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Hello Friends and Family,
(This is probably too detailed, but if you read this, I don't have to explain what the NEXT step is going to be!)
Hope all is well with you. I just spoke to Dr. Shen and we are scheduled for margin clean up surgery on Jan 7th at 6AM!!!!
Arrgh!
The first of the day. At least her hands will be nimble and fresh! I also made an appointment with Dr Yeon, She is the oncologist that will be in charge of my chemo treatments beginning in February.
Just a recap: When they remove a tumor, they must get nice clean cancer free tissue around the whole thing, to make sure they got it all. This surrounding tissue is called "margin". There are six margins. Imagine it like a big cardboard box, that has six sides (a cube).
We want the tumor inside the box and right in the middle because cancer tumors have little tentacles. So now imagine that inside this cardboard box is an octopus. We got the whole octopus inside the box except for one tentacle! Darnit!
Under the super microscope, one tentacle looks like it is cut off. So that means that one little finger is still inside. The margin in question is called "the deep margin" because it is the one facing the back of the box (or closest to my chest plate if you were facing me).
If they don't get it, in say, 10 or 20 years, this little tentacle can grow into another tumor....so we gotta go in and get it.
This is actually quite common so no big deal...but it is a shame because my incision is healing up really nicely = - (
I like to think of my tumor as an octopus (like the animation cartoon "squidbilly" on adultswim) inside a little ring box and when it snapped shut, the tentacle got lopped off!
After the margin clean up, I will be a little immobilized like I was before, but not in as much pain. So it will take about a month to heal. Then in February, when the incision is healed up enough, we will start the chemo.
The first step of the chemo is having a port-a-cath inserted near my collar bone. This is a small port where they insert the chemo liquid...it is like an internal drip. If you had to have chemo injected into your bare veins, they would just disintegrate...so they do this port insertion now. This is a minor surgery.
So probably by the end of Feb., we can actually start the treatments. 4 to 6 cycles and they are about 3 weeks per cycle. (at most 18 weeks).
After that (or maybe during..depends on what Dr. Yeon says...) we still have to do targeted radiation on the booby itself (that's for 6 weeks, daily).
Then we wait 6 months and have mammos and MRI's and hope for the best.
And I am ready! So hold on to your hats.
Love PegLove.
I just happened to come across this site looking up a certain antibioic and what it is used for. Then I saw what you wrote, clicked on the link and started reading it. It was detailed but... doggonnit it was ecouraging! While I was reading it, it seemed as if you typed each each word with a smile on your face. With all that type of enthusiasm, you must know that all will be well. God must be embracing you in His love! All you have to do now is embrace Him back. That is... if you already haven't!