Consult and Surgery

 It's now June 5th and I've known since basically March 22nd that something was not quite right. Shawn and I leave the family doctors office with literature in hand because I do not trust myself to remember everything, as to what type of cancer cells they found in my breast and lymph node. Papers clutched in  hand with my diagnosis Shawn and I are both crying visibly shaken by this news. We both say it's now time to tell family, because I will need surgery as soon as possible. We stop to tell Samantha first because she is home on maternity leave with our second grandson Emmett, and I desperately needed some Nana snuggles. Not an easy conversation for sure but one that I'm comforted in a way, that only someone who has gone through a cancer diagnosis would understand. I remember exactly how anxious Shawn and I were when Samantha was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and it saddened me that our children would worry. After a few snuggles I pull myself together and we head to Jeffrey's to give him the news. Jeffrey is my youngest and as his mother I worry most about telling him. Jeffrey is sensitive and feels every ones emotions deeply, I'm positive that he's always been an empath which can sometimes be a gift but also a curse. We give him the news and he doesn't say anything, I can clearly see he's absorbing all the information were giving him, and I'm feeling horrible having to worry him at all. I'm trying desperately to reassure him that all will be well, once I have the surgery and treatment needed to kill this damn cancer that's growing in my body, far too quickly for my liking. We leave reassuring him that he and Samantha would always be first to get updates no matter what the circumstances on what is happening to me. I get a few big hugs and snuggles from my favorite grand dog Roshi and quietly leave.

Next stop on to telling my two sisters, it's important to let them know because breast cancer may very well affect them, I'm only sorry now that I did not tell my brother at the same time because now that I know a little more about breast cancer I now know that it also affects men, they are not exempt. So if you're a man young or old and reading this please check yourselves, always best to catch things early I say. I go to my youngest sisters first Lisa and I'm very worried, my sister just lost her husband May 31st to a five year battle to cancer and she's grieving the love of her life. The only reason I tell her is because she is having a celebration of life for her husband June 28th and I'm going to be scheduled for surgery ASAP. I'm unsure how I will feel after surgery and I definitely want to be there to support her with this incredible loss. After letting my youngest sister know, I let Carmen know, I explain to her that I need surgery and treatments and I think she has the same reaction I initially had, "disbelief." After all how can one have Rheumatoid Arthritis, heart surgery, heart failure and now cancer. It hardly seems possible, as I'm typing this I can hardly believe it myself, I feel good and my son in law Adam says I don't look like I'm sick. I've now almost forgotten how I felt after my first treatment, I must say however I'm definitely not looking forward to next week and that dreaded PICC line and 4hrs of chemo and all that goes with the after effects UGH!!!! Anyhow off track here, last stop is Shawn's mom, after we let her know she's completely shocked that this is happening to me and can hardly believe we didn't let her know because we pretty much tell her everything, she's an incredible woman and like the mother I never had in my life. I let her know that we were worried enough for everyone and didn't want to worry anyone else for weeks on end until we actually had results of the biopsy. Now I kinda wished in a way I had waited until I actually went for surgery, because it just seemed everything took so long from beginning to actually having surgery.

I have an appointment to see Dr Willard who's a brilliant surgeon and a fellow tennis player, he's just a downright nice guy. When I see him June 11th I'm a basket case, a bag of nerves and when I'm nervous I talk and I talk way too much. For those who know Dr Willard he has a quiet and calming demeanour,  he proceeds to put his hand up as if to calm me.  I look at him inhale and exhale deeply and say phew thank you for settling me down. He then says that cancer is a process and you’re in for a long rough road, whatever that means which I'm sure to find out. He lets me know that he's surprised with the pathology report and the cancer cells they found, because only 20% have this type and at my age it's uncommon to see, they see this mostly in younger woman. I'm considered old I guess, but I must say I'm anything but uncommon when it comes to getting weird things. I'm unsure of what he's talking about because I didn't Google anything about the different types of breast cancer, after his visit I decide to Google search just to see what the heck he was talking about. I finally take a genuine interest on breast cancer and the different types, prior to this I was in denial that this was really happening and now I knew shit was going hit the fan for real. Dr Willard tells me that I would be seeing oncology sometime between 6-8 weeks post surgery and that he would order a bone and CT scan to make sure the cancer had not spread anywhere else, and so that oncology would have all the information they needed when I finally saw them. He looks at his schedule for a time slot to do the surgery because he needs at least 2 1/2 hours for the procedure, he tells me that prior to 2001 they did complete axillary lymph node dissections "ALND" on all woman who had breast cancer. Today they generally do Sentinel lymph node surgery rather than "ALND" because of the high risk of Lymphedema, however in my case they already knew it had spread to my lymph nodes and it was aggressive, he said best not to take a chance and just remove them all. I completely trusted him and told him hey, who am I to tell you how to do your job after all he had years of experience doing this. So off I went with my appointment for June 30th, pre-op scheduled for the 23rd only to have it pushed to July 8th, because there's been a flood at the Welland Hospital, and the only time slot they can find that would allow enough time for pathology to look at tissue samples under a microscope, is at the Niagara Falls Hospital. 

So there you have it!!! Surgery is surgery and a necessary part of the process of having breast cancer, he suggests a complete ALND and lumpectomy as opposed to a mastectomy because  "A"  I have big breasts which I inherited from both sides of the family, and "B" it would take far too long to heal and it was imperative I have treatment ASAP to treat those pesky fast growing cancer cells that chose to invade my body.

Do you ever sometimes wish that you could sail away just to escape the reality of what is happening in your life? Well Tuesday of this week was that kind of day! We were asked by our very good friends to go for a sail on the most beautiful sail boat I've ever been on. It was so gorgeous, I'm only sorry I didn't take more pictures, our captain and deck hand were incredible LoL. In closing this post I've added a couple photos, 1) sailing away, 2) of me reeling in a nice Walleye fish not to worry it was a catch and release kind of day, and 3) my grand dog Roshi who is always more than willing to give you lots of love, snuggles and kisses!!!!