Cancer takes a holiday - I wish!

Cancer takes a holiday.... well at least it felt that way! I had so much fun during the birthday/Christmas/New Years break that at times I actually forgot that I had cancer. It was such a wonderful mental break!

Quick update: Drains *were* finally removed a week later ( Fri Dec 11) and I regained some mobility. I started physical therapy and I continued my weekly expansions through the month of Dec with my final expansion on Dec 30. Once the expansions were complete, I was cleared for Radiation and if all goes well I will start daily radiation therapy this coming Thursday ( Jan 14).

Pathology report: On Dec 18, I met with my oncologist and received the pathology report results from surgery. It turned out to be as good a report as possible - 0 out of 8 lymph nodes removed had cancer, the margins on the tumors were all clear and large and the cancer is grade 1 ( least aggressive). There was atypical hyperplasia ( pre-cancerous cells) found in the right breast which helped me feel comfortable that a prophylactic mastectomy on the right breast was the right decision for me.

To wine or not to wine... and other dietary concerns. During this appointment I also asked my oncologist about long term dietary guidelines.There is so much discussion on the web about cancer and diet and I just wanted to hear what she recommends. Also, I hadn't had alcohol for 6 months and was curious what she said about that. Basically, for me she recommended a healthy, balanced diet and lots of exercise. A glass of wine or two is fine. Live life to the fullest. So, I headed into the holiday season with a prescription for fun!

Birthday fun. Having a birthday on Dec 22 means that my birthday is often absorbed in the general holiday craze. Mostly I don't mind.... I'm used to it. But, this year was different. I really wanted to celebrate my birthday separately from the "other holidays" and I wanted to thank everyone for all their support. So, I threw myself a thank you/birthday party and had a ball! I was thrilled that so many folks were in town and able to make the party. For my actual birthday, my friends Barry and Katrina hosted a crab and champagne dinner - probably my favorite food combo! And then, the E-girls took me out to Range for a delicious dinner and wonderful drinks. And as a special treat, I got myself a new car - a VW Eos - my first convertible!

Holiday fun - For the remainder of the holidays, I enjoyed lots of eating and drinking with friends, continued expanding my walking range, basked in mostly beautiful weather and took drives with the top down. On New Year's eve I burned scraps of paper to ritually "destroy" things I'm done with ( like cancer) and ritually "manifest" things I'd like to have more of ( like wellness and friends and fun).

Back on the C-train for Radiation. Well, the holidays are over, everyone is back at work and I'm back on the C-train for the next leg of killing cancer cells - Radiation therapy. The initial appointment is called a simulation and has several steps. First, we made a custom mat that is molded to the shape of my back that I will lie on during radiation treatment. This ensures that I am in the same position each time. Then, dots were drawn on my torso as markers to line up beams and scans were made to help plan the radiation fields so that the formerly cancerous area is radiated but the lungs, heart, aorta, etc are missed. Once the scans are reviewed, the dots are converted to permanent tatoos. I now have 5 alignment tatoos - my first ink! It then takes about a week for the radiation oncology team to plan the radiation treatment. The dry run is scheduled for Thurs Jan 14 and if all goes well I will start treatment that day.

Sounds easy but, so far, radiation has been much harder mentally than I had expected. I actually "failed" my first simulation appointment. We had made the molded mat and I had the ink alignment dots. But as soon as I lied down for the scans I broke down. The important thing in radiation is to remain calm and breathe normally. I don't know what happened but it felt like the whole weight of this disease came crashing down and I began to have an anxiety attack and starting gasping for breath. Then I just broke down in tears. We had to reschedule the simulation for the next day.

I felt terrible. Throughout this whole ordeal I have been strong and it felt awful to break down like that. But radiation is different. With chemo and surgery, I would gear up for the treatment and then tough it out. With radiation, the important thing is to breathe normally and relax into it. I need to surrender to the technology and expertise of my rad onc team. Apparently surrender isn't my strong point but I'm gonna have to learn quick!

I went for a hike at Edgewood to calm down. I left a lot of tears on the trail and it took a while for me to calm down but finally I was breathing normally again. It was probably a long overdue release and I felt much better afterwards. The next day, I practiced some relaxation techniques but also took some Ativan as backup and "passed" the simulation.