Happy 29 Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me! I'm twenty nine years old now. I have to admit, I have changed more in the past year than I have in my entire life. Katie and Shelly threw me a birthday party with all of my old close friends. We got to catch up on gossip, drink wine and laugh, eat pizza and cake, and play silly crazy games. It was one of the most fun times of my life. ;)

I've found out a lot more information recently. After surgery, I've had frequent visits from the home nurse, helping to change my bandages and check on my drains. I have been recording how much blood is draining from all four drains. On my birthday, I had a visit to the plastic surgeon who got to remove my drains. That was one of the creepiest things I have ever felt! I had two tubes looped underneath the curves of my breast. When he took them out, he literally grabbed the tube and started to pull- you could see the tube slowly coming out of my side, as the tubing disappeared from underneath my breast. It felt like a baby snake was being pulled out of me!

After all of that was done, I got a call letting me know that my cat scan results were back and there was a mass located on my right ovary. With the BRCA1 gene mutation that I have, there is a 70% chance of developing ovarian cancer, so my stomach sank. They needed further testing with an ultrasound to determine what was going on. 

4 days later I arrived promptly and anxiously to recieve my results. I watched as they did the ultrasound- a FAR less fun time than when you're having a baby, by the way. I noticed there was a LOT of blood flow near the right, and hardly any on the left. The ultrasound tech told me that they'd call with results later in the day.

I received the phone call that stated it was a hemmorahgic cyst. I came in to see the oncologist to talk about future treatment.

Dr. Ruggeri is one of my most favorite doctors ever. With an accent, being like 80 feet tall and a sense of understanding, he makes me feel normal.  We talked about the cyst and he explained it is very common in women and that no further treatment would need to be done other than monitoring it. From the time of my cat scan to the time of the ultrasound (less than a week) it went from 3.3 cm to 1.3 cm. Hemmoraghic cysts tend to cure themselves, and it appeared mine was as well. ;)

He explained to me that I had the chance of becoming part of a national trial. They are studying to see if increasing the set amount of dosage of chemo in women who have high risk cancers or who have positve cancer in their lymph nodes, will decrease the risk of recurrence. There are 5 different categories I could fall in to- ranging from 6 treatments of 2 drugs at a high dose once every three weeks, to two drugs 4 times once ever two weeks followed by a smaller dosage of a different drug 1x for 12 weeks. LOTS of extra chemo. He told me that because of my age and all I had to live for, he would recommend I do it. I decided it was what I wanted to do. I know I wanted to be a part of something bigger than just myself, my cancer, and my problems. I know that if I contribute to this national study, I will help millions of women in the future of breast cancer.