As Julie wrote, I finished radiation in early June - yeah!!! What I wasn't as ready for was how bad the burn got AFTER I finished treatment. It was really bad a couple weeks after my last session, and I actually took more pain medicine than I had after the surgery. I had to watch what I wore to work, and pretty quickly revert to just a plain droopy Tshirt once I got out of work. I have to say, though, that once it stopped getting worse, it really healed very quickly, so that at my 3 week checkup, everything was pretty much healed. I could go back to wearing normal clothes, and just before we left for the beach on vacation, I finally got my long term prosthesis, which matches pretty darn well, and is so comfortable I go all day without remembering that its even there. That means I'm as back to normal as I'm going to be for quite a while, and it's a pretty good normal.
So what's next?
1) Drugs. I keep taking the hormone treatment at the chemo suite every 3 weeks until October. Besides knocking out one more of the reproductive possibilities for this cancer, it gives me a chance to say hi to the same chemo staff, and they tell me I look great, and that makes me feel good. I like to think maybe someone who has gotten through chemo and is recovering provides some hope to those in the middle of their treatments, since I know it helped me when I saw healthy looking people come in. I also started the "5 year drug" that shuts down some of the estrogen that feeds the cancer, another of the possible reproductive possibilities, and though one of the possible side effects is extreme achiness, it hasn't been too bad so far.
2) Consultations about what to do in the future - I'm working on two different consultations about where I go from here - do I have reconstruction done again, or does that help mask any future reoccurrence? if reconstruction is OK, how long do I wait? or do I go the other direction and have the remaining breast removed, just to be sure? As Julie said, I'm going to the James Center at OSU later this month, and P&G also provides a "Best Doctors" service that I'm using to ask the same questions.
3) Get back to normal - We're on vacation at the beach this week, which is really nice to have all the kids together having fun. When I get back to work next week, I'm going back with a short haircut and no wig. And now that my energy is returning, I need to keep loosing weight, since excess weight also causes extra estrogen to form, not good for the breast cancer situation, and not good for the family history of heart and diabetes problems either!
One thing struck me recently about getting back to normal - its a normal that no longer includes my mom. We might have "fixed" everything else, but that loss doesn't go away. I just have to think she's up there helping me through the rest of this crap though!
Love,
Teri
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