Cancer is a full time job!

Busy day today.

I took the children to school for the first time in 3 weeks.  It was nice to do something normal and to pass by the familiar faces dashing to get to the door in time.

Then off to see the oncologist and a long wait.  Thank god for the trashy mags I'd been given.  It was odd sitting in the waiting room with all the other cancer patients, some alone, some with all their family present.  The oncologist was in a rush, he had a busy day.  I didn't feel like I could ask any questions this time but I have a proper mtg with him in 2 weeks when we'll finalise the next step.  He is 99% sure it will be a course of radiation and then hormonetherapie (drugs).  The final decision depends on the Commission that sit tomorrow night.   I have to call him on Saturday to find out what they decided.

I have the full results of the operation biopsy now and it seems that the surgeon had taken two sentinel nodes, I thought it was only one.  In any case, both were 'libres' meaning non cancerous I assume.  The level of my cancer is Stage One T3

T is the primary tumour and 3 indicates the size of the tumour, on a scale of 1 - 4 (so it was pretty big on the scale).  Here's an explanation on how breast cancer is staged (classified).  I noticed that T4, the next step is a cancer growing into the chest cavity or skin.  That is scary knowing that the next step was the cancer invading my body.  I feel very lucky to have discovered it when I did.  We came close.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/detailedguide/breast-cancer-staging

I have another prescription for pain killers as I still need them.  I was a bit horrified that I had to take off my top and show my breasts and felt very self conscious as I'd talked to Patrice before about having large breasts and he had seen and examined me before.  He was discreet enough not to make a comment on the change in them thank goodness, it would have floored me.

He thinks radiation can start in 2 - 3 weeks depending on how I heal up.

A nurse came into his office when he was finishing the consultation and he said 'oh you won't have the pleasure of meeting Hayley because you won't be doing chemo'.  I said well that would have been nice but in all honesty, I'm pretty glad I'm not getting to know her better.  She agreed.

There was one lady in the waiting room who was evidently very ill.  The secretary had to bring her a painkiller and this poor lady was burping and coughing.  She then lay down on the chairs and went to sleep.  When I came out of the office, she was waiting outside.  I think she was going to get to know Hayley.  I felt very sad for her.

Luminous Lisa brought some more delicious soup and yogurtt and kindly took me to sort out a problem at the unemployment benefit office.

Just before we left, the nurse arrived (I'd forgotten about her) and noticed that the wound on my back was very swollen and full of liquid and  and some of the scar was open and other bits hard.  She strongly suggested I spoke to the surgeon about it, today.  It is starting to cause me problems in moving my arm, it's becoming less and less mobile and more painful.

I called him and was told to come immediately so we did a dash in the car after asking a friend to pick up the children from school, hoping they wouldn't be too upset that we weren't there.

I was seen immediately (very impressed) and the surgeon and a nurse looked at the problem.  They didn't think there was a problem, they said it was normal and it would go away gradually.  He said that, however, he would take the opportunity to clean up my nipples whilst I was there though.  Oh shit!  So he attacked me with a scalpel, once again gouging out the dead skin.  On the right nipple I could feel the scalpel very clearly and it *really* hurt.  He apologised and said it was a good thing because he was hitting skin with nerve endings.  On the left nipple, it begain bleeding copiously when he cut it which again was a good sign apparently because it means that blood vessels are starting to link to the nipple graft.  So I left with good news but bloody and very sore nipples, they are aching as I write.  The car journey home was hell with all the bumping.  Double dose of pain killers tonight I think.