Three Months Down...

And the last of my medical news came in today: the chest x-rays were clear. No metastasis in my rib. So far, so good. Only nineteen years and nine months to go :)!

Yet More Human Maintenance (with a Nod to Rafia)

The past couple of weeks have again been very busy with medical stuff. On Friday a week ago (9/17), I had my first posttreatment bone and CT scans done. I arrived at the hospital at 8:30 when they asked me to, and even though I'm 47 and have not menstruated since November 2009 (because of my treatment pushing me into an early menopause), they felt they had to give me a pregnancy test. So that took about an hour, after a half hour to get registered. At 10, they gave me the shot with the radioactive stuff for the bone scan, which had to be in my body for two hours before they could do the scan. So sat and waited. Again. I got the bone scan, which takes about 45 minutes and goes from head to toe and is actually pretty relaxing. Around 1 -- and remember, I had to fast for all this, so I've had NOTHING to eat, just some water -- the radiology guy handed me over to the CT guy, who gave me about 1.5 liters of water that he put something in (I thought he said steroids?), and he told me I had to drink it all down and wait an hour and a half before I could have the CT scan because all this stuff had to reach my lower intestines. So I sat and waited. Again. And went to the bathroom. A lot. I had the CT scan, which took only about 5 minutes and was finally out of there at around 3:30, feeling rather ill from lack of food and whatever was in that water. I came home, had a quick snack, and laid down for a bit before having some lovely soup that Kyle made for dinner.

On Monday, I saw my primary care physician for my yearly exam/checkup. Here's what she had to say:

1. My bloodwork looked really good. Cholesterol, liver and kidney function, counts -- all were great. Except my thyroid numbers. Evidently, it's not uncommon for women going through menopause to lose thyroid function to some extent. My numbers were very low. So now I'm on something called Armour. Hopefully, it will help my thyroid function and increase my metabolism, giving me more energy and helping me to lose weight.
2. To prevent recurrence of my cancer, I need to eat 7-9 servings of fruits and veggies a day. That's like four cups. I'm supposed to stay away from bananas, guava, mangos, and a couple of others because they have too much sugar. Really good for me are the following (all must be organic): any kind of berries, cruciferous veggies, greens, apples, citrus fruit, something called broccosprouts (which I have yet to find), and others. Also good are pumpkin seeds and other nuts and grains. I need to limit my intake of refined sugars and red meat. So basically, it's a sensible diet. I'm enjoying it so far.
3. To reduce inflammation of my mucous membranes in certain parts of my body, and to stabilize my hormones a bit, I'll be getting a vaginal cream with minute traces of estradiol and testosterone. I know. Seems weird, but I'm told it works. I was supposed to do this saliva test that costs $150 and that takes A LOT of saliva as a baseline test for my hormone levels. See below for my decision on that.
4. Also to help prevent recurrence of my cancer, she put me on a fish oil supplement and doubled my intake of vitamin D (to 2000 IU per day).

Just this past Friday, I saw Dr. Krekow for the first time in three months. I actually became more than a bit annoyed, much as I like her, since she kept me waiting almost an hour and a half. And I had a morning appointment! Grrrr. I just sat there and watched the minutes tick away and got more and more steamed. I mean, this is my vacation time I'm using now since I'm out of sick time again! Anyway, once she finally arrived we had a nice chat. Here's what she had to say:

1. My chances of a complete cure (i.e., the cancer NEVER returns) are 60%-75%. I thought I remembered her saying that from the very beginning, but I wasn't sure, so I asked her again.
2. That said, every year that goes by with no cancer means the likelihood of it coming back decreases.
3. With the "personality" of the type of cancer I have, she will not say that I'm "cured" at five years, or even ten years. She's seen this type come back as late as 15-18 years after initial diagnosis, so she said she would not use the word "cure" until after 20 years. That means I will not be able to breathe easily and forget this nightmare until/if I reach 67.
4. She said that my numbers look really good, and that I look very healthy. She also thought that I'm healing quite well from the implant surgery.
5. My bone and CT scans looked great overall except for one very small spot on my fourth rib on the left side, basically directly under my mastectomy incision, where the rib joins the sternum. She said that the spot is probably some inflammation from radiation (I also have some areas of my left lung that are inflamed), but she ordered a series of chest x-rays just to rule out the very slight chance that it's metastasis, which I had done on Friday afternoon. I should have results from those tomorrow or Tuesday.
6. I asked her about the saliva test and whether it would be all that much more accurate than blood levels. I really didn't want to do it because (a) it's very expensive and (be) it would be a huge pain in the butt to spit in this vial for about an hour to give them enough saliva for the test. Dr. Krekow said that blood levels would be accurate, so she ordered those tests.
7. I will stay on Tamoxifen for probably another two years and then switch to Femara. It is more effective at reducing the chance of recurrence, but I cannot take it until my ovaries are completely shut down.

That's about it for now. Everything at work is going well, just very busy with the beginning of the semester. We've had one of our best friends, Mike Larson, visiting since Friday night and have had a blast with him as we always do. He will head out on Tuesday to the deep south of Texas to visit his grandma for half a week. I hope all is well with you. Peace, Jody

New Tatas -- Ta Dah!

The past month or more has been a bit of a whirlwind. As you may recall, I saw my plastic surgeon, Dr. Heistein, about halfway through radiation. He was amazed at how well my skin was doing, so we went ahead and scheduled the surgery to remove the tissue expander on my left side and put in permanent implants on both sides. I also had made an appointment with my oncologist for my first posttreatment checkup, and she wanted me to have a mammogram, bone scan, and CT scan before that checkup. So one day around mid August I'm chatting with my friend Gretchen about all this, and she pointed out that I might want to get the mammogram on my right side before I get the implant. I can't believe I hadn't thought about that! Thank the FSM that Gretchen is a very smart woman, obviously a better planner than me! I called my oncologist's office and asked The Good Nurse Sue if I should have the mammogram before my implant surgery, and the answer was a vehement YES.

So now I'm under a time crunch to get the mammogram. The earliest I could schedule it was exactly a week before my surgery: mammogram, August 18, surgery, August 25. I go in for the mammogram, a diagnostic one, and the radiologist calls me in and says first that everything looks fine. Whew. Then he says that there's this one tiny area of calcification that's questionable, deep in my breast, close to the chest wall. The only reason he's hesitating over it is because the same area in last year's image is not as clear, so he can't tell for sure whether it was there then. He recommends follow-up at six months. Now I had it in my head at the time that I was going to be getting a breast MRI later, along with the CT scan, etc. So I called my oncologist and spoke to her P.A., Lisa, who checked my chart and said that no, Dr. Krekow had not put down that she wanted me to have a breast MRI. Even if she did, Lisa said that it wouldn't give us any more info than the mammogram did for a calcification. And even then, I CAN'T have an MRI because I have a tissue expander with a metal valve! In talking with her about all this and about the fact that I was scheduled to get my implants in less than a week, she posited that I might want to go ahead and get a biopsy. My mood at this point is getting more and more bleak. I called the mammogram place, Solis, and told them that I needed to schedule a biopsy and my oncologist would fax the order over soon. They said the earliest they could get me in was Monday, August 23, that it would take that long to get clearance for the biopsy from my insurance company. Tick-tock.

I called Dr. Heistein's office and explained the situation to them. One of his nurses said she would relay all the information to him and have him call me. At this point, I'm kind of leaning toward not having the biopsy because it doesn't seem like I'm going to get results from it before my surgery has to be done. It's now around 5 p.m., and Dr. Heistein calls. He told me that it was up to me as to whether to do the biopsy, but he also said that if I were a member of his family, he'd advise going ahead, just for the peace of mind. "Because," he says, "the chances of your actually having something bad there are minuscule." I point out to him that we may not get results by COB Tuesday when we need them since my surgery is scheduled for 7 a.m. on Wednesday. He says he'll call Solis to see if he can get my biopsy scheduled earlier.

The next morning (Thursday, 8/19), I'm getting ready for work and my phone rings. It's Solis, asking if I can come in that afternoon at 1 p.m. for my biopsy! Yay! Somehow when a doctor calls and says it's got to be done sooner, all other problems and complexities melt away. So I show up that afternoon and have the joy of having another stereotactic biopsy done, explained and described fully in a previous post, so I won't go into the details again, except to say that when I arrived, the tech was very doubtful that they could get the exact sample they wanted to get because the area was so small and so deep. She said if they couldn't get it, I'd have to have surgery to have a biopsy. My mood gets bleaker still, even though I didn't think it possible. After 45 minutes of extreme discomfort for me, however, the tech and the radiologist seem to think that they have a sample with the calcifications. The tech goes to take an X-ray of it, and returns triumphant. They place a marker in me, bandage me up, and take a couple of mammograms to be sure all looks good. It's over and I go home for the rest of the day. I am happy that it's done and I don't have to fret about facing it all weekend as I would have if I had had to wait to get it done on Monday. I still have to await results, but I've gotten pretty good at putting that out of my mind and being patient.

I get a call from Solis Monday morning while I'm teaching a class. I actually forgot about the call until about an hour after the class (my caller ID didn't ID the call, just gave me a number I didn't know). So I check my messages call them back immediately. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! It's benign! I can have my surgery as scheduled on Wednesday!

After all this tension and angst, I was almost giddy walking into the hospital on Wednesday morning. Well, I would have been giddy had it not been 5:30 in the morning. So mostly, I was bleary-eyed. But I was also somewhat giddy and excited and joyful that I was going to get rid of the damned tissue expander and get my implants! In other words, my mood could not have been more opposite of what it was last September 2nd when I had my mastectomy. Surgery started on time (7 a.m.), I was in recovery by 8:45, waking up by 9-ish, and leaving around 10. The pain was kind of bad but not horrible; it stayed that way most of Wednesday. I couldn't lie on either side, and I'm not comfortable sleeping on my back, but I did. Kyle and I both slept most of the day, in fact.

The next day, I felt a lot better and was able to lie on my sides, gingerly. By Friday, I was able to stop taking pain meds, and by Saturday, I just had some lingering soreness and achiness, but mostly I was just really, really tired. I worked from home most of this week except for Tuesday when the library had several big academic-year kick-off events planned that I needed to be there for. I went in and worked a full day today as well.

Thanks once again to Kyle for taking care of me, cooking for me, and helping me. And thanks to my coworkers for filling in for me without complaint. Peace, Jody.

Visit to Monroe

This post won't be long because it's late and I have to get up early for a busy start to a busy week tomorrow. But I wanted to write about visiting my brother-in-law, Paul, this weekend. We drove over on Friday, and I must say that it was difficult being there again. I've only been there twice since my sister died; the last time was just for one night when we were moving down here from Michigan, so I think I was so keyed up about the move that being there didn't register much. My sister's house is almost exactly as she left it, and I can see her everywhere I look when I'm there -- quite literally, since Paul still has about 10 pictures of her just in the living room, even more elsewhere. Ann's presence absolutely permeates that house, which is not a bad thing, but it's almost like a sweet torment being there. I feel so close to her being surrounded by all that she loved so much, but the one thing that would make me happiest is lacking.

And it's not just Ann whom I think about while spending time there, but my mother also, of course. Some of her furniture is still there; we sleep in her bed, in fact. I see her not just in that house but in so many of the places around town -- a wholesale music supply company where she once worked, the site of a Sealtest ice-cream shop we used to go to, a store where we'd shopped together many, many times. I miss my mother so much, but the ache inside me for her isn't as keen and sharp as it is for my sister. I'm not sure why but I think part of it is because even though it was devastating to lose my mother, I was prepared for her death somewhat. I knew it was coming at least. This was not at all the case for my sister -- a 49-year-old athletic, slim nonsmoker who'd never had a serious illness in her life. But who nevertheless dropped dead on October 13, 2006, as though she'd been simply shut down like a machine. I am still trying to wrap my head around it. I don't know that I ever truly will.

Peace, Jody

The Dog Days . . .

I posted this screen capture on my Facebook page and thought I'd share it with you here as well. We have a searing ball of nuclear fusion in the sky that other peoples on earth know as the sun, but that we in the South are now avoiding at all costs since even a few seconds of exposure will render one down into a large puddle of sweat and blistered skin.

I kid, obviously. But it is very, very hot. The kind of hot that makes you draw the blinds and stay inside as much as you possibly can. I was hand-washing some of my delicates today and thought it might be easier to rinse them outside on the deck. Hah! What an idiot I am. I was out there for around three minutes and thought I was going to pass out.

Since my last actual newsy post, I've been to DC and had a very busy July. ALA was a blast! I got to see my best buddies Mike and Jerry several times, and I met lots of new people in library land: Maura (and her bf Matt, who is getting his PhD in Am Studies), Laura, David, and Kristin. My poster session went very well. I had around 30 people stop by to chat and ask me about my work, which is probably more than would have shown up if I were giving an actual presentation. The weather was good, if a bit hot, and I managed to keep my energy up pretty well, even though I was only about a week out of radiation. I finally ran out of steam the third evening we were there and went to bed around 8 p.m. The last day, a bunch of us got a "professional" tour of the Library of Congress, much more behind the scenes than the public tour. It was really interesting! I'm glad we took the time to arrange it in advance (if you are a librarian and ever want to do this, be sure to go to the LoC's website at least a month before your trip to request the professional tour).

I mentioned in my last post that I was on a search committee for an information literacy librarian -- we have since completed our interviews and offered the post to a woman I liked very much. She will be starting at our library tomorrow, and I know she will be a great addition! I'm pleased we were able to find someone so well suited to our workplace.

My health continues about the same. I am slowly getting back to normal but don't feel that I'm there yet. Frankly, I wonder if I ever will be. I tire much more easily than I ever have, and I've been experiencing some mild to moderate joint pain since about halfway through radiation. I've spoken with my oncology nurse and my radiation oncologist about it, and they say that they don't think it's metastasis on the basis of my description (stiffness in joints throughout my body that goes away after I'm up and about for more than a few minutes, intermittent pain that varies in intensity). As it turns out, I was misremembering about my scans and checkups last time I posted. I will be seeing my plastic surgeon this month and getting my last surgery on August 25th, barring any problems, but I don't start the other stuff until September. So I guess I will find out then what's up with this joint pain. I hope so, anyway.

Right after returning from ALA in DC, one of my good friends and closest colleagues at work, Eric, was offered a position at a small, private Catholic college in Austin. He and his wife both got their undergrad degrees at UT Austin, and they've been longing to get back there, plus the pay at the new job was very generous, so he will be leaving us soon to start that position. I am very sorry to see him go, but I know we will stay in touch. I am helping to cover some of his liaison responsibilities (Rafia and I are going to share the instruction and consultation duties for the curriculum and instruction half of the College of Education), so that will mean that I'm going to be busier than ever this fall. The VERY good news, however, is that Eric's position was approved for refunding by the muckety-muck university hiring committee, so at least we will be able to hire someone to replace him. With the budget cuts we've been experiencing, it was by no means certain that this would happen! If you know an academic librarian with an education background, please give him/her a heads up to be on the lookout for the job posting here. It should be up pretty soon. In fact, we have a position up there right now for a science and engineering librarian. So pass that link along if you know anyone who might be interested!

Yesterday, we went to a BBQ at the house of some friends we play Warcraft with, Paul and Renee. They live a couple of hours away in Graham, TX. We got there around 3:30-ish and stayed until around 9, ate way too much good food (brisket and pork that Paul had smoked for about 14 hours), and VERY much enjoyed visiting with Paul, Renee, and her kids. The added bonus this year (we did the same thing last year about this time) was that one of our other WoW buddies, Adrian, came up from San Marcos with his wife, Rosario. It was awesome to meet Aden (his game name) after we've spent so many years playing with him and talking online! Rosario was very sweet to put up with our gabbing almost exclusively about Warcraft the whole night :).

I'm going to sign off now so I can get on the game for a bit and spend the rest of my Sunday relaxing. Peace, Jody.

"I Fight Like a Girl"

You may remember that I mentioned here that I was photographed and interviewed for a breast cancer survivor project? It's called "I Fight Like a Girl" and the website debuted today! Click below to see our photos and read our stories.

http://www.ifightlikeagirl.info/

Click on "See More" to find my page, or just follow this link:

http://www.ifightlikeagirl.info/jody

Please feel free to share "I Fight Like a Girl" with others who may enjoy it or find it useful!

A Day to Celebrate!

At long last, I am done with all cancer treatments! I finished radiation therapy yesterday. Since I started chemo in early October, this means that I've endured and survived eight months of intensive treatment. I am very VERY glad to be done with this part of my journey, but I still have the last part of my reconstructive surgery to get through. So starting in July/August, I will be busy with my regular yearly checkup; a full-body MRI, bonescan, and CT scan; bloodwork (they will look for tumor markers); followups with all three of my cancer-related docs; and the decision as to whether to go ahead with the final reconstruction on August 25. I am very thankful to have survived thus far and so grateful for the support of Kyle and all of you. Though I am relieved to be done with treatment, I will not breathe easily until (or if) I reach the five-year cancer-free mark. As I have said often in this blog, I don't mean to be negative, just honest and realistic.

The second big piece of news is that we sold our house in Michigan! Good lord, what a relief. And right up front, I want to give all the credit to my mother-in-law, Carol, who I hope will be long blessed by whatever god(s), saints, or fates there may be. She and Kyle and my father-in-law did everything regarding this transaction. I decided early on that I could focus on only one extremely stressful thing at a time, and since I was the one with CANCER, it seemed that that should be my focus :). I completely put the sale of the house out of my mind except for the occasional times that Kyle mentioned it to me. Honestly, it was the first time in my life that I really was able to completely NOT think about something that stressful -- well, to be honest, I did think about it at the beginning of each month for the past year when rent and mortgage payments completely ate up my paycheck. But I just tried to breathe deeply and not worry. So last Wednesday, we closed on the sale. The people who bought the house do not have pristine credit and so could not get a traditional mortgage. Carol was able to broker a land-contract (aka owner-financed) deal, which although risky, is certainly better than nothing! In essence, we will continue to pay our mortgage, but the new owners will be paying us each month. Even though we still have the mortgage, we technically no longer own the house, and so they are responsible for any repairs and maintenance that is needed. Carol is a very good judge of character and said that she really trusts that these people will do what they are now contractually obligated to do. Also, they are paying us a higher interest rate than we pay our mortgage company, so we will theoretically -- if all goes as it should -- actually make money on this sale eventually, which we would not have done had the buyers been able to get a traditional mortgage. So we all need to keep our fingers crossed and hope that everything goes well!

On to more mundane news: my skin has continued to do pretty well with the radiation treatments. I have had only mild tenderness and peeling, similar to what one would get after a sunburn, on the upper-left quadrant of my chest. I was quite puzzled by a rectangular-shaped red area on the upper-left quadrant of my back and so asked one of the radiation techs about it yesterday. She said it is the burn from where the radiation has been *exiting* my body. I never thought about the fact that it goes out the back, lol! So I'm a bit itchy on my back as well. My radiation nurse told me yesterday that I can expect the side effects to continue for two weeks and then start to get better. She also said that I have to be extremely careful about sun and wind exposure for the next year -- I'm supposed to wear sunscreen *under* my clothing now since fabric doesn't always block UVA and UVB rays. I also went to the dentist (my cousin Van in Fort Worth) for a checkup and cleaning last week, and he said I didn't need to have any work done, which I was actually surprised by. The chemo and all the anti-side-effect drugs had made my mouth SO dry for SO many months that I thought surely I would have some bad decay. But Van said we just need to keep an eye on one tooth and that was it. So, yay!

Work is going well, as usual. I am now very busy with committee work: I'm on a search committee for a new librarian in our Information Literacy Program Area (these are the folks who work mainly with first-year students), and week after next, we will be starting the interview process with our top four candidates. Each interview lasts about a day and a half with the candidates meeting multiple groups/people in the library, giving a presentation, going out to dinner, as well as meeting with the search committee for 2+ hours. That week, we will have two candidates in, the following week we will have one, and the last week of June, the final candidate will be on campus. I also have several instruction sessions coming up before I go to the ALA conference in DC June 24-28, and I am on another committee that is setting up guidelines for digitizing collections both within the library and across the campus. What did I say in my last post about summer being slower??

We had so much fun last Sunday at the Memorial Day party that Gretchen organized and hosted at her parents house; the photos I put at the start of this post were taken there. Since they have a pool and were agreeable to us all descending on them like locusts, we totally could not resist. It was a hot, sunny day -- perfect for the pool! I stayed in the shade most of the day and wore a short-sleeved turtleneck and swim shorts to keep covered, but I did allow myself to swim in the refreshing water for a short while. Gretchen smoked a huge brisket, baby-back ribs, and home-made sausage -- everything was SO delicious! Gretchen and her mom even invited our dogs, so they had lots of fun running around and playing with everyone. It was a great day :).

On a more somber note, I have several times lately been close to tears regarding the tragedy in the Gulf. I consider myself a Louisianian after having lived there for 20+ years, and to see the lifeblood of that state being ravaged because of corporate greed and malfeasance and idiocy, as well as (at best) neglect and (at worst) active illegal activity within the federal agency that oversees drilling -- it's almost overwhelming. I really do not understand how the U.S. Gulf region and surrounding nations will recover from this disaster in my lifetime, even if I happen to live to a ripe old age. I have heard that some are comparing this event to Chernobyl; it seems much, much worse to me.

That's about it for now. I hope you are happy and well. Peace, Jody.