Wooooo Hoooooo!!!!

I love Dr. Lee. Brent and I spent an hour talking with her today, and both of us left feeling soooo much better and much more optimistic. She asked how the visit to OHSU went and I told her it was horrible. They gave us all negative information, with little optimism. Dr Lee's response: "yeah, that doctor is kind of new..."

Stage four is an automatic assignment when cancer has spread. Like Dad said, it goes from your toes to you nose, boom, "stage 4." It's just the medical world's way to identify it. "Incurable" was my other favorite word they threw at us at OHSU, and Dr. Lee said it's another technical term when it's stage four. It has the possibility to be cruising around in there, but it can also be thought of more like a chronic illness. For instance, high blood pressure is a chronic illness that you take a pill for for the rest of your life. Same case here. She said yes, sometimes people don't make it, but considering my health, age and attitude, she thinks I'll be just fine. WOOOO HOOOOO!! I love her.

Dr. Lee went over all the scans with me and showed us pictures of what's going on, which I so appreciate. She also had a picture of the biopsy needle going through my chest into my lung. Holy crap, that's a framer! The tumor board met this morning (what a fun gig that must be, huh?) and they reviewed my file. While they felt sorry that it's back, they were floored that anybody even caught it this early when it's so small. Nobody catches it this early, but Dr. Lee does! Give that woman a cape. They were also amazed at the doctor that did the biopsy. It had to be incredibly accurate to dodge ribs, hit a 1cm target, and not go anywhere near the heart. He was good, I may send him a thank you. Tumor board consensus: sucks that it's back, but best case scenario considering my health.

NO CHEMO!!!!!! Basically chemotherapy at this point wouldn't make sense considering the tumor isn't bothering me at all. I feel nothing, I am totally healthy, so there's no point in doing chemotherapy to shrink it from 1 cm to .5 cm when the Arimidex drug will probably shrink it/kill it/leave it dormant.

We won't do any surgery to try to remove it. Here's why. It's in the lung, so obviously a pretty intense surgery. There is actually more than one nodule that seems to be "concerning," that are crazy small. They can hardly see them on the scans, so there's the possibility there are more cancer cells cruising around in there that they wouldn't be able to see. If they do surgery, they'd scrape out all they can see, obviously leaving scarring, etc. Cancer cells that they can't see would love the scarring and could go nuts and grow faster in that environment.

The drugs: I currently take tamoxifen, which has the goal of bonding to estrogen cells and killing them. Because I am estrogen central (all girly all the time), tamoxifen isn't finding them all. Surgery to remove ovaries will drop estrogen levels within 24 hours (more on that in a bit), then Arimidex will block any remaining estrogen that's trying to hang out in there. Arimidex has pretty good info so far, and somewhat hard to record because there are so many women still cruising along beautifully with it.

Why didn't we do the ovary thing five years ago? The tumor board said this morning they wouldn't have let me because it's a bone density issue. Menopause and Arimidex not so great for your bones. This will be something we'll have to monitor and keep track of in the future, but at this point there are several drugs to help with that. I got some supplements from the chick yesterday for that as well. This is the biggest downside to the whole ovary sucking.

I asked Dr. Lee about the homeopathic stuff as well. She said the only thing that is recognized by the cancer society as being beneficial is exercising at least 4 times a week for at least 20 minutes (yeah, got that covered), and eating a balanced diet, not too hard core into protein, not all carbs, just balanced. I asked her about the gluten free, she said my body isn't gluten intolerant so gluten isn't necessarily causing inflammation, so it may not be helpful. Brent and I both feel like being much more conscious of fruits and veggies, and less packaged food, etc would be smart, and we have done that already this summer. I will take the supplements that I got yesterday, they should help with bone density and helping my liver to process calcium more effectively, but I'm not going to do the injections, or go nuts on any one diet. I am healthy with my morning coffee and creamer, and an occasional beer. A little bit of doctor world and a little bit of homeopathic world feels good, and feels like the right thing to do.

The procedure: When Dr. Lee doesn't want to tell me something, she pauses and kind of "hmmm"s at me. I asked her about the oophorectomy, which is a laproscopic deal. They make 2 incisions in my stomach, go straight in and suck out the ovaries. I asked her if I would be knocked out for this procedure, which is when she paused and started "hmmmmm." Cool, more awake surgery situations. RADICAL. There is an epidural involved, didn't think I'd have another one of those after Cannon, and Dr. Lee said she had it done, and the smell wasn't pleasant. However, it's an in and out procedure that just has some intense emotional side effects. If somebody goes with me, it can't be Brent because he'll pass out, so if they'll let anyone else, it'll be my dad. If not, I'll put Vix under my nose, and have my iPod full of songs by Pink.

Next: Wait. Again. Dr. Fox (female, can't remember the first name) was recommended by Dr. Lee for the ooph - a - ... She says she's really good. I wait for her to call (Monday at the latest) to schedule a consultation so we can talk about all the gloriousness that is menopause. Then we schedule the procedure. I asked if we could have it done before I go back to school, they're trying hard to make that happen. I asked about hormones after this procedure, and apparently the estrogen levels drop in 24 hours. Some women have estrogen levels dropping over the course of a few years, mine will plummet in a day. The next 1-2 weeks could be an emotional train wreck. Brent is currently looking for places to stay for these 2 weeks. :) I think we should invite anybody that wants to come to watch the chaos ensue. Bring a video camera, a journal and some popcorn because it's going to be interesting.

We will monitor protein levels in the blood (our first indication this time) to make sure they are diminishing after I start the drugs. We will probably have a CT scan in December ish to make sure the tumors aren't getting any bigger, then regular blood work should be all that is needed to monitor and maintain the goings-on. We will do regular liver function checks (also through blood work) and do some bone density things to check on those conditions.

At the end of the appointment, Brent and I both hugged Dr. Lee. She said she loves my attitude and we can do it. Three other people in her office poked their heads in to say hi while we were there. I love it. Gary has been fielding my calls for the last 2 months, and has been amazingly kind and patient with me, Christina was my surgeon's assistant 5 years ago, so she came and said hi, and the nurse Jeanette always remembers to ask about Max & Cannon. So so nice. I feel great, ALL IS WELL IN MY WORLD.

Thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, hugs, support. If you're interested in a front row seat for the menopausal dialogues, let me know. Love you.