Chemo

Chemo starts in 2 weeks.

The oncologist was terribly clinical, but that was mostly okay because people warned me she would be. She doesn't want to make a call, of course. She presented three different possible drug combinations we could use, explained some of the possible long-term side-effects of each (such as heart failure, kidney failure, and liver failure) and then left it to me to decide. "Nothing unusual about this cancer," she said, implying that any one of them would work as well as the others, within certain mathematical tolerances, of course.

When I asked about fertility, she said, "Well, you're looking at 6 or 7 years of treatment, and by then you'll be 40. You already have one child, so you don't really need to worry about it. I mean, I would be more concerned if you didn't have any children." As if having one child is some kind of consolation when faced with the prospect of being unable to have another, even though that's what you've always, always planned. She seem surprised when I started crying.

Oh well. Pick up and move on. "Call your GYN for more guidance on this," she said, which was fine with me because I like by gynecologist a hell of a lot more.

I typed up an email outlining the options and sent it over to Carville (my superstar biochemist cousin) and Katherine (my superstar hospital based psychologist sister) and Dave (my superstar attorney husband with the ex-boss whose husband is an oncologist) and I'll wait for their input.

And there are more tests. Echocardiogram (because one of the drugs I'm definitely getting can cause heart failure) and a bone scan to make sure this ache in my back isn't really a metastasis. Oh, and a quickie procedure to get the mediport inserted so I don't have to suffer bruised arms for the next year. And then chemo.

I'm numb. Let's go.

Waiting...

So I'm kind of bummed out today.

I guess it's because I'm in lag time. The five days between when they took the biopsies and when they came back were hell. But last week, there was a flurry of activity - appointments to make, people to call, things to do. That all stopped Wednesday, and I've been in a holding pattern ever since.

I'm a control freak. And I feel out of control. I need something to do, because when I'm still I swear I can feel the cancer growing. Yeah, that sounds crazy, and it probably is. I just want to get started.

Tomorrow, Brain MRI. (Yep, on a Sunday). Monday, oncologist. Then we can get this party started. (Right?)

What's next?

I've been working on all my big plans for a while now. For example, I've been on this weight loss crusade. After being overweight my whole life, I finally decided to really lose the weight and make it stick. I don't really know what distinctions I made that helped me get here, but once I made them, the weight loss thing got easy and here I am 3 months later and 35 pounds lighter.

I also have this idea for a business - kind of an offshoot of my marketing business - and I got really serious about making that happen. The novel was next on my list.

And then all of this.

I've started to get some answers from my doctors about what will happen, and mercifully this has taken me out of disaster-mode, but about a quarter inch to the left of disaster-mode is crisis-mode, where I am now. I am hyper-focused on whatever is right in front of me. Sunday, Brain MRI. Monday, Oncologist. Get the treatment plan. Send it to Dave's friend the oncologist for review. Send it to my cousin the super-star biochemist for his review. And then?

And then start chemo I guess. Not sure when, but probably soon. Probably next week. Get some scarfs. And then?

Then is where my to-do list ends, because after that I have no clue. I'll go to my treatments, however often they are. I'll keep working because I have to, and frankly, because I want to. I'll write here to keep sane.

I got tagged on a facebook meme, "The Threes of Me." One of the questions is this:

What are the three things you're most looking forward to?

I got stuck on this one. I could only think of one. It was this:

Being alive on my son's third birthday.

A viable goal, to be sure, but one that wasn't on my radar two weeks ago.

So how's Ann?

Ann is 33 years old.
Ann is typing on her laptop in bed.
Ann needs a shower.
Ann has breast cancer.

I never thought (never ever) that I would have breast cancer. You see, I had plans, and this wasn't one of them. Another baby, a couple of new business ideas, and growing old with Dave - I was thinking along those lines.

About a month ago, I noticed blood in my bra. Just a tiny little spot. "That's weird," I thought.

The next day, I thought, "Hmm...that's definitely weird."

The day after that, I thought, "Is that the same spot from yesterday?"

Always tiny, always easy to dismiss. Until one day, when my toddler and I were wrestling and I knew that last tackle hurt more than it should have, and I checked and found a shiny-wet blood stain the size of a nickel in my bra.

Okay, gross. TMI, you say. But I thought I had an infection. That's probably what you would have thought too. But you would have been wrong. Because I have breast cancer.

The next day, I was in my doctor's office. Looking back, I think she knew right away, but mercifully, she didn't let on. Two days after that, I was getting my first mammogram. (Did I mention I'm 33?) Then I had an ultrasound, and it seemed to take an awful long time. I wondered why all of this had to spoil my happy memories of the ultrasound room. The radiologist came in. She wanted to look in real time. That's when I started to think maybe this wasn't an infection after all.

I have a tumor at 10 o'clock. I have nasty, uneven microcalcifications sprinkled all through my breast like jimmies. I have cancer in my lymph node. I'm learning a lot of big and/or funny-sounding words.

Before the biopsies came back, I cried. I cried all the time. I had to run from the room when my husband brought my son home because his little two-year-old face set me off. I cried in the shower, which made me feel dirtier.

Now I know I have cancer. Now I'm immersed in the minutia. Is it estrogen positive? (yes) Is it HER2 positive? (yes) When will I have the mastectomy? (...)

Meeting with the oncologist on Monday. She'll fill in the few remaining blanks. Then I'll know what will happen to me. One thing is already determined.

I'm going to kick this cancer's ass.