I Am Not Alone

I am not the only cancer patient in this household.  Maya, my canine companion of over 14 years, was diagnosed with nose cancer this spring.  Her cancer is incurable, but she won’t be defeated by it quite yet. That’s good for me, because I want her by my side as I recuperate from surgery, even though I can’t expect her to hold on through whatever the rest of my treatment is.

Although she’s a mix – part lab and part cattle dog – she’s a rare breed.  Not only is nasal cancer uncommon in dogs – it makes up only 1% of the cancers found in dogs – it is predominantly found in large breeds and males.  Maya is 35 pounds and, as her name would suggest, a female.  So how did she manage to develop a cancer found mostly in large, male dogs?

Well, we used to joke that taking her for a walk was really a matter of going on a sniff.  It was a slow, and sometimes painful process as she tried to stop and smell everything along the route. All along the way she marked everything as well, lifting her leg to leave a trace of herself for other dogs to sniff.  She never was very ladylike! Dogs can inhale things that may then get lodged in their nasal passages and ultimately irritate them enough that some of the nose cells start to go haywire and become malignant.  As a very sniffy dog, she would seem likely to have inhaled more than her fair share of irritating foreign matter.  Whether that's the actual cause of her cancer is unknown.

She’s had her ups and downs through this disease.  When she was diagnosed we didn’t expect to have her this long, but she has had some relatively asymptomatic times, including a whole month just prior to my own cancer diagnosis in August.  Now things are not so easy for her, and therefore for us. She gets very restless at night and has trouble breathing through her nose.  She can make some alarming wheezing, gurgling, snoring, drowning sounds.  On the other hand, she still is vastly more interested in food than anything else.  She still chases the Frisbee a bit, greets guests with gusto and can be the bossiest little cattle dog mix on Earth when she wants something from us.  She certainly makes her wishes known. 

I will miss her more than I can say, and although I hope she’ll stick around a little bit longer, I fear her time is drawing near.  She has been the best of companions with the greatest personality of any dog I’ve ever known.  Despite the sadness I feel seeing her fade, I am so grateful to have found her and to have had her in my life.  I’m especially glad that she has been with me this past week, providing me with comfort and company as I recover.  My eternal gratitude, Miss Maya.  

The Simple Pleasures of Life

Ahhh!  Now that feels better.  I have taken a shower and washed my hair for the first time since surgery on Monday.  Sponge baths, although better than no baths, just don’t prove as satisfying as a good hot shower.  I feel like a new woman, although I look shockingly like a battered one.  Then there was the treat I received last night of M&M’s.  So simple, and so satisfying – a true comfort candy!   I came upon this quote, attributed to Charles Dickens:  "There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate."  I couldn’t agree more!  Thank heavens it was only a small bag or I might have been awake all night with sugar dreams.  As it was, I had my first night’s sleep without painkillers and I truly appreciated the absence of bizarre, exhausting dreams.

There are actually some pleasures I discovered at the hospital as well.  I wish we could adopt some of them for home use.  What a wonderful thing it is to be wrapped in a warmed blanket. They are so cozy, and I like being all tucked into one, almost like a mummy.  No claustrophobia here.  In addition, I was introduced to a new kind of hospital gown, the “Bair Paws” warming gown.  It has two layers, with a flannel-like lining.  There are ports in the gown into which you can connect the warming unit – a device that is reminiscent of the old home-style bonnet hair dryers with hoses!  The hose from the unit connects to the gown through the port and fills the gown with warm air.  It was a wonderful comfort in the cool air of the pre-op area, and I would welcome it during the winter when the house is a little cooler than I’d like.

So for the moment, the secrets to immersing oneself in the simple pleasures of life are:  1. Good friends and family, 2. Good friends with chocolate, and 3. Warmth, whether from good friends, or warm blankets and gowns!  I couldn’t ask for anything more these days!

Oh so tender...

Day 3 of recovery.  What a relief it was to remove the huge dressing they had put over the two incision sites.  They used a heavy duty tape to hold the elaborate dressing in place, which also caused some heavy duty itching.  It was the kind of itching that had the potential to drive me slightly insane.  Phew... a deep sigh of relief now that it's off.  Now I just have to wait for the tenderness to subside.

In other related developments, I have been having wild, vivid dreams thanks to the the pain medication.  Such convoluted scenarios that could be translated into full length motion pictures, if the stories actually made any sense.  I felt as though I were in the midst of a very long Russian novel, populated with all sorts of complicated characters and, despite my best efforts, I was unable to extract myself from the scenes.  

My plans for the day are very unambitious.  Relaxing, resting, dozing, eating a little bit, then more resting, relaxing and dozing.  All stops on the road to recovery!   

I'm so blue...

Shades of Avatar!  Literally.  All went well, but I'm a bit sore and a pitiful ashen color from the blue dye they injected to identify the sentinel node.  Otherwise, everything went fine and I'm happy to be back at home.  I'm on the bed with Sam, about to have a bite, a percocet, and then a nap, but I wanted to let everyone know that things are okay.  Until later!

'Twas the night before...

Here I am, having just come home from a performance of "You Can't Take It With You", finishing up some work, about to have a snack -- it's before midnight, after all -- and thinking how wonderful everyone has been to me these past few weeks.  I meant to contact more of you directly this weekend, but I got caught up in deadlines and time has just gotten away from me.  So to those of you who should have heard from me directly and didn't, my apologies.  I will catch up with you soon.  Thanks to everyone for all their good wishes -- I feel as though I have been showered with kindness and love, and it's an awfully sweet feeling.  Thank you all.  Until tomorrow!

Save the date!

It's true what they say. Waiting is the hardest part -- at least so far. Although I received my MRI results on Friday and today is only Wednesday (and Monday was a holiday), it has felt like an eternity since then as I have waited to hear about a date for surgery. The wait is now over.  I am scheduled for surgery on Monday, the 13th.  Now, suddenly that feels as though it is coming too quickly!  I have lots to do over the next four days.  I have a work deadline to meet, a newsletter to create, a friend who needs a hand on Saturday, as well as finally contacting my insurance company to see what I'm up against with them, and learning what I can about the upcoming procedure.  I also have to go to the hospital tomorrow for what they call pre-anesthesia testing.  Two hours of blood work, medical history (how many times do I have to dole out my medical history at the same hospital, which is fully equipped with the latest in technology?) instructions and who knows what else.  So I had better get back to work and wrap some of these things up before Monday.  

Thanks for all the support, the offers of help (which I'm sure I will take you up on eventually), your kind thoughts and good wishes.  I will keep you posted or will have my emissary (aka Lydia) do so.

The Big C

I was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 days ago, which is just 10 days after my doctor found a breast lump during my annual exam on August 20th. This all seems to have happened at warp speed. She sent me to the Breast Health Center at the premier hospital here in St. Louis on the 24th. I was there for four hours and had a diagnostic mammogram, ultrasound, and, ultimately, a core needle biopsy. The fact that they kept using the word 'suspicious' clued me in that I might not hear the usual results of a benign condition that I've gotten in all previous 'scares'. In fact, I received my diagnosis on the 26th: invasive ductal carcinoma. It sounds pretty scary, doesn't it? However, it doesn't mean that we have a case of the invasion of the body snatchers.

I met with a surgeon on the 30th. She ordered an MRI for the 2nd, and I got those results last Friday. The MRI results confirmed what we thought we knew about the tumor from my ultrasound. They also indicated that there are no other cancerous growths in either breast. All pretty amazingly quick.

At this point things are looking pretty good -- if you discount the one big negative -- the fact that I have cancer in the first place! It seems we caught it fairly early and the cells are low grade. For those who are uninitiated in the realm of grade, my cancer is grade 1 out of 3. That means that the cancer is slow growing and the cells look very much like regular milk duct lining cells. However, they were found outside the duct where the cells originated, and now exist in the fatty part of the breast where there shouldn't be any duct cells. Hence the word invasive. The low grade also indicates that the cancer is not aggressive at this point.

What does this all mean to me? With any luck, I will have a lumpectomy within the next couple of weeks. Then it's likely that I will undergo radiation therapy. Whether or not I have to undergo chemotherapy will be determined by a closer examination of the tumor and the sentinel lymph node. If the cancer has: a) not spread to the closest, or sentinel lymph node, and b) has been found to be fed by estrogen and c) is indeed stage 1 or 2, then the pathologists are able to look at 16 specific genes within the tissue that will help determine whether I am at a greater or lesser risk of developing another tumor. If I'm at low risk, no chemo. If, I'm at high risk, chemo. Needless to say, I'm hoping for the low risk option.

I'm coping remarkably well -- at least at the moment! It's not totally unexpected given the fact that my mother had breast cancer when she was younger than I am now. She had a radical mastectomy and lived another 37 years! Ellen, my first cousin on my father's side, had it 12 years ago and is now doing fine.  My paternal grandmother developed it in her late 70's. She died from it the day before she would have turned 79.

Now of course, it's Labor Day weekend. So I have to wait until Tuesday before I will be able to connect with the doctor's office and schedule the surgery. It's not that I'm so keen to have surgery, but waiting for things to happen is more challenging than moving forward. However, my mantra has been "one step at a time", and that has been working for me so far.  Tune in again for future updates.