The bitch is back

So, here I am again.  Blogging.  And talking about cancer.  My cancer.  Breast cancer.  It’s back.  17 years later.  I suppose it’s always been here.  Hiding in the corners.  Lurking in my subconscious.  Whispering to me when I’m sleeping.  Over time I have learned to tune it out.  But recently the whisper was all up in my face and I couldn’t ignore it. A routine scan showed growth of a spot in my lung.  A spot that had been there for a while.  A spot we had been monitoring.   A spot that recently had grown a little bit and had picked up a few new friends.  So I paid a visit to a pulmonologist.  We went over my history and the scans and decided it was important for me to have a biopsy.  Cancer was mentioned as a possibility but so was auto immune disease.  Sarcoidosis (an auto immune disease) had been suspected for years but we could never confirm it without a biopsy.  I wasn’t really too worried.  I just wanted an answer.  And to maybe stop having to worry.

So, getting a biopsy of a lung is no easy feat.  Especially when the area in question is very close to your heart as it was in mine.  Also, since I now have multiple spots in my lung and suspicious lymph nodes, my pulmonologist decided to pull out all the stops and make my lung biopsy a double whammy.  Usually a biopsy is either performed from the outside with a needle (that pierces thru your chest) or with a bronchoscope (a tube/camera that goes in your mouth and down your throat into your airways and lung).  I got both at the same time.  And they hooked me up with these crazy sensors and ran me thru a CT scanner and basically made a GPS map of my chest so that the doctor would be able to locate the specific areas of concern.  It’s sounds neat and hi-tech and cool.  Right?  Kinda but it wasn’t fun.   At least I was under sedation.  Sometimes lung biopsies are done while you are awake!

I like to accessorize with ALL THE BRACELETS! 

Whopperjaw bruise from where the needle stabbed thru my chest. 

The procedure wasn’t supposed to hurt that much.  Lungs apparently don’t have nerves that feel pain. Well, let me tell you.  I beg to differ.  It hurt like hell.  And then there’s the risk of a lung collapse during recovery.  Which seems terrifying.  Luckily, my lung didn’t collapse.  It just couldn’t figure out how to breathe normally afterwards.  My breathing was very rapid and shallow. And when I bent over or tried to lie down, it felt like something was crushing my sternum.  But after 4 days, I started to feel ok again.  Luckily, I had a very nice 7 year old live-in nurse named Rosemary who took great care of me.  And brought me 16 saltines and ice water and flowers.

Sixteen Saltines!  

Flowers from Rosemary and her awesome teacher Michelle

Two weeks later I went to see the pulmonologist to go over pathology.  And out of the many tissue samples that were taken, many were benign.  But there were 3 separate spots that came back positive for breast cancer tumor markers.  I was like, what?  Excuse me?  Can you repeat that?  What about sarcoidosis?  Are you sure?  And the lung doc said it definitely wasn’t sarcoidosis.  And he said I needed to see my oncologist (cancer doctor).

My oncologist was surprised too.  He thought for sure the biopsy would come back autoimmune.  Not breast cancer.  But here we are.  And now, what to do?  It’s not exactly acting like cancer.  It is very slow growing.  My onc ordered a PET scan to see if there was cancer anywhere else in my body.  Thankfully nothing else lit up.  Since the primary goal of metastatic cancer treatment is to shrink or slow down growth, chemo would be a little overkill right now.  Save that for later.  So, the plan is for me to start taking Tamoxifen (a breast cancer drug).  It’s used in breast cancer that is Estrogen positive.  Which mine is.  It is a pill that I can take at home.  I won’t lose my hair.  It hopefully will keep me stable.  And it might actually shrink the spots that are in my lung.  It has some side effects I am not excited about.  But it is still better than chemo.   I am to take Tamoxofen and follow up with oncologist in three months.

So, yeah. That was a lot to process.  How and I doing?  I’m fine.  And then I freak out.  And then I’m fine.  I get angry.  And I cry.  And then I’m fine again.   Sometimes I lose my shit over ordinary things like the dishes.   But then I’m fine again.  I’m a freaking mess.  I am exhausted.  I am so grateful for my husband who puts up with me and my monsoon moods.  I think blogging will help.  All I ask (from whomever may read this) is please try to refrain from offering me advice.  I love that you care.  I understand that we don’t always know what to say when you hear a person has cancer.   Shit, I have cancer and I still don’t know what to say half the time.  But this is my story.  This is kind of my therapy.  And it’s a way to journal and share my experience in one place instead of bits and pieces crammed into texts and emails.   Feel free to ask questions, tho.  Or send love or funny memes. Or chocolate.  Or tacos. I appreciate the support.

To be continued....