive list. Newbies we all once were, but the only way out of that initial terror and paralysis is "through"....not "around" the truth. We log on here at every stage for exactly the same thing....the sisterhood, the love, but most of all, the truth. We get enough false positivism from folks in our lives who don't have BC but who are scared to lose us.
During the Iraq war the president of the US forbid television footage of caskets coming off military jets. In Canada, however, we photographed, published, and televised every single one. This is a similar difference here. I would hate to feel military families' lost ones are forgotten by the whole community. Respect is not the same thing as "putting the lost one out of your mind."
Stop protecting us from knowledge!! That is waaayyy condescending. I want ALL the details of these people that we have. They lived! They had details! They are not just names. I find that holding a prayer/meditation session with a list which INCLUDES their medical and other details, in front of me of all those whose lives were shortened by BC in all its forms gives me an intense connection to their unique beauty, the fears they must have had, and their innocent goodness in reaching out to others as they left this world....and in turn I get the pleasure of sending out prayer to their still-living souls...an intense "sending out" of respect and love to say "you, my sister....whom I never may have had the pleasure to meet....are valuable....I honour your memory. I send you my love." (just in case they didn't have too many folks of their own to do this.) This connection makes life gentler and more respectful. Reminds me to live better...for their sake.
I would hate to be forgotten by all of you.
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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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