OK, so I got to the hospital about 15 mins early - no mags to read and I am so fed up with cancer I wasn't going to get any of the well-read leaflets down AGAIN...
Just after 3pm, I heard my name and looked around to see my BCN. She came up to me and said
"I didn't know if you would come - I thought that even if you did that you would ask for another BCN and I am sorry about the way the phone call went and what I said - I shouldn't have"..... I just stopped in my tracks and gave her a hug and said that we all get bad days and I wasn't emotionally equipped to handle the phone call the other day and who can blame me after that young doctors appalling behaviour. We went to the room as friends again. She said my usual consultant was not there and that another cons would be seeing me. She checked the wounds, took out the drains (which I'm not too enamored about even though I wanted rid of one of them, as the other is still putting out about 70cc in total a day) BUT, she re-dressed and re-cling filmed - UGH how I hate that stuff, pulling, tearing, stretching and making me sore
It was then that I thought..........OMG what if the Consultant is the curly knob that informed me about the twice a week chemo cycle!!!! But it wasn't, it was another senior from the team. SO, I first informed him about the curly-knob-useless-piece-of-**it -excuse-for-a-doctor and said I wanted to punch him. He was appalled too and you could see from his eyes when he said "YOU want to punch him, no, I WANT TO PUNCH HIM AND WILL!" I did say that....." if he didn't do the job, I would come back again and again until I did and that he would take a week to be peeled from the floor and never have children"
OK, he had the results, which I had not expected.
In my poor old, (now of course, missing) boobie they did, in the end, find three types of BC and not two. The Cons said in all his time (27 years) as a consultant, he had never seen three types in one boob only, that it was rare and that usually, even though there may be the three there, that one might more usually be found during a second mastectomy of the other boob. In the end my poor little boobie had:
3xIDC (2.8cms and 1.9cms & 0.9cms)
1xDCIS (6.8cms)
2xILC (0.3 & 0.09) - not found until they sliced the poor boobie in the lab - (so that's where the so-called phantom pains were coming from - it was crying out to me from afar )
So, he asked if I would sign over my renegade boobie as they wanted it to preserve and use in medical students education - and as I didn't think I wanted to bring it home now, I thought it might as well stay on at the hospital ad-infinitum. He said that there were another three identified ILS which were so tiny and couldn't successfully be properly measured and that the students would have to find (or not) as they mostly only looked for DCIS and IDC in one breast (besides IBC of course which is more visible)and it would be a good teacher Well, apart from feeling a little miffed in that I had been told that my little boobie was great a few times anyway, but not by med students , I signed away rights to it forever (though it did cross my mind that my boobie might still be used and preserved even after I was in my grave - waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah - a bit of me will be missing in my sarcophagus
NOW for the GOOD NEWS
NO FURTHER CANCER WAS FOUND IN THE LAST 23 NODES REMOVED WITH THE MASTECTOMY - NONE NONE NONE!
I have an appointment coming next Thursday with the Onc for an MRI/CT scan, and an ultrasound for the left boobie too, but the Cons said IF there are any mets that they would be so small and might not show up. BUT that the chemo would most probably see to them. I may not have to have so many chemo's (it had been put down as 24 on my records) as regular scans and something else I can't remember will be done. I will also not be having the chemo I thought I would as now it has to be re-thought. It'll begin in about 4 and a half weeks time and hopefully after that I will be ok for transfer to Soton. I will have Herceptin (17 @ one month intervals) and Taxol too and some kind of estrogen zapper for 5 years, but NOT Tamoxifen as I have totally refused it. They are ok with that.
For most of his speech I had a permanent grin on my face and my entire spirit lifted to a place I thought I would never see again. I AM ON THE FIRST STEP OF THE RECOVERY LADDER AT LAST!!! Now, I can tell my son the story (well, I will, after the MRI results) because hopefully now, we will have our happy ending. I don't even care about chemo any longer (though I suspect I will once it begins ) but you know what I mean.
What more can one ask for, no cancer in the complete axillary's taken from me and being told that I have so far - with God's grace, a marvellous prognosis! I was so excited that it took me hours to wipe the grin off my face. I kissed the doctor, hugged the BCN and did a gentle jig around the tiny cottage kitchen with Don and then monopolized the phone for a couple of hours. Went to sleep long after midnight and woke about 7.am - wow, I haven't done that for a very long time!
For all those who didn't get good news this week and the weeks to follow, my heart is with you - believe me, and always will be, because like the rest of you here, I also walk this walk and even though there was good news for me today, it's very much in my mind as we are still on the walk and will never quite get off this pathway because we continue walking with those who have just begun it.
