Breast cancer.

[Mulesaw]

27 minutes ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Yeah, it was, especially when some close family members decided the vaccines were killing people and masks were useless in preventing transmission. 

I just had a bad scare with the breast swelling up and getting hard, but after a round of very comprehensive tests, my oncologist says it's just due to scarring causing an increase in lymph-edema. I'm coming up for 4 years cancer free in November! 

Gee, I wouldn't know how to stay diplomatic in that case..

I am so glad to hear that you are 4 years cancer free in November. That is such good news, and great that your oncologist could see that it was "only scarring", normally I shouldn't say "only" about something like that, but in comparison with cancer, It really is.

We had the most fantastic weather in May and June, with July being fairly wet and grey. August was better, but all in all a very good season to receive chemo therapy. Also all our children are almost grown up. the two boys still living at home are 17 and 20, so they don't come home from kindergarten or school every other week with a cold or the flu etc. 

Brgds

Jonas

[DanMatha]

My friend's wife was diagnosed at an early stage last year. In this one, they celebrated their wedding anniversary and being cancer-free within a month of each other. I hate cancer.

[Sheilajeanne]

DanMatha, good news! 

And, yeah F**K CANCER!!

One of my oldest friends was just diagnosed with a tumor in her liver. It's a secondary tumor, and they think the primary is in her pancreas. And pancreatic cancer almost never has a good outcome. 

[Mulesaw]

On 9/25/2023 at 7:46 AM, Sheilajeanne said:

DanMatha, good news! 

And, yeah F**K CANCER!!

One of my oldest friends was just diagnosed with a tumor in her liver. It's a secondary tumor, and they think the primary is in her pancreas. And pancreatic cancer almost never has a good outcome. 

Ouch, sorry to hear that. It is a monstrous disease.

Mette had the cancer nodes surgically removed including the tow nodes in her lymph. The hospital as a precaution always take the neighbor lymph nodes and send those to closer examination. The answer was sadly that they also had signs of cancer in them, so two weeks later it was back to surgery and now all the lymph's in the right armpit have been removed. The hospital then suggested some more chemo therapy, so that is where we are now.. 

The next step is going to be radiation everyday for 3 weeks. 
Can't honestly say that 2023 so far has been a great year.

But we are still going in the right direction which is good, and the hospital has asked if Mette would be interested in participating in some follow up program where they monitor her more closely for the next 10 years. She has of course said yes, because that'll mean that they will immediately discover if anything is acting up in the future.

 

[Sheilajeanne]

{{{HUGS}}}  Prayers for you both! Yep, it's certainly no walk in the park!

The followup study certainly sounds like a good idea.

When I met with my oncologist due to the recent problems I was having with the scar tissue, she recommended I get an IV infusion of a drug that is supposed to both strengthen the bones and help prevent the cancer from coming back. I hadn't been able to take this previously, as I was thinking of getting a dental implant, and the drug has been known to cause issues with this sort of thing.

I wasn't feeling great after the infusion. 12 hours later,  at 1 in the morning, I had a severe chill followed by a high fever. I took some Tylenol and eventually the symptoms subsided enough that I was able to get some sleep. The chills and fever came back the next morning, and when I looked at the side effects of the drug on the paper they'd given me, they said yes, it was a fairly common side effect, and I should seek medical attention if this happened. I was able to get a friend to drive me to the E.R. Six hours and numerous tests later, the doctor concluded: You were right - this is a side effect of the drug. Go home, take Tylenol, and if it gets worse, come back and see us.

Geez -  What a waste of my day! 

And I will NOT be taking a second dose of that drug! Those side effects were ten times worse than the ones I had from the chemo!  I've rarely felt so sick in my life! 

I did feel better after a couple of days, but by the middle of the week, I woke up with such severe joint pain I could barely walk. I had to ask my tenant to take my laundry out of the dryer, as it was too painful to go down the stairs. More Tylenol, and the pain was gone within a couple of days. 

Nope, nope nope. Not doing this again!

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Sheilajeanne

[Mulesaw]

@Sheilajeanne That sounds like some aggressive medicine for sure, especially given that the side effects from chemo aren't super friendly either. Thought they seem to be more long term like dry eyes, dry and sore mucous membranes etc. 

For the radiation treatment Mette might stay at the hospital for a few days. They have a patient hotel where she can stay so she doesn't need to drive back and forth every day. We might try that for a few days if the weather is bad. We have a 2 hour drive to the hospital, so basically half a day is spent in transport. 
She'd then drive there herself, and I's stay at home and take care of the dogs and horses. 

The good thing this year is that the company have decided that there is no need for keeping a full crew on the ship for Christmas, so instead of going back to the ship on the 22nd of December, I get to stay home until the 27th meaning a regular Christmas at home :-) 

 

[Sheilajeanne]

OH, that's great you can have Christmas together!

I was only about 45 minutes from the hospital, so was okay with commuting, and due to COVID, they condensed my chemo into only 7 sessions. A friend's mother was living in North Bay, so she stayed in a residence next to the hospital that was built by the Rotary Club. It was really lovely accommodations. There was a fully equipped kitchen, lots of lounging space with a nice view, and a large south facing balcony!

[Ferg]

My wife got her diagnosis seven years ago. When she told me, I lost it. This lady is the love of my life. We have worked side by side in our various business ventures for almost forty seven years. The very thought of losing her was something I was not prepared for. Her undying faith and refusal to give up helped her healing I am sure. My mom, one brother, brother's wife, and only sister died of this dreadful disease. Unfortunately neither of them had early diagnosis. I have three younger brothers. Two have cancer one has stage five kidney disease. I have been blessed with relatively good health my entire almost ninety years. My wife and I offer our prayers for any and all of you experiencing the effects of this terrible disease.

[Sheilajeanne]

Thank you, Ferg!

I currently have 2 female friends who have gone through cancer THREE times! Fortunately, each time it was caught early enough that it could be cured.

The one friend had breast cancer, kidney cancer and bowel cancer. The other had thyroid cancer, then many years later, following a lumpectomy for breast cancer, the cancer popped up in the other breast, but was a different kind of cancer! She had a double mastectomy, followed by a hysterectomy, as she tested positive for the gene that causes female cancers. 

Both are doing well. And may research continue to find more and better ways of making cancer survivable. 

 

[Mulesaw]

@Ferg
Thank you Ferg, it is deeply appreciated.

I also felt completely blank when we got the diagnosis. We were sort of expecting it because Mette had felt a lump in her breast, but to the very end you just hope that it is something else. but then once it was diagnosed - it just seems so overwhelming. 

@Sheilajeanne I think that Mette has had something like 16 weeks of chemo therapy before the surgery. We started the first session on May the 1st, and there is still some time to go. But apparently there are different types of breast cancer. And this type should be treated like that. I have previously thought that all cancer was the same, only it attacked different parts of the body. But I learned something new (that I really didn't want to learn)

 

[Sheilajeanne]

Mulesaw, yep, even with breast cancer there are a number of different types. Most are hormone sensitive - some to estrogen, some to progesterone, so post-treatment, you have to take drugs that suppress those hormones. Mine was not hormone sensitive - it was Her-2 positive, for a protein that encourages rapid replication of the cancer cells. Until recently, this was a very dangerous type of cancer. Then, researchers came up with a drug (a monoclonal antibody) that blocks the Her-2 antigen. It's called Herceptin, and I got infusions of that every 3 weeks for a whole year. There were no noticeable side effects, but it can damage the heart and cause congestive heart failure, so I had an echo-cardiogram every 3 months to check on my heart.

The last one was 2 weeks ago - they continue checking up on you even after the treatment is over. I have an appointment with the cardiologist this week, and hopefully he'll tell me everything is fine, and I won't need to see him again.

The usual chemo drug of choice is Taxol. I was to have 12 treatments, but after 5 treatments, they finally listened to me when I said I was having trouble breathing. They found my lungs looked almost like a COVID patient's (white patches) and I had an infection in my chemo port! I had to go on oxygen, and was hospitalized while they treated all this. The COVID lockdown happened just after I was discharged, and my oncologist said she'd understand if I didn't want to continue treatment, due to the risk of catching COVID if I had to leave home. 

I actually did have one more treatment, but the shortness of breath was so scary, I quit after that. Since my cancer was early stage with no spread to the lymph nodes, she said quitting only slightly increased my risk of it coming back. (Fingers crossed!) I'll breathe easier when I've gone 5 years with clean mammograms! One more year to go after this!

Edited November 13, 2023 by Sheilajeanne