I’ve heard more than one person say that losing their pubic hair was really freaky, and a man who said that losing his underarm hair was the strangest thing about it.
The idea of going through chemo is the scariest thing to me, as a non-practicing pharmacist. I know that the side effect management has improved DRAMATICALLY over the decades, but I also know what those drugs really do to people and how “well” they often work. :rolleyes: Once again, this thing is so small, it probably hasn’t spread, but what if it has? I’ll deal with that issue when I get there.
My ongoing issue is that the radiation scarred up my lung and now I have asthma. It’s controlled, but hey…battle scar. That and where my chemo port was. Still, I’m healthier and more fit after compared to before.
Side effect management has improved. Beyond that the specificity of the agents has improved too.
Depending on whether you’re getting one of the relatively old standbys or one of the newer more targeted agents there can be tremendous differences in the amount of collateral damage that needs to be managed.
It’s still definitely using a sledge hammer to adjust a TV. But now it’s often a smaller more precise sledgehammer.
For breast cancer specifically if the patient has the right genetic sub-type of cancer there’s a lot that can be done to manage the disease without resort to cytotoxics.
That happened less than a year after a friend of mine lost her 14-year-old son to one of those. I was not the only person who feared that he would be left severely disabled, and didn’t believe the stories about his recovery until I saw him interviewed. I’m sure glad that didn’t happen now, because You Tube would be chock full of videos of him collapsing onstage. :rolleyes:
And yes, there was someone who tried to start a rumor on the then-fledgling Internet that he had died. :mad:
That’s the scary part, isn’t it? When I was going through the roller coaster of getting this scan done and visiting that doctor, I didn’t feel sick. If I had ignored it, it would have continued to grow until it became a much bigger issue.
I think that’s what happened to my MIL. She was of the generation that you don’t go to the doctor unless you’re sick. Heaven knows the last time she had a mammogram or a Pap smear. By the time she felt weak and went to the doctor, the lung cancer had advanced to a point it was really too late to do anything. We lost her July 2016.
It’s real hard to get your head around the idea that the more aggressively you seek discovering more trouble, the better the long term prognosis. Up to the point you start panicing over every shadow on a CT.
Ignorance is not bliss when the attic is already on fire.
In the meantime, I’ve heard stories about women who sat at home and cried for 3 months after the diagnosis prior to scheduling surgery, poked at a breast lump for over a year because she thought it would go away, etc.
Certainly a common enough reaction. Not a helpful one, but common nonetheless.
OTOH, to all indications you’re doing everything right. Keep calm, grab a hose and *fight *that fire. There may come a point where that’s no longer the best response. But in the early stages it certainly is. Good luck; we’re all pulling for you.
Part of the reason I mentioned the various improvements in treatment is exactly that giving up hope probably *was *the least bad option on offer in 1880. Not today. At least not for most (almost all?) breast cancers. So many people are so unaware of the progress and the difference between their probable prognosis and treatment plan vs. somebody from their mother’s or grandmother’s generation. A little education can dispel a lot of fear of the unknown.
Late add: Atul Gawande’s book On Being Mortal might be a bit hard to take right now but is worth reading after you’re through the intensive treatment phase and back into mostly living your life. Paraphrasing, one of the key insights that spoke to me was:
I meet with the surgeon tomorrow morning (maybe I’ve mentioned that already) and I sure hope that he can schedule me quickly (if I like him, of course) and that this will be the end of it.
It’s a slow-growing type of tumor, and before the doctor operates, he wants to do a genetic screening, which will take a few weeks, in addition to a chest x-ray and some other labs, which I’ll do tomorrow, and an MRI which is scheduled on Friday.
Knowing what kind it is took 99% of the fear away. I haven’t felt like this, mentally, since before the biopsy.
I went through breast cancer treatment a few years ago. Let me know if I can be supportive. I had very little trouble with surgery. Very little trouble with chemo, and went out for Thai food after each treatment. No nausea, no digestive issues. Very little trouble with radiation. Hang in there.
That’s encouraging in itself. Of course, everyone’s treatment and experience are going to be different. The surgeon says that he does not believe that I will “need” chemo, but of course we don’t know that yet. I have the MRI in about 12 hours, and then no more appointments for 2 weeks. I do need to see my dentist, and the office was already closed today when I called to make an appointment, so I’ll do that on Monday.
That’s what my doctor said, that the tumor was small enough he had time to thoroughly research my options for treatment. After he told me the tumor was malignant, handed me a book, said, “I know you won’t hear anything else I say, but for God’s sake, stay away from WebMD” and pointed out what parts of the book I needed to read and which ones I could skip.
I went to my car, cried in the parking lot, and then went to the gym. Booyah.
I’m Day 11 into treatment. First round was, frankly, much easier than anticipated. I hesitate to say that because I feel like I’m jinxing myself and because I realize that #4 is going to be a lot harder than #1.
But overall, I’m happy to report that the anti-nausea drugs and steroids that they gave me , along with the Claritin to help with the aches, worked really well. I did have a really low-energy day on Day 4 when I stopped taking all the meds, and a major bout of heartburn, but I think that part of my misery was psychic, as I still hadn’t quite come to terms with everything. It really is a baptism by fire.
Yesterday was a bad, tearful day because I chopped off most of my hair in anticipation of going bald this coming week. It’s been suggested that it’s easier to do it in stages than it is to wait for it fall out in clumps. This is hopefully close to what my hair will look like in 5 months, when I’m on the other side of treatment.
As far as surgery goes, I’ve pretty much decided on a double mastectomy at this point, no matter what the genetic counseling reveals. Still haven’t decided about reconstruction, but that’s a ways off still – end of February at the very earliest.
The MRI wasn’t that bad. I do have a sore sternum from laying on it for a half hour, and listened to some pleasant classical music while the machine clanged around me. The dye felt weird going in; I could taste it, and oddly, I had a brief sensation in my (I think) bladder that lasted just a few seconds. I also have a bruise along the vein, but that will go away. I took Tylenol for the chest pain.
Of course, all the worst-case scenarios are going through my head once again, in part because the surgeon said there was an image on the ultrasound that neither he nor the radiologist who was in the office that day could figure out. :eek: It did have a definite border and he believes it’s benign.
BTW, my tumor is hormone receptor positive and HER2 ambiguous, and low grade. The surgeon couldn’t find it when he examined my breasts, and he knew exactly where to look for it!
So, that was my noon hour.
ETA: The biopsy specimen was 28 x 23 x 4 millimeters, which is about the size of an Oreo cookie or the cap on a milk jug. I was surprised that they could remove that much with a needle, even though it was a big one. And like I said, maybe that’s when they got it all? I can only hope.
I was not the only person who feared that he would be left severely disabled, and didn’t believe the stories about his recovery until I saw him interviewed. I’m sure glad that didn’t happen now, because You Tube would be chock full of videos of him collapsing onstage. :rolleyes:
Of course, everyone’s treatment and experience are going to be different. The surgeon says that he does not believe that I will “need” chemo, but of course we don’t know that yet. I have the MRI in about 12 hours, and then no more appointments for 2 weeks. I do need to see my dentist, and the office was already closed today when I called to make an appointment, so I’ll do that on Monday.
The surgeon couldn’t find it when he examined my breasts, and he knew exactly where to look for it!