9 Moons Ago

Off to pick up a prescription at the drugstore in a moment.
Just had to tell you all that I’ve appreciated the incredible support and encouragement.

Found out on Wed, after being told by several doctors, since June of last year, that I’d have to have chemo… that I won’t be having chemo at all!
My oncologist reviewed the results of my surgery and explained that because of factors such as early detection, tumor size, my age, my gene test results, and surgery results, that chemo would not be beneficial and only add severe side effects.
So I will be on a daily drug, Tamoxifen, in pill form, that has side effects, which don’t sound pleasant, but nothing anywhere near the effect that chemo would have had. Plus it has a few good attributes, and if you are curious about all the pros and cons, I’ll just say to research it online. I am not going to list them, since I have no idea how, or if, they will manifest in my case.. but one thing is possibly reduced semantic memory and/or cognition.. so if I seem to have an extra case of the dumbs in the near future, you’ll know why! :-D

Whew. I was staying at Kathy’s the whole week, and the few days after my appointment, I slept long and hard and took several naps during the day. My sister suggested that I must have been anxious beforehand, and after the relief of my visit, I could actually relax. I think she must be right.

Feeling pretty good these days. Taking pictures, but haven’t posted those on flickr yet. So much fun with my sis, her husband and my nephews at their place, and in the snow. I was touched that Isaac, age 6, knew I was leaving yesterday and was so upset by it that he cried a lttle. But we reassured him that it wouldn’t be too long till the next visit, and that he had lots of other fun things to look forward to this week.
Then last night there was a nice visit with good friend Christina and her daughter Maddie. Lots of laughs.

Tomorrow those extremely belated Holiday/New Years letters WILL be getting mailed!

And my father is finally having his knee surgery tomorrow. He’ll be in the hospital for a couple of days.
We’ll have to find some things to entertain him (besides his new flat screen tv) while he’s recovering here, back at home. I’m betting he’s anxious right about now.. he hates the hospital. So, everybody can ease up on thoughts of me for now..and direct them towards “Pop Pop”! :-D Thanks, all!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2011 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Family, Fighting Cancer, Friends, Health, Loved Ones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.