Round 14

I completed round 14 Monday, March 28th and have just two more treatments to go! I'm having mixed feelings about ending chemo. Part of me is completely happy and cannot wait for that final day, but then there's a part of me that isn't ready for it to end. Every week when I go to treatment I find comfort in being there and imagining the chemo entering my body and killing any bit of cancer left in me. The end of chemo also means the end of this phase of my journey... which means I'm getting closer to the next phase of my journey. I'm a little afraid of that next phase. I know what chemo feels like. I don't know what not having breasts feels like.

My appointment yesterday went well. I met with Dr. Ellis and we scheduled the last MRI I will be having on April 12th. This will give the surgeon a good idea of what she's facing when she performs the surgery. Of course, she won't know the full story until she gets in there and sees for herself. The surgery is going to take about 3.5 hours. I opted to have two surgeons instead of just one. This will cut the surgery time in half. It seemed like a no brainer to go this route.

I haven't felt that great this week... I've been really tired and weak. I think this is all just taking a toll on me both physically and mentally. I just read an article about depression and cancer. It said it's almost impossible for you to be touched by cancer and not then be touched by depression. Just knowing you have cancer alone is tough enough, but then every single medicine that you have to take to fight the disease causes depression and anxiety. I think that is the #1 side effect listed on each medication I'm taking. Sigh... I don't mean to sound like a "Debbie Downer" because I do feel like I have been pretty positive throughout this whole thing. I think I'm just anxious for this all to be over and to have my life back to normal. 

I started the Active Program at Swedish last week. I met with a rehabilitation doctor who started me on a work out regimen. This will help me get the strength to be able to recover from the surgery much quicker. I went again on Tuesday and met with another doctor, Dr. Zucker, who went into a much more detailed plan for before and after the surgery. I thought the appointment would be more about physical care, but he talked with me about my mental care as well. He had such a calming effect on me that I started crying almost immediately after he began talking to me. When you have cancer (at least for me) you always try and make the people around you feel better about it.  But when I met with Dr. Zucker he made me feel like he really knew what I was feeling on such a deeper level than any other doctor I've met with. Here is a link to Dr. Zucker talking about his role in helping people living with cancer, live well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BYK0Eedvu4 I recommend this program to anyone fighting cancer.