Before receiving my breast cancer diagnosis about 2 months ago, I could never have imagined there would be such a long, slow, and rocky road ahead of me.
And while I am grateful for the painstaking attention to detail my doctors are taking with my case, it's the endless waiting (for biopsies, biopsy results, healing, doctors appointments, surgery, more healing, scans, needles, even more surgery, even more healing, oncologists appointments, chemotherapy, inevitable hair loss, likely exhaustion, etc, whine, etc, whine) that has proven to be the most difficult task of all.
My chemotherapy oncologist has ordered a PET and CT scan to see if the cancer has made its way elsewhere in my body. The scans will take place sometime over the next week or so. But of course, now every little twinge I feel from my head to my toes has me worried the cancer has spread! Is it possible to get hang-nail cancer??! Hopefully these scans will provide much needed and long overdue peace of mind for me and my family.
The scans will be followed by my mastectomy/reconstruction surgery, currently scheduled for January 12th, which at my request will allow me to enjoy Christmas and New Year's with my family.
Surgery will take about 6 hours to complete and will also include further lymph node extraction. After which I will stay 2-3 nights in the hospital and experience about one month of feeling like there's an elephant standing on my chest (talk about the elephant in the room!). Unfortunately, reconstruction will involve two to three more surgeries over a one year to eighteen month time period.
So as I said in the beginning of this post, slow and steady wins the race, or in biblical terms - 'the race is not to the swift' (Ecclesiastes 9.11).
As always, I thank God for my family and friends...I could not do this without you.
Love,
Lisa
4 comments:
"...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1
Keep persevering! We are with you in the race.
love,
Julie
I have been staring at the screen for 5 minutes trying to figure out what to write. I wish that there was some way that I could take on a part of your burdon.
I have decided to ask God to quit worrying about me for a while so that He can devote more time to you.
Love,
Uncle Jim
Lisa, you have an uncanny knack of making me laugh and cry at the same time. Wishing you faith and strength and love during this difficult time!
Very much like you're waiting until after the Holidays for your surgery, I talked my doctors into letting me postpone my lung surgery so that I could attend the wedding of a nephew on the McCann side of the family. Leave it to you and me to do anything for a partay, eh? The apple don't fall far from the tree. I'm just sayin'...
Post a Comment