Sleeping Beauty

According to all of the doctors and patients that Em talked to, her symptoms should have started today. Being the over achiever she is, Em got started yesterday! One of her medications gave her a raging headache and the steroids in the Chemo cocktail kept her up all night on Thursday. She feels dizzy and sick and just generally crummy. She had a follow up appointment on Friday for a booster shot (to help keep those white blood cells going strong) and for IV fluids. The doc prescribed Lorazepam to help her sleep after hearing about her insomnia. Whoa - did that work! In the past 24 hours, she has slept all but approximately 2 hours. She managed to get up to have a bite to eat a couple of times, but only manages to stay up for 30 minutes or so before she is back to bed. She says that she feels much better laying down - the nausea isn't as bad - so she is taking a lesson from Rip Van Winkle and plans to sleep the next 4 months away. More power to you, Em! Sweet dreams.....

It begins

Chemo day has finally arrived. As promised, here is a photo of Em's new haircut. This was taken as her first chemo treatment was administered. Doesn't she look comfortable and surprisingly happy? Her first comment to me was that chemo wasn't as scary as she thought and she was feeling a little weird, but not bad. Apparently she felt a little bit dizzy and tired but has experienced no nausea yet. Her doctor has prescribed five, yes FIVE, different anti-nausea medications to be taken at different times during the chemo cycle. Supposedly the unpleasant side effects start a couple of days after the chemo treatment and only last a day or two. I'll let you know if that holds true.

Em had quite the busy day today. She started the morning at the nutritionist, who gave her some great tips on how to deal with her treatment. During chemo she will be a walking free radical and she shouldn't try to counteract it with any antioxidants for the first three days after a treatment. Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive? They say she should just let the chemo do its job and once it is over, THEN she can work on building her immune system back up. After that, she had her 2 hour treatment, then she went back to the breast surgeon to get her stitches out. She got the best news of the day at her last appointment. The genetic testing came back negative, which means she does NOT carry the genetic marker for breast and ovarian cancer. Three cheers for good genes! So, her cancer has no medical explanation thus far and that gives her renewed optimism that she can recover from this and move on.

I know the next question on all of our minds is about her hair. Most of the doctors and patients agree that the hair loss happens on day 17 (3 days after the second treatment.) One of the really amazing services that the hospital provides is a little store called "transitions" which specializes in gear for their breast cancer patients. They stock lots of hats and scarves and give each patient one free wig. Em looked so good in two of the wigs that the salesperson gave them both to her for free. One looks like her current haircut and the other is very similar to "Dancing with the Stars" champion Cheryl Burke's cute hairdo. Plus, she looks darn cute in all of her new hats. :)

One treatment down, seven to go!

Psyche!

Emily spent the majority of today at the hospital, though no chemo treatment was administered. Apparently there are rules about the time frame between surgery and first radiation or chemo treatment. If you don't get your first treatment within 30 days of surgery, you have to re-do all of your preliminary tests, like blood work and chest x-rays and such. They scheduled Em's appointment on day 33 (none of us knew about the 30 day rule) so her day was filled with all of the old tests and none of the new treatment. She has to go back tomorrow for a couple more tests and then has a surgical procedure on Thursday to insert the "port" that they will use to administer the chemo drugs and that needs a little time to heal. Her doc is off work for Christmas (of course) so they have bumped her first chemo until Thursday the 27th. She gets to enjoy Christmas without any chemo side effects! We are thankful for that little blessing. :)

She did take a little time this afternoon to get a fun new haircut, just because it is a time to experiment with her hair without the fear of making a bad long term decision. It is a cute short bob with bangs! I haven't seen her with hair this short since she was in Junior High. Perhaps she will let me take a photo to post the next time I see her.

Merry Christmas to all! We will be back after the holiday with another update.

Chemical Warfare

It's official. Chemotherapy is the next course of action in Emily's treatment.

Starting next Tuesday, December 18th, Em will be doing a bi-weekly 2 hour chemotherapy appointment. There are a total of 8 treatments over 4 months. After that, she will begin her 6 week course of radiation. I guess they do the chemo first for a couple of reasons. First, since her cancer was so aggressive, they want to get the chemo going right away. Second, the radiation will seem like a walk in the park after the chemo. For you scientists and medical professionals out there, she will be on a combination of these drugs - Adriamycin, Cytoxan and Taxane (AC-T). Unfortunately, this is one of the combinations that does lead to hair loss. So, bald will be beautiful in 2008!

It looks like she will be going on disability for the next 4 months so she doesn't have to worry about work on top of her health problems. Luckily her company offers that as an option. Her doctors did tell her she could work a "part time flexible schedule with low expectations" but there is no such thing in her profession. Her boss laughed and said that would be an attractive offer to any employer. :) Disability it is!

Thanks for taking the time to keep up on the blog. We appreciate all of your support!

Another appointment

Emily is healing nicely and back to work this week. She had her first appointment with the radiation oncologist yesterday. As has been the case with most of her appointments, they didn't tell her much. Before the radiation guy can make any decisions he has to talk to the medical oncologist and they decide together what the course of treatment will be. In Em's case, she couldn't get in to see the medical guy until December 12th. So why would they schedule the radiation guy before that? Who knows! Other than confirming that she is on for 6 weeks of radiation at some point, he wasn't able to tell her much more. We will be back with more info on the 12th!

CANCER FREE!

Once again, we have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Emily is officially cancer free, her lymph nodes were clear and the margins (extra tissue they removed that surrounded the tumor) were also clear! The cancer is gone from her body and she is done with surgery. Hallelujah!

Here are the details of the pathology report for those who are interested. She was in stage 2A of Invasive Ductile Cell Carcinoma and it was a very aggressive tumor. She caught it early enough and got it out before it could cause any damage. This particular type of cancer has a 95% survival rate so, as cancers go, it was a pretty good one to get.

Now she has to see some more doctors - shocking, huh? They are scheduling her to see a radiation oncologist and a medical oncologist and they are the ones who decide on whether or not she needs Chemo. Her surgeon thinks they will probably recommend it because she is so young and it would be pretty effective in keeping cancer from returning. Radiation will start sometime mid-December and last approximately 6 weeks. This is all we know at this time and as soon as there is more info, we will post it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

You are the best!

OK, so when I started this blog it was primarily to help Emily out by sharing information with anyone who wanted to be in the loop. As it turns out, it has been a source of entertainment and inspiration for all of us. It has been really neat to see all of the support from family and friends and to realize that when the chips are down, the people in your life can really make a difference. Thank you to all who have read this blog, posted comments, kept Em in your prayers and offered any and all types of support. It has truly been amazing (and pretty darn funny as well!)

As far as an update on our surgery survivor, she is doing remarkably well. She is not supposed to lift her arm above shoulder level for quite a while, not that she has any desire to even try that right now. This means no driving or lifting or cleaning, so my parents have been there to help with anything she needs. She did manage to escape the confines of her apartment this weekend to go to church and for a nice long walk with my dad. All in all, she is trying to take it easy and follow all of the doctor's orders. She goes BACK to the doctor on Wednesday afternoon, hopefully for good news!

Drug addled identity crisis

When Em woke up from her anesthesia, the first thing she saw was a sign that read "Your nurse is Joel." Unfortunately, in her muddled state, she read it as "Your NAME is Joel." Confusion reigns supreme in the hospital!

"Joel" is now resting comfortably at home, thanks in part to the various drugs she's on for the pain.

Out of surgery

Em is out of surgery! She is groggy and in quite a bit of pain but the doctor said things went well, despite the fact that the surgery took nearly an hour longer than they thought. Apparently they had to remove more tissue than they anticipated because they were unable to locate the "sentinel node." My understanding is that the sentinel node is the one the at the cancer would drain into and it has other nodes connected to it that could be affected. The doctor thinks she was able to get all of the cancer cells out (with the removal of the extra tissue) and said that the nodes that she removed looked good. I guess that isn't the final word because now the tissue is being sent to Pathology to be tested and she will get those results next Wednesday. Seriously, all this waiting is enough to drive us all mad!

She is in recovery now and should be leaving the hospital later today. I will update the blog again once I have talked to her.

Up to the minute reporting

For all the news that is news, tune in today for surgery updates!

Em has been in the hospital since 6 am getting prepped for surgery. Ultrasounds, IVs etc. Her surgery was scheduled for 8:00 but has been postponed until 9:30. The waiting continues!! My understanding is that the procedure takes approximately 90 minutes and she is in recovery for an hour after that. Hopefully I will have more information in the early afternoon.

The War On My Rack

To all my family and friends,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your comments, emails, phone calls and prayers over the last two weeks. This has been an overwhelming experience, but the support I have received has meant more to me than I could ever express.

I also wanted to say a special thank you to Lisa for starting this blog and keeping it updated with the latest info. Also for all the dinners she made for me last week. And for being such a wonderful sister in general.

Honorable mention goes out to my BFF Angie for coming up with the idea for the title of this post. Good one, Ang!

My surgery is officially scheduled for November 15th. I will only be in the hospital for the day. I'm taking two weeks off from work to recouperate from surgery, and I plan to go back to work after that and work throughout the radiation treatment. The battle has only just begun, but I feel strong and I'm ready for the fight.

Much love to you all...

Emily

GOOD NEWS!

The cancer has NOT spread! It is confined to the lump and surrounding tissue. The doctors also said that the lump has shrunk in the weeks since she was diagnosed!

So, moving on to the future....

Emily will be scheduling surgery in mid November (probably the 15th but that isn't confirmed yet) to have a lumpectomy. The doctors will be checking 2-4 of the closest lymph nodes and if they are OK, she is done with surgery and can move on to radiation. They give her 4 weeks to heal from surgery, then radiation is done every day for 6 weeks. The only catch is if they find something wrong with the lymph nodes, she will have to have another surgery to remove more of them. If they do find something in the nodes, she may still have to have chemotherapy. If the nodes are clean, she is done after the radiation.

This is all I know right now. If there are more pertinent details, I will update again soon. Thank you all again for your prayers and encouragement. We are the happiest family in the world right now!!!

Tests complete

Emily finished all of her tests today and we won't get any results until Thursday. She meets with her main doctor then to go over everything they have done so far. That way she can have a complete picture of what is going on throughout her body. The scan they did today was the worst of all for discomfort. First they injected her with a radioactive isotope, then she had to wait for it to disseminate through her body, then they did the scans. Apparently they were much like a mammogram (squishing and mashing everything) but they lasted WAY longer.

She is in good spirits but is quite tired at the end of each day. Hopefully this week will fly by so we can update everyone with the complete diagnosis. Stay tuned....

Waiting....

It turns out that Emily won't receive any test results until Thursday, Nov 1st in the late afternoon. And so we wait......

Back to Work and More Tests

Emily was back to work today, slaving away at her laptop as she tried to catch up on everything she missed yesterday. She and I talked in more detail about the tests she had yesterday and the ones coming up in the next few days. They took a blood sample to do a genetic test to see if she carries the marker for breast and ovarian cancer. This test takes up to 3 weeks to get results. Em has decided that she is moving forward with any surgical options with or without those results. Tomorrow afternoon she has a Breast MRI, which is done on to check for any other tumors that the mammograms and ultrasounds could have missed. This entails lying totally still on her stomach with her arms above her head for around 40 minutes. It takes 48 hours to get the results. On Monday she goes in for a PET-CT which is a whole body scan. They inject her with some sort of sugar that will react with any cancer cells in her body. The CT part of the test looks for any other abnormalities that are occurring, plus gives more detailed information on her current tumor. The PET portion looks at the abnormalities on a cellular level so the doctors can better understand what they are dealing with. We think she gets those results right away so we should have more info early next week.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and emails. We love to hear from you and appreciate all of your kind words and encouragement. :) We are all touched by your support!

Day 2

Em spent around 3 hours with the Breast Surgeon today. They ran a bunch more tests and now we are in a holding pattern until the tests come back. Primarily they are checking to see if the cancer has spread to any other part of her body so she will have an MRI on Thursday to determine that. The surgeon said that it appeared that the lump has been forming for at least a year and that she was fortunate that it was located near the top of her breast where she could feel it. Had it been in any deeper, it might not have been caught this soon or even at all. Right now it looks like she will need some surgery (either lumpectomy or mastectomy) and possibly radiation.

Breast Cancer

It may be Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but our little family was caught completely UNAWARE by Emily's diagnosis. We want to keep everyone updated on the details in the easiest way possible, thus this blog. That way, you all can stay "abreast" of the newest information. Here are the details we have so far. She found the lump a while back and thought it was probably a water cyst and waited a while to see if it would go away. Since it didn't, she talked to her doctor last week and had a mammogram and an ultrasound. These tests showed a large irregular mass. They did a biopsy on Friday, Oct. 19th. She got her results on Monday afternoon, which showed it to be an "infiltrating adenocarcinoma." Basically that means a cancer of the glands that has moved into the surrounding tissue. She sees the breast surgeon later today for more detailed info on treatment.



We will be posting whenever something new happens. Also, please feel free to leave comments and questions on the blog and one of us will try to answer to the best of our knowledge. I have dubbed myself the official spokeswoman of Team Emily so feel free to call or email me anytime. Em can also be reached by email at emilyp2012@gmail.com. More later....