After two years of this blog sitting empty, I think I am now ready to start blogging about the "what now." Two and a half years ago when I received the news I had breast cancer again, and not just one kind but two and melanoma I thought wow, this is nuts! I had been going along thinking my life was in a good space. I was hoping to adopt, in a committed relationship, had a great job, and amazing friends and family. Life seemed good until I heard those words from the mammography technician "we need to do a few more films and an ultrasound." I had had to have additional films before but as with my original diagnosis, it was so clear in the eyes of the woman in front of me, "this is more than just a question, it's pretty clear its cancer."
A bilateral mastectomy, TRAM and DIEP flap reconstruction and removal of the melanoma on my leg all in one surgery might not have been the best choice, but it seemed like a great idea at the time. 12 days in the hospital, 5 in ICU, flap death on one side and a horrible nurse named John was not what I was expecting however all the other staff including the nurses, interns, residents and doctors, along with my wonderful family and friends made the experience really quite amazing.
Pathology showed the disease was much more advanced than could be seen on the films so off I went to chemo and radiation, again. After completing treatment my life imploded. My relationship came off the rails, my friends and colleagues became worried for me and after working all through treatment I was asked to take time off and get my head on straight again. Time and space gave me the chance to heal mentally, physical and spiritually but the next curve ball was just around the corner. Ten months ago I chose to have an oophorectomy (removal of ovaries and Fallopian tubes) to help reduce the estrogen in my body and reduce my risk of recurrence. While laying in recovery my surgeon came in and said the operation had gone well however they found cancer in the peritoneal cavity. My reply was "you THINK you found cancer, right?" and he said no, it is cancer. He said he had sent biopsies off to pathology and he would know whether it is breast or ovarian cancer in a little over a week. A week later I learned it was breast cancer and the small nodules covered pretty much everything in my abdomen, however the good news was it is too small to be seen on CT or xray. So once again, I asked the question what now?
After many conversations with my oncologist I decided to get a second opinion at another leading cancer hospital and now have two great teams working with me.
Over the past two and half years I have been told I need to write and share my story. I kept thinking what would I write about? Why would I want to put myself out there for others to judge? What good would it do?
I think I know what I want to write about now and why. This blog is going to be about what it is like to live with metastatic disease but also how I hope to have a positive impact on what it means to live with cancer. My hope is this blog will be a place I can share the great things that have come into my life because of cancer, the frustrations I experience as a cancer patient and my hopes for change in the cancer survivor experience. This may not make sense at first but as I start to share short stories, I hope it will become more clear.
So here I go...
