Day 10, Last Week on Work Leave

The past week has been typical of the last 3 rounds of T. A week ago I walked Harrison Blvd with the kids on Halloween for a little over an hour which was nice and then headed home with very sore hips. The weekend was my worst days in terms of bone and muscle pain and I spent much of Saturday trying to sleep after coming off of the steroid. On top of everything else I still had my cold. Day 10 now and my cold is finally almost gone. I still have some decent muscle pain, but it's getting better. I had 3 sessions with the acupuncturist this last round which was relaxing - it's no match for chemo - but it's relaxing anyways.

The biggest news is that Pam goes back to NY on Saturday and I go back to work on Monday. It's a little overwhelming to think about returning to normal life again but it's time. I get mixed messages from healthcare professionals about going back to work as some think I should wait it out until radiation is over, but there are definitely people who see no problem with me returning. My job has been extremely supportive of my leave and I'm so thankful for that - they have not pressured me in the least to return and have simply said they're looking forward to having me back. On top of that I will return to some pretty good project work - if you're into designing wetlands. There will be more on Pam later this weekend....she certainly warrants her own special post. She'll be missed dearly by all 4 of us but we're happy that she's returning home to Dean and the rest of the family.

Next week my treatment schedule will also start to ramp up for radiation. On Monday the 10th I have a "simulation" with the radiation oncologist where they will do a CT scan of my left breast to locate the heart and lungs, and then they'll give me 3 small tattoo's so that for the next 6.5 weeks they can aim their laser beams at my chest, but avoid the heart and lung as much as possible. Radiation will then begin on the 17th. I'll go in 5 days per week and was told it'll be a couple minutes of radiation each time and about 45 minutes door-to-door with set-up time as they get me positioned.

On top of that I'm having the surgeon remove my port on Wednesday the 12th. I feel it on a daily basis, it did it's job, and now I want it gone. Plus, if I wait until 2015 to do it it'll cost me ~$5K. The surgeon himself isn't actually that expensive, but anytime you get the hospital operating room involved it gets ridiculous. The surgeon said that he can do it with local anesthesia only if I wanted so thankfully I will avoid more general anesthesia. I've been told removing the port is a ton easier than putting it in as they don't need to do any searching or threading - they just make one cut and the catheter pulls right out.

Life is about to get busier again.