I wanted to write this post last week, but was feeling too Percocet-y. And now I find that I am reluctant to put words to it. I don’t have any especially staggering news to report. As expected, the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes. Four of them, according to Buffy the Cancer Slayer. Which is a weird thing because if it was three lymph nodes, I’m safely still in Stage 2, albeit I get a slight bump from 2A to 2B.
With four bad nodes though, I may be upgraded to Stage 3. No one with any authority has re-staged my cancer, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time consulting my books and the almighty Internet. Honestly, the stage isn’t going to make a difference in my treatment (I don’t think) because we’re starting with the big guns (chemotherapy) in the first place. Will it be more likely that I have a mastectomy than a lumpectomy? I don’t know, honestly. I guess some of that will depend on what, if anything, shows up in my left boob, which hopefully will have an MRI-guided biopsy this week. And if we’re tracking the fucks I give, I have none to spare for my rack. The ladies served me well and I’m totally okay with being rid of them if it keeps me alive longer.
I’m rambling, I know. Here’s what’s gone down since my last post:
Two days post Mediport surgery.
Thursday I had surgery to install the “power port” in my chest. I was given the choice between “twilight” anesthesia or “knock me the fuck out” anesthesia and I selected door number two. Boy was I glad I did, because a forty minute procedure ended up taking two hours. Apparently I have a very robust collarbone and so Dr. Boobcutter had to dig around quite a bit to find a good path to my vein. Anyway, I guess all went well. I went home that afternoon with an ice pack and a Percocet prescription and a sleepy head. For the next twelve hours I felt dopey and headachey and kinda barfy. And I’d only been home an hour before Buffy called to give me the word on my stupid lymph nodes.
Dr Cappuccino, my oncologist called just a little bit after that. He said that he and Buffy and Dr. Boobcutter had been conferring and they’d decided that I should push back chemo a few days so that we could get that MRI-guided biopsy on my left boob and a PET scan. He said that some other people were pushing for a bone scan as well, but he was on the fence on that and thought the PET would be enough to see what’s what. “Hang in there,” he said. “We’ll get you through this.”
That afternoon at school my daughter was crying on the playground so her friend Jasmine took her to the “recess lady” who, when my daughter sobbed “My mom has cancer!” took her to the school counselor. There she got some stickers and drew this picture.
It says “Cancer is 1,000 pieces of poops.”
Is it weird that I didn’t get a call from the school? Is my kid high-maintenance? When she cried again that night “I wish you never had cancer!” I decided that I’m out of my depth on this one. I left a message with the oncology social worker to see if there is a support group or a therapist I should be sending her to.
Friday I spent most of the day in bed except for a trip back to the hospital for my baseline echocardiogram. The drugs in my chemo cocktail that target the HER2 antibodies are known to play a bit fast and loose with the left ventricle, so we needed to check mine out so we can track any damage (which is temporary in the majority of people). So of course, I’m sitting there thinking…every fucking thing they’ve checked (minus my DNA, which does NOT have the breast cancer gene!) has been bad news. So I’m like “does my heart look normal, ha ha?” And the tech of course isn’t able to make a diagnosis–only the doctor can do that. So that freaks me out and I become the Liz Lemon of the echocardiogram. “Hey look, Gunny, I DO have a heart!” “Is that my aorta or the sarlacc pit?” Ba dum tish.
Then all weekend I looked up stats about how that one extra node effects my prognosis. And I get shit like this.
What do I believe? Who do I trust? Am I being alarmist? Probably. But there’s enough concern to look at the rest of my body for more cancer.
So last night my son was over for dinner, milkshakes and Game of Thrones. And when the show was over and he was getting ready to leave we were chatting and I tell him chemo now is going to start on May 5 [insert joke about tequila in the IV for Cinco de Mayo] and he laughs and I follow with “Of course, that’s because they found more cancer and I have to get a PET scan har har.” And Allison, who is clinging to her brother’s leg like a tick–and who I apparently failed to notice–says “They found more cancer?”
…
“No,” I said. “No, I was just kidding.”
What stage of cancer involves lying to your kids?
Trixieland 
The doc is right” You WILL get through this. The hardest thing is when the docs disagree and, essentially, YOU have to make the decision. But think and talk about it with smart friends and other people you trust, and you will be able to make the right decision, I promise. Sometimes a non-doc/patient can see things more clearly than a doc can.
Thank you Daniel!