Treatment & Care: Surgery

Day 60: I’ve decided to do chemotherapy. How could I not? I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid getting cancer again.

Remember those commercials, "This is your brain on drugs" with the egg in the frying pan? What a brilliant marketing campaign that was because, man, ain’t that the truth!

Being on strong meds all day for nearly a week definitely fried my brain. Especially for the first few days, I could barely complete a thought or remember a conversation I'd had only a few minutes earlier. Today is the first day I woke up and felt almost completely clear-headed, and what a GREAT feeling it is! My mom says my eyes look brighter now, and I think she’s right. Now if I could just get my emotions under control and quit crying whenever someone wants to do something nice for me, I'll be almost back to normal.

I'm still sore and moving pretty slowly, which was to be expected, but I’m definitely making good progress.

Since my last post about whether or not to do chemotherapy, I have had some very helpful conversations with my oncologist at LMH, and I’ve done some online research about people with similar recurrence scores to mine (a score of 23, which puts me at a 15% chance of recurrence). I’ve also discussed the matter at length with the people who know me best. It’s been an incredibly difficult decision, but after MUCH consternation, I have decided I will move forward with chemotherapy.

I know it will be tough, but I’ll be tougher – and it makes sense to do as much as I possibly can to avoid getting cancer ever again. It also makes me feel better about having only a single mastectomy because I’ll now be doing chemo as well.

I will do four treatments of a combination of Cytoxan and Taxotere (infusions) over a period of 12 weeks. I’m meeting with my doctors this afternoon to start making a plan. I’m also really hoping I can get my drain tubes removed today because they're just plain annoying and pretty gross, too.

I have so many people to thank. But today I feel the need to give a very special shout-out to my dear friend, Coletta, who recently went through an even more gruesome breast cancer journey than mine, and she did it with such grace, strength and courage. Coletta, you are truly my angel of strength! I love you, girl!

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