We are rescuing the Tatas again!

We are rescuing the Tatas again!  The United Fire Fighters Association is sponsoring a fundraiser for me at DBC (formerly Daiquiri Bay Café) on Veterans in Metairie. The event starts at 7pm and we’re working on getting some fun items for the raffle and/or silent auction.  A $10 suggested donation will get you food and beer so grab a friend and come by to check everything out.

Estrogen Positive

Being estrogen positive brings about a lot of things for Bobby and I to discuss and make decisions about. 

Should I take the drug Tamoxifen that blocks the effects of estrogen in premenopausal women, in turn preventing my cancer from returning?  I am only 2% estrogen positive which is very low but it’s above zero making me a candidate for the drug.  The risks are uterine cancer or blood clots.  Awesome, let’s block one cancers recurrence with the risk of a new cancer. 

I can have a hysterectomy but I’m not sure I’m ready to say we definitely do not want more kids.  The hysterectomy would remove my ovaries (which make estrogen) and the uterus (which would eliminate the risk of uterine cancer).  But if I do that I can’t have more kids.  All signs lead to no more kids for us but what if we change our minds in 2 years?  I can start the Tamoxifen now and if we decide we want more kids I can go off it to get pregnant or if we decide we definitely do not want more kids I can have a hysterectomy.  But if we’re going to decide in 2 years that we won’t have more children why not just have the hysterectomy now?  The hospital for my Stage 2 surgery said they’d give my OB privileges to perform the surgery there which is a benefit because 1 – I really like her and 2 – it’s one less surgery.

And you might ask, why does all of this matter if you had your tumor removed?  Ahh this is where cancer gets ugly.  A single cell could have escaped and could be lurking somewhere in my body waiting to catch some estrogen and grow, or divide and replicate.  We hope the chemo killed all those cells but we don’t know for sure so this is why I’m lucky to be estrogen positive.  There is additional treatment that I can have and we know the treatment is effective in preventing the cancer from coming back.  Dr Barnhill says that we got the tumor but she will never say I’m cured because we don’t know for sure that all cancer is out of my body. 

I am sure I’ve said I should have a hysterectomy in the past and I’m sure I’ve said I’m done having kids.  But now I’m wondering why, at 37, do I actually have to make these decisions???   None of it really mattered until I was told I need to decide.  I have a feeling I’ll start the drug and then we’ll decide what we want to do but being able to have my OB perform the surgery at the same time as my Stage 2 surgery would be nice so that I don’t have to have two separate surgeries.  Ahhh and we’re back to needing to make a decision.

So much to say

So much has happened in the past few weeks.

·         My lung healed itself.  No problems breathing since I was released from the hospital.

·         My cancer is not triple negative.  We found out on 2/25 that my cancer is estrogen positive, meaning it grows in response to estrogen.  Previously we thought it was triple negative meaning it lacked estrogen and/or progesterone receptors.  There are no targeted therapies for triple negative cancers.  But there are targeted therapies for estrogen positive cancers so ultimately it is a good thing we found this out.  Besides chemo, radiation and surgery, Endocrine treatments are usually taken for 5 years after treatment (a pill taken daily) to help block the effects of estrogen. 

·         I plucked my eye brows for the first time in about 5 months.  I used to do this daily, not obsessively (or maybe?) but I made sure I’d get the stray brows before anyone else saw them so sometimes there’d be nothing to pluck.  But to go for months without NEEDING to pluck them was hard.  And then all of a sudden I had 5 hairs left on either side, sticking out like an old mans white eye brows that need to be cut.  So I trimmed them because I couldn’t pluck the only brows I had left.  And then I looked and there were stray brows that needed to be plucked! 

·         My hair is growing back!  It’s black and straight so far.  Bobby pointed out to me that it’s less than a centimeter long but it seems long to me.  Long enough to have trimmed it twice which is why Bobby pointed out the shortness of my hair because he wants me to let it grow. (hey wait, is this kind of like me thinking I’m tall???)

·         My Stage 2 surgery date has been set for May 10^th.  The recovery time is shorter since the surgery is not as invasive.  So I’ll be out of work until about 2 weeks after the 2^nd surgery. 

·         As far as my healing goes, I still take pain medicine but am trying to take a little less.  I can sleep on my side now and have tried it but it’s extremely painful on my breasts.  I feel sort of normal when I don’t move but as soon as I move my breasts hurt.  I think this is the nerves starting to work again.  Goose bumps are also pretty painful.  I once told some friends one of my goals in life was to be warm and I think that goal is moving towards the top of the list.  It’s a good sign that goose bumps hurt because it means my nerves are working but ugh, they are very uncomfortable!  I am looking forward to some good, humid heat to keep me warm!  Our house is 73 right now and I’m thinking about getting another blanket.  Then again, a hot flash could come over me and I’d need to remove everything and put the laptop somewhere besides my lap.  I feel like my core temp has gone up since surgery and my hot flashes are more intense.  Who really knows though?  Anyway, the incisions are still healing and I am to clean them twice per day with iodine.  The scabs of my stomach incision are gone.  My stomach is numb so I can’t tell if my pants are falling down or not J.  I wore jeans on Sunday and it was a weird feeling to have something tighter around my mid section.  And I think they fell down a lot.  At least I know I can wear jeans instead of sweats all the time

I’m going to do a few posts because there’s a lot going on.  The next post will be about being estrogen positive.