Final treatment and surgery today -Wahoo!!!

Well, my look continues to change and I'm continuing to learn all about how to live a little differently now. I think that, last week, while taking a math class, that I could pretty much resume the level of a schedule I had in the past....hmmm. NOT really is what I found out. You know, taking care of myself and making healthy choices is something that I continually must put ahead of other things. As a person who is a little intenses, usually involved in many different things, I'm learning that just as one needs to be responsible with a financial budget, I need to be responsible with my physical budget. I'm learning how to put my health first and other activities and interest aside and it has been a bit challenging becuase my mind wants to be in charge, but I have to respect my limits. Thats a healthy thing to do. I'm sure that I'll improve over time, but I'm not sure that I'll ever return to the level of activity I had b.c. (before cancer) becuase it was frankly too much. I think there is a difference between doing things for God and serving God. One is what we think we ought to do, and the other is what he draws us to. I love singing and playing worship music. I am passionate about it, I love it and know I was made to do it....but maybe not at the pace I was doing it before. We'll see as the year unfolds and as I return to school at John Glenn Middle school teaching eighth grade algebra if I can get involved with anything outside of school on a regular basis, but for right now, I can't do that becuase I think I'll need energy to transition to school again. Right now I'm just trying to eat well, exercise well, sleep well, and, well, get out of town a few times before the breakneck pace of school begins

HEALTH News
I wanted to let you all know what was going on health-wise with me within the last week. Monday was my last herceptin treatment, and today at around noon, I have surgery to have my port removed – wahoo!!! I had some tears as I hugged the chemo nurses after my infusion on Monday at Dr. Luke's office and thanked them for their kindness. (I’m going to send them flowers, too). So, all of this is pretty exciting!!! My hair is finally starting to look normal and I’m enjoying the color and the fact that it’s short.

last week I was experiencing some unusual and significant pelvic pain and without going into all of the details let’s just say that it's crazy how a health concern just starts to spin everything around it for me now. It would have been fine to be going from one doctor or test to another but it was crazy to try to juggle that with the math class I was taking last week, music rehearsals consecutive evenings, car issues, and other meetings with people. Yikes!! It was a good wake up call. I can’t handle that level of activity just yet so I’m glad for the “test case” week that I had. Oh, I also had a brain MRI last Friday which was routine and an additional test that the doctor who I saw in texas ordered (I was in texas for a couple of weeks in july). The reason that she ordered this is that the Pet scan that I did in march didn’t include the brain, and with the type of aggressive her2/nu cancer that I had, she said the brain is one place that it travels. I don’t expect anything to turn up since I’m feeling so great.

I worked out hard yesterday morning with my friend, Elli and it was great (especially since I’m not how the surgery will limit me given a few stitches, etc on my left side). Oh well, it’s the last hurdle, right? And a pretty small one comparatively.

Regarding tamoxifen, Dr, O’Shaughnessy (the doctor to whom I referred above), who I saw for my herceptin infusion while I was in texas brought up the fact that two out of the three pathology reports indicated that I was ER/PR negative. That is, the lab test parameters determined that my hormone receptor status was not a factor in causing the cancer to grow. Thus, she asked my why I was on it and I explained what I knew at the time but since she made a good case, and I’m not so keen on being on a drug like that with side effects, I stopped for about a week, but then reconsidered and started taking it again pending a discussion with Dr. Luke. So, I discussed this with Dr. Luke this past Monday for my last treatment and we talked about the statistics and the way the lab tests are designed. The short of it is that Eisenhower’s lab tests were more specific, showing the exact percentage of hormone receptors (8 and 11%) that were in the cancer cells at the time of diagnosis, while the other two reports did not provide that detail. Furthermore, the cutoff used by the other labs that designate a “negative’ reading is at 10% while Eisenhower uses 5%. Therefore you can see that, given my stats, this call was a bit iffy. However, given my age and the fact that tamoxifen is proven to have a 50% reduction in recurrence rates, combined by the fact that the side effects are not majorly life altering, it makes sense to take it for the five years so that I know that I am being just as aggressive now with my approach to treatment as I had been in the beginning. Plus if it were to recur I would want to know that I had taken advantage of the options that seemed reasonable.

Well, that’s quite a lot of info and hope you are all doing well. I’m feeling great and looking forward to surgery. Praise Jesus for his incredible kindness and healing and how he has carried me in all of this.

Love to you all,

Julie