Cancer: Sometimes it's a Shell Game

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I have been chasing the ellusive pea in a shell game, and I am growing cross-eyed!

Those who share my shoes blanche at the usual cancer tropes. My newest personal visualization is not original, but it sums up my fall season.  Monitoring my health has not been a game of medical skill, but of chance and opportunity. With all such slight-of-hands, if you stay focused you can get lucky and track the path of the disease. Take your eyes off the trajectory for a second and the forces will push the "pea" to unexpected destinations. The gamer, as always, is unscrupulous.

June 2011 - "Evolving lymphatic metastasis" / "hypermetabolic focus also seen in the anterior abdominal wall near the base of the umbilicus...soft tissue metastasis cannot be excluded"

...I then started on an aggressive regimen of supplements; bi-weekly high dose IV vitamin C; and weekly ozone infusion treatments...

November 2011 - "July 2011, core biopsy sampling of left axillary lymph node demonstrated metastatic invasive lobular cancer [but at this time] no suspicious abnormalities are identified...may represent positive response to treatment."

...I then tapper off aggressive regimen and opted to do a modified maintenance program of supplements only...veins can only take so much sticking.

August 2012 - Concurrent pneumonia and shingles. Both controlled with broad-based antibiotics.

September 2012 - Sharp intermittent chest pains and shortness of breath unresolved. PCP orders EKG and Chest CT, and refers to pulmonologist and cardiologist.

October  2012 - "Subpleural nodule in the left lower lobe" / "metabolic activity in left axillary"

November 2012 - "Shadow present on right lung...recheck in 2 months with follow up chest CT with contrast"

...Weight loss of 6 lbs over the course of a two plus weeks...Chest pains are now accompanied with nausea and heart burn. Falling asleep curled up in weeble position, propped up because laying on back increases pain. Laying on side makes rib cage feel like its splintering. Not much recuperative sleep happening. Sucks!

November 2012 - "Chronic pericarditis secondary to invasive lobular carcinoma...recheck in 2 months with follow up echocardiagram"

...Restart ozone infusion treatments. Start pounding "Meriva (aka Curcumin") like "skittles" (to challenge the inflammation).  Scheduling IV vitamin C treatments. The game plays on.

 

Running Out of Wiggle Room?

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METASTATIC INVASIVE LOBULAR CARCINOMA TO LYMPH NODE...lab report of July 21, 2011, courtesy of Pinnacle Pathology.


(post script: the all-caps was not me being dramatic. the report actually came typed in this font.)

(p.s.s.: onc turned the phrase, "we are back at ground zero" me: "you mean like deja vu all over again?" onc, "YES, exactly")

Just Practicing - An Update

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I have heard from 6 lovely friends over the last three days. The commentary is all the same. I have read your blog and know what is happening, but HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
I found this an interesting question. Interesting, because this blog is my emotional outlet. The narrative of HOW I AM FEELING. So, I re-read my entries, and tried to be objective. From the entries it would seem to me that my feelings are indeed all encapsulated on this blog. They can be summed up, and in no significant ranking, as:




Frustrated
Cynical
Sardonic (is that a feeling?)
Appreciative
Challenging (more of an action-word, I know. but anyone who knows me knows that I am constantly in-motion)
Surreal (a sensation yes, but an emotion? probably not, but I include it because it really does captures the daily state of my mental being)

So, looking at the above list, it appears fairly comprehensive -- to me -- of where my head and emotions have been these last few weeks. With that in mind, to answer the question, how am I feeling?

WEELLLLLLLLLL..........

I hit my 3 week mark since the mastectomy and I am frustrated at my lack of stamina and the screaming of my nerve endings in the surgical site! Reminder: a mastectomy is the lobing off of an appendage, albeit a small and inconsequential one. Nonetheless, there is "shadow" pain associated with a missing appendage - no matter the nature of the protrusion.

I asked the reconstructive surgeon if it was "normal" to feel like my body is trying to purge the expander, a la Sigourney Weaver and ALIENS. YES! He answered quite enthusiastically. Apparently I just came up with another way of describing that my body is vociferously objecting the presence of a prosthetic.

What is surreal, is that I am a card-carrying prosthetic recipient. A synthetic "expander" now occupies the space under my chest-muscle wall, directly underneath where my breast innards used to be. Got the card in my wallet, complete with a picture and model #. I'm supposed to carry it there as a "just in case." Like, just in case I'm in an accident and the bugger pops! So with the card and the clean thong I keep in my handbag I'm giving a whole new meaning to the Girl Scouts motto: "Be prepared!".

I am frustrated in that speaking to the med pros, here in-state and out-of-state, I cannot pin down a personalized prognosis. (This is the second most asked question I get.) All I get is the insistence that in order to statistically have a chance at the "standard" 10 year survival rate for ILC I must succumb to the standard adjuvant treatments.

The emotional and mental challenge of this lack of individualistic answer is that my PetScan came back with NOTHING, NADA, RIEN, NICHTS remarkable. Indeed, my margins after the removal of the entire left-lady were clean. Annnnnddddd, of the 3 lymph nodes removed, only one had "uncontained" tumor cells -- which, apparently as of 4 weeks ago the ICBC* concluded that the course of action is "do nothing." (BTW, what I could glean from this medical verbiage essentially amounted to: "dunno why this is the recommendation," but maybe it based on the assumption that the tumor cells could have been placed in that node by virtue of the initial diagnostic biopsy. OOPS! Medical conclusion, if that is the case, is that the little buggers won't survive because the environment they were "pushed" into is not conducive for them to grow. Hmmm.  I summarized my understanding to the onc surgeon who responded, "yea...pretty much.")

How can I not be frustratingly sardonic, cynically appreciative of my situation, and surreally (sp..word?) challenged but all this expertise and knowledge?

All cynicism aside, and most importantly, I truly appreciate the random acts of kindness that I am shown daily by those who are following (and commenting on) my blog; those who care enough to ask me questions; and those who are thinking of me -- no matter WHAT you are thinking - at least I am in your thoughts.


*ICBC = industrial complex of breast cancer