6 month scan

I'm feeling like a drama queen today. Everything I saw this morning on the news or anything I see on Facebook I just keep thinking "oh yeah?! Well I am at the hospital. I am at a cancer center.  I am getting my blood drawn and I am drinking the nasty vanilla milkshake and I am getting a ct scan I am finding out if the cancer is back."

Well that's good right? It's good that you are being monitored and that it has already been 6 months and that you will just have that reassurance that all is well.

Yes that is true.

I can't believe it has been 6 months since my last chemo round. Wild. And I am grateful to be on this side of the journey and not on the other side. As I was just getting into the elevator, one of the volunteers was giving a tour to a new patient. He showed him where the bell is and said "you get to ring that when you are done" and the poor man said "well that will be a pretty great day." I remember saying something similar but feeling like that day was never going to come. And then it did. And more days passed. And here we are.

As I walk these halls I see people in various stages of treatment. I recognize those at the very beginning of their walk through hell by their shell shocked faces and shiny eyes. My heart aches for them. I see those in the middle of the horror, their bodies ruined by the poison that is, hopefully, saving their lives. And then there is me. I'm done. I made it through. And amid the guilt of feeling so healthy around so many who are suffering, there is also anger. I'm freaking pissed that I am here at all.

I hate cancer. I hate it. I hate that I am now forever associated with it.

My mom had a scare. Because we are predisposed to breast and colorectal cancer, we have to have increased screening which includes rotating mammograms and MRI's every six months. Her MRI showed an area of concern.  Thanks to a series of frustrating circumstances, it was a month of agony waiting to know if she had cancer or not. I went with her to the appointment which was a wonderful blessing because I would have gone crazy waiting at home for the news. She is clear, with an area that they will watch but she is fine.

This is going to be her life and my life every 6 months for the rest of my life, unless I decide to chop em off.

That sounded like a very attractive and obvious choice. Until I started looking at post mastectomy pictures.

These women are butchering their bodies, enduring months, sometimes years of pain. Multiple surgeries. Infections. Problem after problem all in the name of saving themselves from what I have already lived through. And while I don't blame them, I am hesitant to join them.

I won't know the results from my scan until tomorrow. I have known only a handful of colorectal cancer fighters and the cancer has come back for every single one of them by their first scan. So I am a little stressed.  And pissed.  I'm just pissed.  I'm sorry that I am that way today. I'm not inspiring or brave today. I hate this place.  I hate cancer. I keep waiting to get to the acceptance phase of all of this but I don't know if I ever will. 

6 months means a lot of things. It means I have this scan today. And a follow up with my doctor tomorrow where we will review the results. In a few weeks I will have a colonoscopy to check that everything is looking good in that department. And a week or so after that I will have my first breast MRI which is a more in depth look than the mammogram I had 6 months ago. I will have to tell my doctors that I am still on hormone replacement, which they recommended I stop taking. Last time they told me that, I was resolute in my decision to have a mastectomy so I figured why suffer for breasts that are coming off anyway. But now I'm not so sure, and it's going to make for an interesting discussion. Which brings me back to being pissed. 

I'm 32. Somewhere in the midst of all these tests, I will have my 33rd birthday. I resent the fact that I have to be discussing and fighting for hormone replacement. It is replacing less than what my ovaries would have been producing on their own. And had I somehow been able to keep my ovaries, the doctors would not have recommended ovarian removal because my percentages are low, in comparison to other genetic mutations like BRCA. So if they wouldn't have recommended ovarian removal, and if I'm on the lowest dose possible for replacement, and if I'm replacing less than I would have already had in my body - WHY do I have to stop taking it? Ugh, we just go round and round the merry go round and I never wanted to be on this ride in the first place. 

All day today I have been thinking "What do you do on the day before you find out you have stage 4 cancer and a 7% survival chance." 

How horribly morbid is that thought?

I don't think the cancer is back. But I really don't know. And if it's back, I'm automatically considered stage 4. I could have cancer in my brain, or my lungs, or my breasts, but it would still be considered colon cancer because that is where is originated. How much does that suck?! Haha! I have butt cancer in my boobs, thanks. Um, yeah, that is just not cool. Haha. 

All sorts of thoughts swirl around and I resent them all. I don't want to have any of them. I want my carefree, relatively worry free life back. But I never will. Once I'm past the 5 year time, when the cancer is most likely to come back if it's going to come back, by then it will nearly be time to start worrying about testing my twins for the genetic flaw. And with that comes a whole bucket of concerns. It's just a lot. It's a lot people. I told you - I'm a drama queen today. 

I probably shouldn't write blog posts while I sit at the hospital waiting for my scan. This is a sad place. 

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It's Tuesday night and my scans came back clear! No cancer and all is well. 

As we sat in the waiting room, Matt mentioned all the things that could have gone wrong but went right. All the things we were initially scared about but ended up working out just fine. The infections that didn't happen, the permanent bag that I avoided by a centimeter, the 6 inch vertical scar that didn't happen since I opted for laproscopic surgery. It was a good reminder, all the prayers that were answered, all the good that has happened, everything I have to be grateful for. 

6 months down. 

We asked my oncologist what the rate of recurrence is. He said, historically, about 40%. But in my case, since I had the more advanced protocol that has proven to have better success, it is likely around 30%. Give or take. But they don't really know, and won't really know, until they look back in 10-15 years at what is being done now and can see what worked and what didn't. 

"It is amazing to think about how different today could have gone" my husband just said to me. 

So very grateful that it went the way it did. 

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo