Finally…a plan!

Yesterday we had to go to LR to get my results from the scans I had last week, and find out my treatment plan.

My appointment was at 1:45 yesterday afternoon, so we took the kids to MDO at the church in the morning, and headed out. We left town around 9:30. We made it to LR at about 11:45 and met up with one of our friends for lunch. We then headed to the hospital for my appointment.

I was so nervous about getting the results that my stomach started hurting, which if you know me pretty well, you know that that’s not hard for me to do!

We finally got back to the clinic room at around 2:15p. The nurse came in and was talking to me about the meds I have been taking, and then left for the doctor to come in. He came in and said, “Hi. How are you?” In a really quiet tone..not him. I looked at Hubby and said, “Must be bad news. He’s awfully quiet!”

The doctor looked at me and said, “Don’t say that! I haven’t even looked at the scans yet!” LOL

So he gets on there and first thing he looks at is the MUGA scan. He said my heart looks excellent! Next was the CT scan. No cancer in the brain!!! Then he tells me about my MRI scan, which I already knew about that. The next one was the PET scan. The one I worried about the most. His response?

No cancer in the heart, or lungs, or liver, or anywhere else in my body!!! PRAISE GOD!!!!

There is some, however, in some lymph nodes in the mammary glands behind the left breast. Which is a little worse than we thought. But not much. It does raise my staging from a stage 2B to a 3A. BUT it is still curable!!

I start chemotherapy this Friday. Hubby is going to stay home with the kids and my mom is going to take me…she seems to worry about me for some reason! We have to be up there at 9:15a Friday morning. We plan on leaving around 6a because I have to eat something before treatment. They said they would last up to 3 hours, which with my mom, shouldn’t be so bad…plus a good book.

The plan will still be 6 treatments, once every 3 weeks. Then surgery. Surgery will determine treatment plan afterwards though. If the lymph nodes behind the breast are big, they will probably remove them and then I will have to have radiation. If not, I will probably only have to have one or two more treatments of chemo. Plus I will have to continue with the Herceptin for 11 more treatments afterwards.

Anyways, I’m a little worried about some of the side effects that I have to watch for…fever, constipation, diarrhea, infection. I can handle some of them though…fatigue, tiredness (maybe I can finally catch up on my sleep!), hair loss. The doctor said they will give me some medicine before, during, and after treatments to help me with nausea, since EVERYTHING makes me sick to my stomach!

I’m just looking forward to getting this all started. The quicker it’s started, the quicker it’s done!!

Please pray for God to give me strength, and for my body to handle the treatments like a pro!