Just another SuperBat Cancer Patient to the rescue (email)

Hey there! 

Guess what?!  It appears my tumor got homesick (like a mini third grade Megan) on its way to CA and decided it wasn’t quite ready for the trek.  No, that doesn’t mean it wanted to go back “home” to my body, it means it wanted to stay in MI.  Due to the fact it was low grade and mucinous, the entire Tumor Board found chemotherapy NOT necessary!  So, radiation it is!  You might be asking yourself, “But why radiation, didn’t they already cut the cancer out of Leftie, Megan?”  Well, yes, but radiation therapy reduces the risk of recurrence by 2/3.  Since I am so young, any preventative measures are good! 

I am currently in the “take a breather” phase of cancer, the time in-between surgery and radiation where I only have a couple of appointments each week.  What will my next couple of months look like?  Next Thursday, Leftie will pose for a CT Scan (She’s quite popular these days, it seems.  Yesterday she got felt up by three separate doctors!). After that, I'll receive my very first tattoo, in fact I'll get three!  A set of three tiny tattoos will mark where treatments will be targeted.  Then I’ll undergo 30 days of radiation treatments, with weekends off!  (I know, right?  Don’t be too jealous of my radiation free weekends, okay?) 

I will be going to the hospital at the same time of day, every day, and will be in and out (including parking time) in about 30-45 minutes for each treatment.  Holy cats!  That’s fast!  Well, it is, in part, speedy delivery because Mr. Roger’s mailman greets patients at the door… and radiation has its own separate location where patients can park with ease.  I’ll get my own special parking pass and will park in their fancy underground parking lot (like the Batcave).  In an earlier email I was talking about becoming a superhero, looks like the type of superhero has been chosen for me...  If you come to A2, be sure to watch out for a troop of covert SuperBat Cancer Patients (SBCP for short).  Their three tiny tattoos will be both their dead giveaway and their Bat-Signal :) 

Undergoing radiation therapy sounds like it is a cross between snorkeling and playing a new age simulation game.  Since the cancer was on my left side, special precautions will be taken to protect my heart.  I’ll have a snorkel-like mouthpiece which will be synced up with a pair of goggles.  The two together will monitor my breathing and I’ll be able to watch when I take deep breaths.  When I take deep breaths my heart will move away from my chest wall leaving space for the radiation to safely treat the intended area. 

The first 4 weeks will be targeting the entirety of Leftie.  The final two weeks will focus specifically on the area where the tumor was located.  Finally, there are two main side effects of treatments and both are temporary - fatigue and sensitivity/discoloration/change of skin on the treated area.

Alright, well I think that’s all for now, folks!

Hoot!  Hoot!
Megan    

Random musings from friends

A hungry tumor and an uninvited bathroom intruder

The day after my all day appointment at the Cancer Center I was feeling better, the best I had felt since I found out I was a card carrying member of the Cancer Club.  That morning I had an impromptu phone interview for a job, hung out with my mom, and had a lovely dinner celebrating a friend's birthday.  Things were looking up, I was happy.

It's weird how quickly things can change these days.  I accidentally felt my tumor and immediately freaked out.  Laughing and crying at the same time I was convinced it had doubled in size since the day before, when the surgeon had looked at it.  I mean, I had, after all, been feeding my hungry tumor with birth control pills for countless years.  Every night at 7pm sharp it would yell, "Feed me, Megan.  Feed me!"  Without fail, I would listen and feed it.  Given its voracious appetite, it had to have grown!  I had never been so aware of my emotions and the lack of my ability to control them.  I was laughing at myself crying and scared to death all at once.

Fast forward to a week later.  I was having another good day.  It was beautiful outside and I was getting ready to go to a friend's place for dinner.  As is standard procedure, I took a shower.  I was leisurely drying off when I heard someone running up the stairs.  BAM!  The bathroom door swung open.  Through the magic of mirrors, I made eye contact with my roommate's mom - rather I made contact with her eyes.  Her eyes, perhaps, were on my exposed boobs (was she was trying to catch one last sneak peak at Leftie before it went under the knife?).  We both screamed.  And just like that I was in another downward spiral of trying to keep my composure, all the while wanting to scream in disbelief.  The door was, indeed, closed.  Who opens a closed bathroom door?  For the second time within a week I was aware of how short my fuse was and how easily I could, unfortunately, fall into tears.  Cancer is the worst sometimes.  Well, if I'm being honest, cancer or not, uninvited bathroom intruders are also the worst.

Is it tomorrow already? #teammugsjugs #dumpthelump (email)

{Happy Thursday!  

I am home from surgery and tumor free.  Matt and my mom did great; you'd be proud of them (I like to think I did great too ;).  I will write more soon, perhaps tomorrow.  

Later Gators,

Megan}

Happy Sunday!

Is it tomorrow already?  That's when I said I was going to write my update, right?  So, as you know, I underwent surgery on Thursday.  Prior to the surgery, on Wednesday night, I was injected with radioactive material and turned into a superhero (I'm still working on my superhero name).  I wish the superhero part was true, instead my boob was just injected three times...  "Some people say it feels like a bee sting," the doctor said.  Yeah right.  Maybe if a whole slew of bees stung all at once, maybe that could be somewhat comparable.  After the injections I was told to walk around for a couple of hours, in order to allow the injections to work themselves into my system, and return for a CT Scan with Darryl and Darryl (from Newhart).  The Darryls took two photos of my radioactive breast and that was that - we had a map of my sentinel lymph nodes for the surgeon.  

Thursday morning we arrived at 7:15am for my 8:30am surgery.  The morning was a blur, there was no downtime.  One after another the doctors and nurses stopped by.  The last thing I remember was them wheeling me into the OR and telling me they had warmed the bed (wasn't that nice) and to take a breath.  The surgeon was ever so proud of how I did.  She said she got the entire tumor and took "about 3 sentinel lymph nodes" (the average is 2.4).  The surgeon was also very proud because she only needed to cut me open once.  There was a possibility of two slices, one for the tumor and one for the sentinel lymph nodes.  I am happy to only have one scar, however the scar is definitely something to write home about, it's about 2 inches and is currently being held together by glue.  Surgery took about 2 hours and I took about 3 hours to recover, mostly I just needed to de-dizzy myself.  We finally left the hospital around 2:30pm.    

The results came in on Friday - the surgeon did indeed successfully scoop out my entire tumor and the sentinel lymph nodes tested CANCER FREE!  This means they got it all and the cancer did not yet travel anywhere else in my body.  This is great news, right?!  I was hoping that was the end of it, it would mean things are great, and I'll have radiation for sure.  Well, not so fast.  My tumor was sent to California for further testing.  I have this image of my tumor showing its passport, going through security, and boarding a plane with its luggage (its luggage, of course, being about 3 sentinel lymph nodes).  I hope the doctors that handle it along the way are making a scrapbook of photos they've taken with my tumor so I can publish it one day - "Just my Tumor and me"  Anyways, as I was saying, the tumor is en route to CA for an Oncotype DX test, which will test the genetic component of my tumor and whether chemotherapy would be the best option for future treatments.  So, again, I wait.          

My case will be reviewed by the Tumor Board on the 16th of May.  That same day I will meet with the surgeon again and will hopefully find out more about my future treatments.  In the meantime I am trying to enjoy the fact that I don't have to worry myself to sleep about the tumor inside of me growing into adulthood and talking to me in my sleep.  

I am not sure how much information people want and how many anecdotal stories people want to hear so, for the interested few, you can find more information here: http://justanotherlumpintheroad.blogspot.com/  The site has both the emails I have sent to you all, as well as several other mini stories going back to the beginning of my cancer journey.  As I have time and energy, I plan to write more.  Since I am adding them as I go, they might be a bit out of chronological order, please forgive me :)   

I hope you are all were able to enjoy your Sunday to its fullest.  Thank you for everything!

Later Gators,

Megan

#leftielove

The weeks leading up to going under the knife I was nervous about things going terribly wrong.  I usually err on the side of modesty, but figured I ought to show off my left ta ta a couple of last times, just in case a lumpectomy turned into a last minute mastectomy.  Before you scroll down, you best first shield any young child's eyes that might be in the room because these photos are the definition of scandalous ;)

Say "BOOB!!" 

Ready or not, I'm going under the knife! (email)

Hey oh, it's me again!

I now have a surgery date!  Yahoo!  The first step to getting past all this is finally set in motion.  My surgery will be on Thursday, May 5th.  Yes, that's right in two weeks from today!  Holy cats, that's quick!  That means for the next couple of weeks I'll have several appointments, as of now I have three next week and two the week after.  They really like to keep us cancer patients on our toes - no two appointments are in the same location.  Good thing it's not brain cancer I have, otherwise it might be hard to keep track of all these appointments!  

Has the cancer spread, you might be asking yourself.  Through a sentinel lymph node biopsy, doctors can tell with about 95% certainty whether the cancer has spread into the lymph nodes.  (The sentinel node is the first lymph node to which a tumor drains, and therefore is the first place to which cancer is likely to spread) In order to increase the chances of finding the sentinel lymph node, UofM uses two methods:  1.) The night before the surgery they will inject a minimal amount of radioactive solution near the tumor.  Three hours later they'll use a hand-held probe to find the "hot-spot" where the solution has accumulated (aka they'll locate the sentinel lymph node).  This procedure will also help the surgeon by providing a map of the lymph nodes.  2.) On the day of the surgery the doctor will inject blue dye near the tumor, the dye will accumulate in the sentinel node.  Along with the tumor, the surgeon will also take the sentinel node.      

  

Due to the fact that I'm not sure whether my time with my boob is limited, last night I figured I would wear a dress that showed it off a little more than usual.  Matt and I did a minor photo shoot with it...  Attached is one of the said photos, where we are pointing at the boob in question, giving it a special shout-out, if you will.  Hopefully you are okay with me becoming more open about boob talk... if not, well, feel free to complain to someone else ;)

Later gators,
Megan    

Jerks to No Emotion Irene!

Monday we were at the doctor all day.  Everyone was super nice.  Except.  Irene.  Irene was the receptionist at the front desk of the Cancer Center.  From the moment she said "hello" I knew we weren't going to do well together.  There was something about her demeanor that rubbed me the wrong way.  Nurse Betty had requested we arrive early in order to have time to stop by breast imaging for photos of my right breast.  When we arrived early, Irene had no idea what on earth was going on, nor did she feel the need to attempt to find out.  She handed me check-in papers and pointed to the waiting room, where she told us to wait.  Wait for what?  Anxiety and emotions were running high and Irene did her best to amplify them.

Fast forward to 2.5 hours later, we had already met with the surgeon and hung out in breast imaging for far too long.  After finally being allowed to leave the breast imaging center, complete with VERY IMPORTANT paperwork notifying me about how dense my breasts are, we were faced with the decision of whether to go to the Cancer Support Group meeting or skip it and eat lunch.  Nurse Betty had informed us lunch was more important than the support group, so I was going with that.  As followers of rules though, we thought we should double check back in at the main cancer center before we took off for a leisurely lunch.  Huge mistake.  We got off the elevator and who was there waiting for us?  Irene.  We had the audacity of disturbing her during her very important task of filling the coffee pot.  I stopped mid step knowing this conversation was not going to end well.  I explained what had happened, "Due to my dense breasts (I have paperwork to prove it, if you want to see it!) we were held up downstairs.  We were told it was okay to miss the meeting, and lunch was more important.  Might be five hours before we can eat again.  Yadda yadda yadda."

Holding the empty coffee pot and a napkin, with no emotion, Irene looked at me and said, "Well, if you're not here at 1pm when they call your name you can't go in."  I looked at the clock, 12:45pm.  "Well, what if we run and get some food and come back, can we sneak into the meeting a few minutes late?"  No Emotion Irene looked at me and repeated what she previously said, "They have a list of names they call at 1pm for the meeting.  You need to be here when they call your name."

All day I was able to hold it together, until Irene.  She made me so upset I didn't know what to do.  In a daze, I followed my mom and Matt to the cafeteria.  Amid the hustle and bustle of the lunch hour traffic I broke down.  For the most part, up until this point, I had held back my tears, but Irene knew just what to do to make a girl cry.  When asked by my mom and Matt what I wanted to do (they meant either relax and eat lunch or try to make it to the cancer support group) all I could respond with was, "I want to punch Irene!"  

I'll call her Gertrude

After lunch on Monday we arrived back at the waiting room.  All around us were fellow cancer patients and their support systems.  My mom and I joked about how everyone was probably thinking Matt and I were there to support her, not the other way around.  Every other patient had at least 10 years on me.  I later was informed the median age of breast cancer patients is 66, exactly double my age.  I'm still trying to figure out if them informing me of this was supposed to make me feel better or worse.  The jury is still out on that one.

After about 5 minutes a character came out with a strip of paper, looking at the paper she called out, "Megan Anderson?"  My mom, Matt, and I stood up and followed the woman.  She rounded the corner, turned around and asked, "What's your name?"  "Uh, Megan Anderson," I said while wondering to myself if it was a common occurrence for strangers off of the street to show up impersonating cancer patients on the cancer floor with their mom and boyfriend.  Seriously, you just called my name, you saw us stand up and follow you.

In silence, the woman lead us to a room at the end of the hall, sat down at the computer and stared at it for several minutes.  The three of us looked at each other in disbelief/curiosity; I tried not to laugh.  This woman was maybe 70 years old, her face covered in thick makeup.  Brightly colored lipstick had balled up and collected in each corner of her mouth.  Still looking at the computer she asked what time my appointment was.  Not sure if this was a trick question, I answered a roundabout version of this: my original appointment was for 11am, but we were asked to arrive early (10:15am), and our post Tumor Board callback time was 2:30pm.  More silence.  More staring at the computer.

"Gertrude" got up from her chair and halfway out the door said she'd be right back.  About 5 minutes went by.  The door opened, "Gertrude" popped her head in, and handed me a robe.  "Put this on. The doctor will be with you shortly," she said.  Then she vanished and we waited for another 30 minutes, easy, before Dr. Peterson came back.