Chemo May NOT Be Out of the Picture

Met with the Oncologist this morning, which was the first time since before surgery.  Thought I would hear something about taking Tomoxafin, which is an anti-hormone drug, thereby inhibiting the growth of cancer cells fed by estrogen.  To my surprise, Dr Tracy started talking about new technology that can detect microscopic pre-cancerous cells in the lymph nodes.  These were found in my sentinel lymph node.  She mentioned a new test that can determine whether these cells are high, medium or low risk for becoming cancerous.  We decided to have this test done and will find out in another two weeks where these cells fall in the risk category.  If they come back high risk, Dr Tracy will recommend a course of chemo: four rounds, three weeks apart.  If the results come back low risk, then chemo has no evidence of making any impact, so it will not be recommended.

This was a surprise for me.  Not what I was expecting. 

Please pray the results will return "low-risk".

Having recovered so well in only 5 weeks since surgery (a relatively traumatizing experience), I'm realizing that I will be okay and that I will have some normalcy in terms of feeling healthy again.  I feel so good now.  Although there may still be some difficulty before we are finished with this process, I feel like going through the initial trauma of the mastectomy psychologically was the hardest part, and that now I know what I'm facing in terms of any more surgery and recovery.  Chemo will be another big challenge, but we don't know yet, if that's part of the journey.

It's an interesting thing to be on this side of cancer and surgery.  There is so much more to who we are than this physical vessel that is our earthly abode.  I am able to see others who are physically disabled with new eyes, eyes that see past the disfigurement and into someone who is so much more.  It is an awareness that I wouldn't have understood without my own disfigurement.  I walk past the young men at the Naval Hospital who have been disfigurement by combat and am completely comfortable with looking them in the eye and smiling, looking for an opportunity to communicate acceptance and love and hope.  It is an interesting new world to have entered.