Fri Dec 29th

For those of you not around Colorado we are receiving our 2nd huge snow storm in the last week. The airport is closed yet again and we are snowed into the house to enjoy each other's company...or better yet misery :-) It is supposed to snow until Sunday morning. We are counting down the min to nap time at the moment.

There were a few people that were asking me about my port, so I thought I would take a picture of it....

It is on my left side between my shoulder and my chest. The scar is from where they had to cut to insert it under my skin. It looks like a pop bottle cap sitting under the skin and then they just poke the needle in the middle of it each time. The line goes up into my neck and feeds into one of the major arteries that goes to my heart. So there is the scoop on that.

I went to chemo on Wednesday with my sisters Toni and Amy and also my mom. We saw the nurse practitioner Lisa and she had said that another option for surgery would be to go in and have the radiologist place clips in my breast around the perimeter of where the tumor was first discovered. Then they would go in a remove that whole area and examine it under the microscope to see if there were any remaining microscopic cancer cells left. This was another option if I wanted to do a breast conservation surgery. Seeing as how I am not all that well endowed in the first place going in a taking a mass out that was 4 cm by 3 cm would leave me not very well proportioned between the left and right side. She also explained that they usually will not consider doing reconstruction if you are doing a lumpectomy. After hearing that news I had decided that I would probably still go with a mastectomy on the right side.

Both Amy and Toni stayed with me through treatment and mom went and got all of us Red Robin for lunch. Treatment last most of the afternoon and by the time I got home at 5pm or so I was feeling pretty horrible. I spent the rest of the night in bed or hanging over the toilet.

Thursday I went to hydration (just to get fluids) with my sister Toni and her husband Doug. This usually helps you to stay better hydrated and feeling better overall.

Dr. Medgyese came in to speak with me during my hydration time on Thursday. She said after hearing my thoughts on the new line of thinking for surgery she had contacted some of her colleagues at MD Anderson and came up with a new option since that last one wasn't as cosmetically acceptable. Since I already have a clip that was placed in the center of the tumor when the biopsy was done they will take that clip and have the radiologist attach a wire to it so the surgeon will be able to locate it easily. They will then take a lump out of the breast about a centimeter in diameter and look at that under the microscope. If it is clear of microscopic cancer seed cells that is the end of the surgery. If there are still cancer cells in there they will go ahead and do a mastectomy while I am still in the OR. Either way they will also be doing an auxiliary lymph node dissection of an area under my arm. I feel pretty comfortable with this new line of thinking in that I might be able to conserve my breast and not have to worry about multiple reconstructive surgeries more than a year away. I will still have to do radiation after surgery no matter what option is done.

I still felt pretty horrible for the rest of the day on Thursday as well. This treatment is proving to be the hardest as far as nausea goes. Good news is that I got to skip doing the Neulasta shot this time. I am still feeling really nauseous even this morning. I called the doctor to skip my hydration this morning since it would probably be more trouble than it was worth to try to get out to the doctor. The merry maids did make it to my house this morning so that was a good thing, at least we don't have to worry about getting the house put together. Here is a cute picture of Jon and I at his parents house for Christmas.