On Tuesday I had a meeting with one of my oncologist's, this was primarily to discuss plans for radiotherapy.
The plan as far as I understand it is that I will have my next planning appointment in the next 30 days and start at some point in January. This planning appointment means a CT scan and maybe some x-rays, then I will have three permanent tattoo's. These will be about the size of a biro dot so not noticeable (I hope), they are used to make sure the radiotherapy is fired exactly at the right point, therefore preventing too much damage to healthy cells.
I will have 15 session's and possibly 5 extra booster sessions. This is every weekday for 3-4 weeks, about 30-40 miles from home as the equipment is stupidly expensive so only bigger hospital's have them.
The main side effects are tiredness due to the body having to repair damaged healthy cells, and redness/ peeling/ soreness/ breaking down of the skin. To prevent this I need to use E45 religiously, use baby soap, avoid deodorant and avoid shaving under that arm (eww!). These side effects will continue to peak about 10-15 days after treatment I am told.
All in all sounds pretty straight forward! Looking forward to getting that stage out the way!
We also discussed the herceptin I am having as I am having a couple of side effects. Not much I can do about that other than painkiller's and antihistamine's, something to do with how the antibodies are broken down.
I asked about my chances of survival and the scary chances of reoccurrence and both seem extremely positive numbers! They have a magic computer system that when they put tumour statistics in it spits out some figures. With all the treatment they suggest, I have about a 98% chance of being alive in 10 years!!! Woop to me! Computer system seemed to think it was more likely something else would get me! Chances of it never coming back were also about as high (I forget the number as there were so many figures). I am bloody lucky! I know there are no guarantees, these figures are just a guide, but they seem hugely positive!
The first thing we spoke about in this appointment however was hormone therapy. As the cancer cell's I had fed on my oestrogen and progesterone the best way to help prevent another tumour is to cut these off, therefore forcing me into an early menopause! (Cue the mood swing's and hot flushes). I have to start these in 2-3 week's and carry that on for a whole 10 years! If these do not successfully put me into the menopause then I will need an injection of an implant as well (I think this is every three months) to again cut my hormones further.
The reason I have taken a few day's to write this and have left it till last is because it has taken a few days for me to get my head around. He threw out the sentence "to kill your ovaries off", this sent me into a huge spiral and resulted in me sobbing for a good hour there and another hour when I got home. I managed to ask him what he meant, and as they are putting me into an early menopause there is no guarantee that my body will crawl back out of that. He also said that my consultant oncologist and fertility consultant were wrong in saying I can stop this after 2 years to try for a baby and then continue the rest of the course after I give birth.
As you can imagine at 24 this was a massive blow, and for the first time in all this shit I said to a doctor that I didn't want the treatment. Looking back I feel stupid and cross at myself for saying this, and I didn't mean it, my health at the end of the day is too important, and there are other ways of having a family. I still took the prescription though.
I do however feel he forgot how young I was, as he looked back through my notes and commented on my age, then said under 30 you have a 70-80% chance of fertility returning (which is a huge chance to me). I suppose after dealing with the regular older population with breast cancer it is difficult to remember I am over half the age of the rest of them. I have been naughty and have done lots of googling, thanks to my nursey side I have only looked at evidential and reliable information and avoided those scare articles. Everything seems to be positive, I have age on my side. The group I am part of on Facebook have also been very positive, I trust them. Turn's out both drugs are used to try and help treat infertility too... So I have taken a few days to try and brush off the "kill your ovaries" comment and get back onto my positive track!
Which is good timing, christmas do with my beautiful work friend's tonight!! I'm ready to make it a good one and celebrate the 98% chance of being alive in 10 years! I'll drink to that! Xx
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