It felt very odd this week, I didn’t have my usual chemo appointments booked but I still felt the same as I was still suffering the tiredness and other affects from my last session last week.
However on Wednesday I made may way to the hospital to have my MRI to establish what affect the chemo had had on the old cancer! For anyone who hasn’t had an MRI it is not a comfortable experience, particularly if you have one on your boobs! Imagine a massage table, the ones with the hole where you place your head. Well for a booby MRI you have a head hole and then two booby holes for your lady lumps!
You then have to stay completely still for the entire time. Staying still is not difficult. Staying still when lying with your boobs in holes whilst the machine makes god awful noises and someone specifically tells you not to move suddenly seems like the hardest of tasks!
I managed to stay still for the 45 mins whilst classic fm played in the headphones (tip for anyone who gets an MRI if you get a choice of music don’t choose classical you can’t hear half of it due to the noise, choose rock or something mostly loud, pianissimo does not get heard over an MRI machine!)
Whilst the radiologist looked at the images and analysed these for my surgeon I went to my first post chemo treatment. Every three weeks now until December I will be going for Herception and pertuzumab which are the antibody treatments, sort of a prevention of reoccurrence. It was nice to go in for just an hour and not have to cold cap!
Then yesterday I met with my surgeon for the results of my MRI and to discuss my surgery. I was quite nervous waiting to go in. Essentially I was going to hear whether the chemo had worked. Had the last 18 weeks been worth it!?
So the answer essential was yes it had done its job. The MRI no longer showed any sign of cancer in the lymph nodes and the cancer in my breast had shrunk from 13.5mm to 12mm. This initially made me upset as it didn’t seem much, however my surgeon went on to explain that the MRI showed that these 12mm now appear to be scar tissue not cancer, it appears that the chemo has killed the cancer cells! However we won’t know for sure until they take it out and conduct a biopsy.
I am obviously beyond happy! The fact that the horrid chemo has (or at least appears to have) killed the bastard cancer is amazing. So on the planning surgery. As the cancer is directly behind my right nipple it means goodbye to said nipple, I knew this was likely to be the case so had come to peace with that. I will be have a lumpectomy with the nipple removed as well and hopefully just a small horizontal scar in its place. As the cancer was not large there shouldn’t be too much difference between my boobs afterwards, fingers crossed. Later on I could choose to have a nipple tattoo or reconstruction but I’ll decide that later.
I will also need to have some lymph nodes removed. There is some debate about whether he will remove all or them or just half as I only had a couple affected to begin with and had responded very well to chemo. This will be discussed by the medical council who will weigh up the best options.
Finally my surgery date was confirmed as 28th April so not far away. My surgeon was impressed with how well I was and confident I would cope with surgery at that point. I’ll be in for a couple of days as it will involve having a drain fitted for that time which they will then remove before I go home.
I have felt odd last few days as for the first time since I was diagnosed I have no “cancer appointments” in the dairy for the next couple of weeks. I will soon have a pre-op appointment sorted etc. But it’s strange to go from full on to just recovering ahead of my surgery. I am not sure what to do with myself!
Long post today, but a lot to catch up on. As ever take care everyone xx
