Yes, all lower case for the Post title...
My oncologist had wanted me to have a MUGA after finishing my year of Herceptin infusions. My insurance didn't want to pay for one as they deemed it potentially unnecessary. In fairness to them - had it been out of my own pocket I would have said the same thing. It is a negotiated rate of $688 per MUGA!! (That is Multiple Gated Acquisition Scan, a nuclear medicine exam.)
So, instead I had an echocardiogram. I must say, that was a pretty cool test. It hurt because of the hypersensitivity issue I have, but the woman who administered it was very kind and tried her best to be gentle. An echocardiogram is kind of an ultrasound of the heart, if you will. So I watched on the screen as my heart beat its lovely way through the exam. The examiner commented (as we chatted) that it looked kind of low as it measured my ejection fraction, but the Doctor would be able to determine accurately and report to my oncologist.
So yesterday morning my sweet Pamela from TCI (my oncologist's office) called to let me know there was a MUGA scheduled.
What? That pretty much was my response, btw. What? A MUGA? And insurance approved this?
Yes, was the answer to the above. So now instead of seeing Dr. Rassam for my first 3 month follow up on Monday, I will not see him until the following Monday as I have been scheduled for the muga on Friday August 3rd.
Hmm.
Herceptin can cause damage to the heart muscle, and obviously, it HAS done. This is reversible, and I expect a positive result of healing.
I feel great! Of course, I really have an altered and positive perspective on feeling great because I know just how bad you can feel. So I know that a bad day - is a FABULOUS day, and that feeling what some people would call bad is totally wonderful and awesome!
Regardless, I really do feel great!!! Thinking about the possibility of having some weakening to my heart right now, that would explain why I hit the wall as soon as I do. I just sort of run out of gas and need to rest. At which time -- I rest. I am doing my best to eat right, drink enough, rest enough, exercise enough, etc. What else can one do?
So I will just have to be a little patient and I leave this all in God's hands.
He has my back....
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
QUICK update...
Just a little wee post to say I have, indeed, survived the surgical procedure. I have some discomfort--okay, no real feeling at all at the mastectomy site(s), but where new tissue at the sides was cut away --OOOOWWWW!!
Naturally I have also been actually expecting to get up and run a marathon but find I am easily fatigued, a bit queasy, I do remember sleeping and I also recall what it is like to feel comfortable. Well, a return to those feelings will come soon enough!
If that sounds like a complaint, please be assured I am still excited about this procedure and finding out just what an improvement this will make. I maintain a positive attitude, I am so very blessed with a loving and supportive husband, and I feel a mental outlook improvement regardless!
Naturally I have also been actually expecting to get up and run a marathon but find I am easily fatigued, a bit queasy, I do remember sleeping and I also recall what it is like to feel comfortable. Well, a return to those feelings will come soon enough!
If that sounds like a complaint, please be assured I am still excited about this procedure and finding out just what an improvement this will make. I maintain a positive attitude, I am so very blessed with a loving and supportive husband, and I feel a mental outlook improvement regardless!
Monday, July 9, 2012
And in this corner.....
Tomorrow afternoon I have a surgical procedure scheduled. This is procedure is strictly voluntary.
My sister had talked to me about it with concern that I might be anxious and unable to sleep because of it. Yes, admittedly, that has been my MO in the past during the "procedures period." I'm calling it that now. I just started doing so.
I don't feel anxious about tomorrow's main event, however. I am rather excited.
Classify this entry under "more than you probably want to know" and sort of under "more than I want you to know"!!
When you have a mastectomy, you have a certain idea in your head of what you will look like. I know this for a fact. You, dear readers, will have to take my word for it.
What you end up with, is NOT what you had in your mind. Not at all like what you had in your mind.
When I came home from the hospital last February I felt like and saw a Technicolor-3-dimensional-topographic-map-of-a-railroad-crash-nightmare-scene-from-a-horror-movie.
Tape came off, drains were removed, staples removed, swelling reduced. Now here I sit almost 17 months later.
I still FEEL much as I did about the scene of the crime. (See technicolor 3D etc.) It really does not look the same as it did post surgery, however. I look at myself and I will tell you, it is rather like I suspect a landscape would look like many months after a terrible train crash. Something happened here. Something not good.
It is the wreckage of this body.
I do my best to cover myself so that my husband doesn't see me. It is something embarrassing; unattractive where there was once beauty.
So tomorrow I go to my plastic surgeon and whatever happens will be an improvement.
I am not getting "the girls" put back in place. I just want to be smoothed out. THAT, I can live with. I can live with it and feel so much better about my physical aspect!!
My husband told me yesterday that someone at church had told me how beautiful I looked and healthy and that he was a lucky man. He told them, yes he was a lucky man.
Mind you, my dear sweet husband tells me I am beautiful. He gives me the words and he walks the walk, as it were. And he loves me, oh I know he loves me.
And yet when he tells me I am beautiful there is this little part of me who says inside "Are you insane??? Have you gone blind?? Have you seen this body?? WHAT are you finding physically attractive??? Fibber."
I don't say that aloud, and I truly love and respect my husband. But, oh that little voice....
Because I have seen the wreckage. It is all part of this gordian knot that afflicts me and I will NOT let cancer claim a victory in my private life, thank you very much!
Thus - the procedure I will have tomorrow; thus the excitement I am feeling about it.
And thus - My reclaiming that which is mine - MY body, MY mind, MY battered and bruised psyche.
I am woman, I AM a warrior princess cancer kicking survivor woman. I do own beauty. And tomorrow I start to claim it back as my own.
Round 1 went to cancer with a sucker punch. We're up to round 15 now - and I have battled and won every round. Tomorrow will be the knockout punch.
My sister had talked to me about it with concern that I might be anxious and unable to sleep because of it. Yes, admittedly, that has been my MO in the past during the "procedures period." I'm calling it that now. I just started doing so.
I don't feel anxious about tomorrow's main event, however. I am rather excited.
Classify this entry under "more than you probably want to know" and sort of under "more than I want you to know"!!
When you have a mastectomy, you have a certain idea in your head of what you will look like. I know this for a fact. You, dear readers, will have to take my word for it.
What you end up with, is NOT what you had in your mind. Not at all like what you had in your mind.
When I came home from the hospital last February I felt like and saw a Technicolor-3-dimensional-topographic-map-of-a-railroad-crash-nightmare-scene-from-a-horror-movie.
Tape came off, drains were removed, staples removed, swelling reduced. Now here I sit almost 17 months later.
I still FEEL much as I did about the scene of the crime. (See technicolor 3D etc.) It really does not look the same as it did post surgery, however. I look at myself and I will tell you, it is rather like I suspect a landscape would look like many months after a terrible train crash. Something happened here. Something not good.
It is the wreckage of this body.
I do my best to cover myself so that my husband doesn't see me. It is something embarrassing; unattractive where there was once beauty.
So tomorrow I go to my plastic surgeon and whatever happens will be an improvement.
I am not getting "the girls" put back in place. I just want to be smoothed out. THAT, I can live with. I can live with it and feel so much better about my physical aspect!!
My husband told me yesterday that someone at church had told me how beautiful I looked and healthy and that he was a lucky man. He told them, yes he was a lucky man.
Mind you, my dear sweet husband tells me I am beautiful. He gives me the words and he walks the walk, as it were. And he loves me, oh I know he loves me.
And yet when he tells me I am beautiful there is this little part of me who says inside "Are you insane??? Have you gone blind?? Have you seen this body?? WHAT are you finding physically attractive??? Fibber."
I don't say that aloud, and I truly love and respect my husband. But, oh that little voice....
Because I have seen the wreckage. It is all part of this gordian knot that afflicts me and I will NOT let cancer claim a victory in my private life, thank you very much!
Thus - the procedure I will have tomorrow; thus the excitement I am feeling about it.
And thus - My reclaiming that which is mine - MY body, MY mind, MY battered and bruised psyche.
I am woman, I AM a warrior princess cancer kicking survivor woman. I do own beauty. And tomorrow I start to claim it back as my own.
Round 1 went to cancer with a sucker punch. We're up to round 15 now - and I have battled and won every round. Tomorrow will be the knockout punch.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
I Love a Good Day Above Ground...HOW did I forget to post this???
I must add, of course, that ANY day above ground is a good day....
God's blessings on all; Happy Easter! I know today is Good Friday so the Easter greeting is a wee premature. Nonetheless, I will not be posting again prior to Easter so I reiterate - Happy Easter.
When I last saw my surgeon, Dr. Z, I had asked him for a referral to a "plastic" surgeon. I received a call and an appointment from Dr. R AND I was considering checking out going to Moffitt again.
The appointment with Dr. R was postponed for a week and every day I was going to cancel it altogether! I was actually making myself sick with anxiety about a consultation. I would waffle and flip-flop about what I was wanting to do and changing my mind every six seconds about going. I finally figured I was just not ready to do anything and perhaps psychological counseling was all that I needed.
Okay - I probably need psychological counseling for any number of reasons anyway. Don't you???
This past Monday I woke up after a rather sleepless and anxiety filled night. My husband and I went for a walk, discussed this and I decided to just cancel the appointment that was scheduled for 4 that afternoon. When I got home I had to get the referral information from my calendar and then realized that the appointment was actually at 9:30, I had missed it and had to apologize for this. In just that instant I decided I DID want to confer and in that same moment the receptionist said - we do have a cancellation at 11:45 if you could come in then.
Oh.
So suddenly I want to talk to the man, I have an appointment available AND my husband - who was not going to be able to go with me now could go with me because of the time frame.
Still, I am fraught with anxiety about the whole situation.... We have to drive in in separate vehicles as Ruben is going to work after the appointment; yet something else that was simply rearranged by the hand of God as he normally goes in to work by 8 on Mondays...
I find that I really like the doctor, he has a pleasant and reassuring manner, not condescending at all. He answers questions I didn't really know I had as well as answering the questions I did have.
My insurance will cover 100% of this, I don't have to wait until October (a year after the end of my radiation treatments) since I will not be having to expand the tissue, the surgery will be much simpler than the mastectomy surgery, simpler than any "adding back" reconstruction. In fact I can have this procedure done about 4 to 6 weeks after my final Herceptin infusion.
In case you had no idea - I just want to be 'smoothed out'...
I had "the girls" for a long time! Was this whole deal a shock? Hello... here's the big clue;
CANCER!
It will freak you out and fry your brain cells with anxiety and fear.
So saying, it will spur you to seriously take action. At least it did in my case!!
Ruben and I discussed every imaginable situation and decided (read that talked and talked and talked about) each step we would take.
I have actually enjoyed being able to grab a cute camisole and a light shirt and I am done - ready to go and if I get too warm - great! I can take off the light shirt and I'm still covered and not having those girls all over the place.
Because let's face facts - those girls were EVERYWHERE!!!
So I am nearing the end of this journey at last. Okay, correction; I am nearing the end of this part of this journey. I will have my last Herceptin infusion April 19th. Four to six weeks later I will have a procedure performed - the ONE procedure I will have - to just smooth me out.
Recovery from that procedure and then - hold the phone!! I can actually get back in step for a whole life.
God's blessings on all; Happy Easter! I know today is Good Friday so the Easter greeting is a wee premature. Nonetheless, I will not be posting again prior to Easter so I reiterate - Happy Easter.
When I last saw my surgeon, Dr. Z, I had asked him for a referral to a "plastic" surgeon. I received a call and an appointment from Dr. R AND I was considering checking out going to Moffitt again.
The appointment with Dr. R was postponed for a week and every day I was going to cancel it altogether! I was actually making myself sick with anxiety about a consultation. I would waffle and flip-flop about what I was wanting to do and changing my mind every six seconds about going. I finally figured I was just not ready to do anything and perhaps psychological counseling was all that I needed.
Okay - I probably need psychological counseling for any number of reasons anyway. Don't you???
This past Monday I woke up after a rather sleepless and anxiety filled night. My husband and I went for a walk, discussed this and I decided to just cancel the appointment that was scheduled for 4 that afternoon. When I got home I had to get the referral information from my calendar and then realized that the appointment was actually at 9:30, I had missed it and had to apologize for this. In just that instant I decided I DID want to confer and in that same moment the receptionist said - we do have a cancellation at 11:45 if you could come in then.
Oh.
So suddenly I want to talk to the man, I have an appointment available AND my husband - who was not going to be able to go with me now could go with me because of the time frame.
Still, I am fraught with anxiety about the whole situation.... We have to drive in in separate vehicles as Ruben is going to work after the appointment; yet something else that was simply rearranged by the hand of God as he normally goes in to work by 8 on Mondays...
I find that I really like the doctor, he has a pleasant and reassuring manner, not condescending at all. He answers questions I didn't really know I had as well as answering the questions I did have.
My insurance will cover 100% of this, I don't have to wait until October (a year after the end of my radiation treatments) since I will not be having to expand the tissue, the surgery will be much simpler than the mastectomy surgery, simpler than any "adding back" reconstruction. In fact I can have this procedure done about 4 to 6 weeks after my final Herceptin infusion.
In case you had no idea - I just want to be 'smoothed out'...
I had "the girls" for a long time! Was this whole deal a shock? Hello... here's the big clue;
CANCER!
It will freak you out and fry your brain cells with anxiety and fear.
So saying, it will spur you to seriously take action. At least it did in my case!!
Ruben and I discussed every imaginable situation and decided (read that talked and talked and talked about) each step we would take.
I have actually enjoyed being able to grab a cute camisole and a light shirt and I am done - ready to go and if I get too warm - great! I can take off the light shirt and I'm still covered and not having those girls all over the place.
Because let's face facts - those girls were EVERYWHERE!!!
So I am nearing the end of this journey at last. Okay, correction; I am nearing the end of this part of this journey. I will have my last Herceptin infusion April 19th. Four to six weeks later I will have a procedure performed - the ONE procedure I will have - to just smooth me out.
Recovery from that procedure and then - hold the phone!! I can actually get back in step for a whole life.
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