Cancer 1 year later: retrospective on my experience.

 

Can't WAIT to get the all-clear to have this removed.

 It was around this time last year that I felt a lump in my right breast.  It was a different sort of lump than I normally feel in my fibrocystic/dense breasts, so I scheduled a mammogram posthaste (it was time for it anyhow).

The 'gram came back s 'suspicious,' so a diagnostic mammogram was performed very soon thereafter.  Suspicious status was confirmed.  Things started to turn serious.

Core biopsy confirmed cancer roundabout September.

Lumpectomy in October.

Port placement in November.

Chemo started in December, ended mid-March.

Radiation started in May, ended mid-June.

And here we  are, a year later, with the news yesterday from the 2020 version of the diagnostic mammogram of 'looks great, no sign of suspicious activity.'

It's been a year.  I have had, and continue to have, amazing support from family and friends, a village of prayer warriors keeping me front and center with God, and tremendous treatment by the good folks at Rex Hematology Oncology and Rex Radiation Oncology.

 Of course Biff was tremendously supportive and took on 110% of the housework and care and feeding of his wife (me!) while I was knocked out by treatments, so tired I needed at least  daily nap.  What a hero he is, honestly.

My kids were a great support as well, carting me to and fro when needed, dropping off notes of support, doing what was asked of them with no complaint.  They're good men.

At no point during all of this past year did I truly break down in hopelessness.  I believed the doctors and care staff when they said they were going for a cure, and I still do.  I figured that drowning in sorrow was not the way to move forward, and just had to accept that treatment and the associated discomfort was my lot in life for a year or so.  

I was able to stay engaged with work, though I did have to give up a status role in the major submission we worked on.  There's no way I had the hubris to think I could do a high-stress job while getting treatment.  It was the right thing to do, and in stepping back I was able to focus my energy on 1 big thing and see it through.  We finished it just a little while ago, and the whole submission was filed last week.  That's HUGE in my line of work.

What does the future hold?  More scans, more port flushes (at least for a little while longer), more monitoring, more of That Sort of Thing.  I have to take an aromatase inhibitor daily for at least 10 years (block that nasty estrogen), and otherwise work my way back to full health.  Energy returns bit by bit, day by day, to the point where I now feel like I could go for a walk or do more than just exist. I didn't know how truly awful I felt until I started to not feel like that anymore.

So, a year into this journey, and there's a lot to look back on.  Even more to look forward to.

Updates will be provided as the occasion demands.

For now, it's back to our regular program.

Tiff out.