Treatment & Care: Chemotherapy

Day 216: Surgery 4 of 4, here I come. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be finished with the last procedure in my fight against breast cancer.

Tomorrow I enter the final stretch of my journey from cancer patient to cancer survivor. I’ll have my last surgery, which will mostly involve the final phase of my breast reconstruction. Dr. Keller will remove my breast tissue expander, add an implant and attach a new nipple – gotta love the miracles of modern medicine, right?! Dr. Kolkman will remove my chemo port at the same time – I’m off chemo now, but the port is still there because removing it separately would require five operations instead of four. The port doesn’t bother me at all and it’s not posing any risks, so as far as my doctors and I are concerned, the fewer surgeries my body has to endure, the better.  

I feel like I’m graduating a course I never wanted to take. At last, I can shed the part of me that is a cancer patient, and embrace my new identity as a cancer survivor. I’m about to face the final exam, the final test of my strength, and soon my life can get back to normal, however changed it will always be.

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