Uno Mas!!

I have one more!! I'm singing that line by the way. My stomach felt a little uneasy today, but I feel pretty good overall. Acupuncture helped a lot today, it was very relaxing and helped with my stomach and such. I also talked to the oncologist about drugs to take after radiation, (tamoxifen) and what it does, how it works. There were pictures and everything it was good stuff.
It is kind of nice to see a doctor regularly I am finding. Even things that are not related to cancer, there's a doctor there to ask and tell me its nothing, or check it out. I have had fluid in my ear on and off for a while, so she checked it out for me. Ever since I had that earwig crawl into my ear (sorry Lisa) I'm freaked out by anything in my ear. A littly hypersensitive you might say. :) I think I have good reason. Anyway, a nurse is going to clean it out for me tomorrow when I go back to get the immune booster shot thing. Apparently there's a nurse there that's really good at it. How you get really good at cleaning ears, I don't know. Seems like an odd thing to speacialize in, but hey, everyone has their random talents. I kick butt at minesweeper for instance. I am the greatest minesweeper player in the world. Its not going to make me a million dollars unfortunately, but sometimes someone is impressed by it.
Oh, so the drug, I take it for five years, starting after radiation. It can have "menopause like systems." Cool, I already have that from chemo therapy so more hot flashes and night sweats. I can live with that. My head actually just starting sweating, so here's another one! They're not bad and usually make me laugh, so its fine. Between three and six months after radiation I will go back for a bone scan and a CAT scan. If those are all clear, then I won't have one for another six months to a year. I will have blood work done I think about every three months because there's a way they can check for specific tumors with the blood. Again, I will probably get aspects of this wrong, but my understanding is that they can use my blood to check if the liver is operating normally, check if there is a tumor on my brain even. These scientists and doctors are significantly smarter than me. :) They're probably not quite as smart as my cousin Kellini, but they're close.
According to the oncologist if cancer is going to return, it doesn't usually do it until after five years. Who knows why.
Radiation definitely is hard on the body and there are a few people even who are adamantly against radiation. I talked to my acupuncturist about it today, and her feelings were its so focused and centralized that yes, its hard on that part of the body, but its much better now than it used to be. She also said that if its that or cancer, then she'd pick radiation. :) I like her!
There was some talk from my oncologist before one treatment of putting me into menopause because there is a post menopause drug that has been found to maybe work better than the pre-menopausal drug. This was when she thought I was Jewish. I know, sounds funny. There is a Jewish population of people that are at an incredibly high risk of having breast cancer and ovarian cancer, so they do more intense preventative measures. For some reason my surgeon was under the impression I was Jewish, so it took about three appointments to convince my oncologist that no, he's wrong, I don't have a Jewish heritage. Anyway, so I talked to her today about the putting me into menopause thing. To do this, they have an injection they can do that you have to closely monitor and makes your brain think you're in menopause, its not ideal. Another option is to have surgery where they put two little incisions in your skin and basically suck out your ovaries. This cancer thing is glamorous, glamorous, glamorous. I have plastic bags in my chest, I have no hair, I have like 2 eye lashes that I keep layering with mascara to emphasize (yeah that'll make them look normal), and scars all over the place. Oh, and a large lump below my collarbone that is a port. Yup, let's suck out the ovaries, I love it. Anyway, so I told her I really didn't want to do the suction thing or the injection thing, but I didn't want to be stupid about any of this either. She said she thought it would be fine if I didn't do it and stuck with the tamoxifen. Aaaahhh, good stuff. So, bottom line after all this rambling, I'm not Jewish, I'm not removing any more body parts or organs, I will take tamoxifen, and I ONLY HAVE ONE MORE!!!!