First Oncologist visit...

So, I met my Oncologist for the first time yesterday. It was a very informational meeting. In fact, I’m still on information overload. It will take me a while to get it all sorted out, I think.

When I pulled in and parked, I noticed a woman standing outside the front door, smoking a cigarette. What special kind of stupid does that take? *rolls eyes* Anyway, Aaron met me in the parking lot and we went in together. I was happy that he came with me. I have no problems going to see doctors by myself, but it was comforting to have him with me at least for the first appointment. 

There was an impatient lady who was complaining about the length of time she had been waiting for the doctor. She was older and there with the Smoking Woman. I didn’t say anything or pay her any mind. It’s my opinion that when you’re dealing with something as traumatic as cancer, you need to cut the doc some slack if she’s running behind. I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t back there painting her nails. If she’s running late because the patient she’s with is falling apart, it wouldn’t do for her to run off to the next appointment, right? At least, I wouldn’t want that to happen to me.

We did finally get called back and the exam room was in shades of purple and gold, very spa-like. I liked it. A young nurse came in who seemed to be in training. She took some of my info & put it into the computer, took my picture and my pulse. Next came the nurse, Jessica, who got right down to business. She started down the list of what I had, the treatments we were going to explore and what each entailed, and some of what was going to come after.

The type of cancer I have is Invasive Lobular Carcinoma which is in Stage 2 and is estrogen positive, progesterone positive, Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2 negative, nodal negative. Or to put it another way e+p+HER2/neu-nodal-. That is a lot to take in with a very short sentence! What this means is that this cancer likes to eat female hormones (estrogen and progesterone), that it does *not* have the gene that makes it overproduce quickly, and that it has not reached my lymph nodes yet.

As for treatment options, I had to take a spit test (using Scope!?!?) to check for certain genetic markers. It will take about two weeks for the results to come back. If it comes back positive, having the double mastectomy isn’t even a question, chemo & radiation will be a must, possible removal of my ovaries as well, and I’ll also have to help remind my kids to monitor for this when they grow up. They would be carriers. If it comes back negative, it opens up more options. The nurse was pretty adamant that I not consider mastectomy in this case, that a lumpectomy would be preferable to reconstruction after mastectomy. I’m not sure if she was pushing a personal bias or not, but it sure felt like it. I still can’t see keeping around tissue that could possibly want to up and try to kill me again later. I think it would be like living with a time bomb in your chest.  The thought freaks me out.

After the nurse, I met Dr. Gold. She was very nice and laid back. She went over what Jessica had talked about, while doing an ultrasound. She took the time to answer any and all questions that we had. She didn’t seem to have any problems with my wanting a mastectomy, but suggested that we wait for the test results before making a firm decision. I am willing to hear out all options, but I’m pretty sure I’m still in the pro-mastectomy camp.

So, as of this afternoon, I have an MRI, consults with a radiation oncologist and plastic surgeon scheduled.


Also, I had ordered a few books to help deal with this and the first of them showed up today. It’s the one I got for Connor called “Mom Has Cancer!” by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos. Reading through it, I had a good cry. A natural reaction, I suppose. Even though he & I have talked about what’s going to happen openly, seeing it spelled out on the page was hard. This book is way below his reading level, but I think the difficulty of the material makes the simplicity necessary. I’ll post more books and other resources as I find them.

 
And remember, you can never say “I love you” to your family too many times. Never. When you part ways, even for a short time, never forget to say it because you just never know...