Collegegrl4god

In mid-March, 2001, I was 49 years old and noticed a lump on my right breast. For some reason, I just knew it was cancer before I was told. A sixth sense, one might say. I was scared and lost. I felt like I had gone down "Alice's rabbit hole," or through a wormhole; so, I called my doctor the next day and made an appointment for a mammogram. The mammogram was done a few days later and my doctor told me that there was something suspicious on the mammogram. So, the doctor faxed information to a surgeon and told me to make an appointment. The next day, I received a call from the surgeon to get another set of x-rays of my left breast. I made an appointment for the following week. When I went to that appointment, the doctor promptly scheduled her for a bilateral surgical biopsy.

On the day of the biopsy, April 6, a starved, dehydrated, fearful, and having a nicotine craving I arrived at the hospital at my duly appointed time, only to wait for what seemed like an interminable thirty minutes. A wire is inserted into the breast so that calcifications could be seen on the mammogram to mark the site for the surgeon. I wasn't even sedated and the procedure wasn't anywhere near what I imagined; I hardly felt the needle even with the Lidocaine. The hardest part for me was to sit still without moving a muscle for long periods of time while xrays were being taken. The right breast needed no wire, since the lump was quite obvious. When the procedure was finished I was escorted to another part of the hospital - the day surgery unit, and I was given a new gown, and told to lay down on a stretcher. A nurse came into the room, and started asking questions about medications I was on, whether or not I had had anything to eat after midnight, and requested that I remove any and all jewelry. Then a technician started an intravenous drip (IV) in my left arm.

At this point, my friend, Janet, was allowed to come into the room. I indicated to Janet that I was nervous and cold! Shortly afterward, the doctor came in and marked me up with a magic marker. I commented that I would be the tattooed lady, and the doctor quipped back "Guess you're a marked woman now." They both had a good chuckle. The anesthetist, came in, told me what was going to happen and that I would be put to sleep within twenty minutes. After a light sedative; I lasted about three minutes before I was asleep. The next thing I remembered was the sensation of ice-cold Betadine, a solution that sterilizes the surgical site, being swabbed on my breasts, and a flash of cold in my IV. Then, I was awake in the recovery room. I was given a prescription to pick up for pain, which was called Lortab, a narcotic pain killer. I didn't feel normal again until forty-eight hours later. The doctor told me to have someone call on Monday, April 9 for an appointment on Tuesday. I had to wait for the results of the biopsies for three days and I said that those were the longest three days of my life.

It was a beautiful sunny spring day on Monday, April 9, 2001 and before I could call the doctor, the telephone rang; it was my doctor. The doctor asked me if I could come in early for my appointment. I already knew that something wasn't right, because I was asked to come in early for my appointment and when I walked into the office, my doctor gave me a hug. Then the doctor showed me the pathology report. The verdict was Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, a type of breast cancer. I was also told I had positive margins, which means that cancer was seen to the edges of the sample. This meant that there was still cancer in my breast. The doctor also gave me a stack of books for me to read, and paperwork for several screening tests - bone scan, liver scan, chest xray and other blood work. The tests would determine if the cancer had spread to other parts of my body. I, in shock at that time, realized the battle had just begun. I mustered my troops by saying, "God is my Commander in Chief, I'm the General, the medical personnel are my Lieutenants, and my family/friends are my foot soldiers." (Saikin) I spent hours researching my cancer on the internet, found a local support group which turned out to be my lifeline throughout my treatment, and felt as if I was not alone. My daughter, Kerri, also became deeply involved in the online internet chats and both of them participated in various walks to raise funds for breast cancer research. They felt they were doing something beneficial.

The next day, I had my first meeting (war room strategy session) with the Oncologist. I told the doctor that I was going to be completely involved in my battle with breast cancer. The doctor gave me a reassuring confirmation of "go girl," and my eyes grew big when I was told that my team of doctors were part of the University of Michigan (UMICH) team. UMICH had been one of the hospitals that I was contemplating on going to for a second opinion. The Oncologist confirmed my doctor's opinion about needing further surgery, and since I had "positive margins," agreed that I would be a good candidate for a lumpectomy and lymph node dissection. This procedure removes the lump from the breast along with several lymph nodes from the armpit.

On Wednesday, April 18, I had an appointment for a liver scan. I said it was the easiest test to have done. The next day, I went to Karmanos, a specialized cancer center in downtown Detroit to get a second opinion. The following Monday, I went back to Karmanos to pick up x-rays and reports to take to my doctor. The doctors at Karmanos found a small nodule (a lump) on the ultra sound film initially unseen by my doctors. I took the x-rays and reports to my doctor's office for the doctor to look at.

After leaving the doctor's office, I had to make the most important decision of my life - where to go for treatment. The doctors in my local area and hospital were great. I never had a complaint about them, but Karmano's specializes in cancer. The Oncologist in my area was connected loosely with UMICH (another "top ten" on the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) list), but the hospital itself was not a specialty hospital. I had a feeling that given this life-changing/life-threatening condition, I should go and get the treatment at a hospital that specializes in cancer. After discussing this dilemma, and talking to various people in my support group, I decided to use an Oncologist nearby. As the days went by, I was coming to grips with my diagnosis, but I still felt like I had gone into a weird and bizarre "alternate universe" where everything was new. A month and a half after finding the lump, I had an appointment for surgery. The surgery went well and I was brought to my room.

After the recovering from the lumpectomy, I visited the Oncologist and discussed treatment plans. The plan was to go with chemotherapy for four sessions, then radiation for about 34 sessions. Since my veins were not the best, insertion of a port-a-cath was recommended. A port-a-cath is a device that goes below the skin to infuse chemotherapy, and get blood. I scheduled an appointment near the end of May for a pre-op visit with my surgeon. The surgeon told me that the procedure would be rather simple; I would be in a twilight sleep when the doctor threaded the cannula (the `tail' of the port-a-cath that went into the aorta, leading to the heart).

On June 1, the port-a-cath was put in. The doctor told me that when the procedure was over I might feel like I had been kicked by a mule. I thought the doctor was joking, but it wasn't a joke it was real. The doctor gave me Darvocet, a mild narcotic, which I said wasn't enough for the first day of post-op. The medication made me feel sick, so I went ahead and took additional medications.

There was much better pain control without the nausea. Ten days later, I had my first day of chemotherapy. I would have four cycles of chemotherapy three weeks apart. I said it was almost anticlimactic, given what I had heard from other people. The nurse put a needle hooked up to an IV device in the port-a-cath, hung a bag of saline, then instilled the Decadron (steroids) for anti-nausea. Unfortunately, other good cells, like hair cells, cells in the stomach and so on, are also damaged, and that causes the nausea and hair loss when these cells are damaged. The second item infused was Cytoxan (one of the two chemotherapy drugs). The doctor decided to use the pump (about the size of a small portable radio) to instill the Adriamycin (the second chemotherapy drug). It is also called the "Red Devil" because it is red, causes most of the hair loss and nausea. Infused over a 72 hour period to prevent heart damage, I had to carry the pump around wherever I went.

I was sent home with Anzemet, one of the newer more powerful anti-nausea medicines. I said that I felt fine the first day, but tired and most of the tiredness was probably from stress. As the day continued I felt okay; however, I discovered the side-effects of the Decadron which made me unable to sleep. I continued to snack on pudding and applesauce until four o'clock in the morning when I was finally able to go to sleep. The Decadron had one other nasty side-effect. It caused me to feel jittery - not unlike sticking your finger into a live socket. The water that the doctor's wanted me to drink plus the fluids I received at the infusion center (where I had my chemotherapy) made me go to the restroom on a constant basis. I slept off and on the rest of the day. I also discovered that either the chemotherapy, or steroids confused me thermostat because at one point I was wearing a flannel shirt (the temperature was in the eighty's). I told my daughter and my friend to keep the temperature cool in the house because there's only so much clothing a person can shed in polite society, while I could put on more layers of clothing. I also said I had to make myself sleep that night, so that I could get back into the routine of sleeping at night, and waking in the morning.

A few days after chemotherapy, I felt pretty good and was able to go to work for six hours. I was exhausted when I arrived home. The next day, the doctor took off my Adriamycin pump and I mentioned to the doctor that my stomach was a little upset that morning. So the doctor prescribed Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication. When used with steroids and anti-nausea meds, it works to help stop nausea. I discovered one other nice thing about Ativan - it counteracted the Decadron, and allowed me to get to sleep. I was also given Anzemet for nausea. My best days of chemotherapy were the day of chemotherapy and the next couple days.

The worst day of chemotherapy was the day the pump was removed - 72 hours after each round of chemotherapy. Inspite of anti-nausea meds, Decadron, Ativan, and so on, I was pretty nauseated, and would dope myself up with the various medications so I could sleep the entire day. I was very emotional during chemotherapy, often felt sick, and would tend to yell and take it out on my daughter. I also was immediately thrust into menopause and on top of all the other things I had hot flashes and mood swings.

On June 21, I woke up with my daughter's head cold. As the day progressed, I began to feel worse and worse, not unlike the feeling of being run over by a semi. By 2 a.m. in the morning, my temperature was well over 102 degrees and I was instructed to go to St. John Hospital's emergency room. Fevers for those getting chemotherapy are much more dangerous, because the body is unable to defend against infection. When white cell count is dramatically down, infections can be deadly. Upon arriving in the ER, I was `poked, prodded, and stapled, or so it felt. If that wasn't enough, the gurneys were sheer torture after the second hour of attempting to get comfortable on them. Fourteen hours later, I received a bed. They released me the next day with instructions to follow up with my oncologist. I went to my oncologist, and I found out my counts had taken a nosedive and were way below normal. My ANC (absolute neutrophil count, a figure that indicated how well my immune system was working) was 200 on Monday. Normal is around 2400. I felt like I was a walking germ magnet. I still had the horrible cold that my daughter gave me, so I had to continue to watch my temperature. Fortunately, it never rose again.

This scare prompted the oncologist to start me immediately on Neupogen, a hormone that makes white blood cells grow rapidly. I was also started on Procrit, which made my red blood cells grow faster, so I wouldn't be anemic. After the first several shots of Neupogen (one shot per day for 5 days), My chest started hurting. Due to the cold, I was concerned about maybe pneumonia, but the nurse, when contacted, chuckled, and said "remember that one of the biggest white cell "factories" is the sternum (breast bone) and the pain simply means that you're growing a bumper crop of white blood cells (little warriors that fight off infections). My hair started to fall out, and I decided to get it shaved, because when I tugged lightly on it, handfuls of hair would come out. Since it was summer, I refused to wear wigs, but instead wore baseball caps. Fortunately, I had a job where I could show up in jeans, a t-shirt and baseball cap without raising any eyebrows. The chemotherapy affected my appetite dramatically. I was so nauseated I couldn't eat red meat, but I loved mashed potatoes, pastas, rice and puddings. I often had cravings for Mounds Bars. I actually lived on Mounds Bars for an entire week! I hated Gatorade (which was recommended to replace electrolytes), but discovered that making popsicles of Gatorade was tolerable.

My second round of chemotherapy was uneventful, and afterwards, I travelled to Chicago to visit my mother-in-law who had been hospitalized for an irregular heart rate and now had pneumonia. The visit was nice, but it was so hard to see Minnie (my mother-in-law) laying so sick in the hospital. After the first round of chemotherapy, and falling asleep at work multiple times, I was told to take the week of chemotherapy off - the boss was afraid I'd fall asleep driving the 40 miles to and from work. Those weeks off during the course of chemotherapy were great. Many times they'd be used to visit friends in Grand Rapids and Ohio.

The third round of treatment, however was not only the nastiest, but it was just days before my mother-in-law passed away. After this session, I really wasn't feeling well - the nausea was worse and the fatigue was unbelievable. Then, on August 1st, I got the word that my mother-in-law had passed away, and the funeral would be later that week. Me and my friend (from Chicago) rented a car since my car didn't have airconditioning to drive to Chicago. The trip to Chicago was uneventful, and Kerri and I stayed at the friend's apartment. However, the next day, after a quick breakfast of donuts, I began to feel quite ill, and started vomiting and couldn't stop. I wasn't sure if it was delayed reaction to chemotherapy, heat, stress, or everything combined (the temperature wavered around 98 degrees). The trip to the cemetery for the service was quite an adventure for both me and my older daughter, Kris, who was driving her own car. I had to stop frequently to vomit, and poor Kris, who was following me had to try to keep up with all the stops.

After the funeral, I went to the emergency room of a hospital I knew from past experience was affiliated with a cancer center, because I was very dehydrated. The doctor gave me more IV medications and fluids. It was a downtown hospital, and the wait was unimaginable. Finally, after four hours, I was admitted to the ER, and started on fluids. After six hours of fluids and Zofran (another new anti-nausea drug), I felt much better and was able to drive back to Michigan. Unfortunately, the next day it was pouring rain, 6 inches in an hour. I nicknamed her experience in Chicago as "fire and flood"

At the last round of chemotherapy in August, family and friends brought in a cake to the infusion center that said "Congratulations Gina! That day turned out to be one of the hottest days of the summer. The nurses and patients polished it off. Though this last round was not as severe as the previous rounds, I had it down to a science what medications to take and when to take them to be more comfortable and ended up sleeping almost three solid days. After each round of chemotherapy, I was given a 5-6 day course of Neupogen and weekly shots of Procrit. By the second week after my last chemotherapy, I was getting very tired of shots, so decided to visualize those little red blood cells multiplying. Indeed that worked! The next blood test showed normal red and white blood cell counts. My appetite gradually returned after the last chemotherapy. However, chemotherapy had left its mark.

During the last week of September, I went to the hospital where I would receive radiation therapy for a "mock treatment." This meant they would give me tattoos with India Ink to mark the location of the radiation beams as well as measure me for the plastic device that would be placed on the radiation machine to correctly direct the beams. A couple weeks later I started radiation therapy for a total of 33 treatments, which ended two days before Thanksgiving, 2001. The radiation did not burn me, and compared to chemotherapy, I said everything went smoother. It wasn't as tough as I thought it would be - it was actually boring. The hardest part of radiation was driving the ten miles to the hospital every day, changing into a gown, and laying on the radiation table for 1-2 minutes, then getting dressed and driving home again. It took longer to get there and back, than the treatment itself. By January, 2002, I had a much bigger crop of hair. My family and friends told me I had the "Sinead O'Conner" look.

As I looked back through the eight months of chemotherapy and radiation, I realized that my life had changed dramatically, and would probably never be the same again. I remembered a couple years before when a friend gave me and my daughter a `pink ribbon pen' for Christmas from Avon in support of breast cancer research. I never imagined that I would be a victim.

I fervently hoped that research funded by walks that Kerri and I were involved in would eventually yield a cure or even prevention of breast cancer for all women and their daughters. Today, I look at things differently. I am no longer intimidated by a low bank account nor driving in ice and snow. I figured that this is due to the feeling that "Lord, I survived one of the worst things a human can have! Low banks accounts and a few inches of snow are nothing compared to that!" I faced my own mortality, and although I faced over 13 more surgeries and procedures in the two years after treatment, I was able to handle whatever was put in my life. The one thing that I did stay afraid of was recurrence. Most cancer patients fear the inevitable. Positive bone scans and multiple biopsies did little to change this fear. I did go through a period of depression a few years after treatment, but it was normal, and many of my friends noted that they would have been concerned if I'd NOT been depressed.

People often have obstacles put in their lives to make them stronger, and I is a living example of a person who has never given up on anything I does. I continue to struggle every day with the fear of recurrence, profound fatigue, and other physical problems, but I don't let them get me down. I was one of the nine. In 2001 I was one of the 200,000. Today I am one of the over two million survivors. Since my diagnosis in 2001, I have been here to see my youngest daughter graduate from both high school and college. Seen my second grandson be born, my oldest daughter get married and many other things. I have also been able to see my youngest daughter Kerri do several walks for breast cancer and even a multi-day walk in my honor. As my friend Jeana was writing about my experience for a paper she had to do for her English class, she decided to do a SBE (self breast exam) and discovered a pea-sized, hard lump in her right breast. Given her history (her mom and grandmother had breast cancer, and her father's side had histories of multiple types of cancer), she have undergone a mammogram and ultrasound. She went to see a surgeon & thankfully it was only a cyst and she had it aspirated when she saw the surgeon.