Update 9/9 Biopsy and surgery date is set

Hi,
Here's the latest. After talking with Tim Tyler I know that I need to be more pro-active about aking for procrit (red cell growth booster) weekly and nulasta (white cell growth booster) the day after chemo. I think my counts were low going into this last chemo so the dip in my blood levels was lower thann it would have been. However, I'm not sure that they really thought that they would dip that much. So, now we know. I went to see Robin (nurse practitioner) on Thursday afternoon and my red levels were a little low so I was able to get a procrit shot, which is great since I have chemo on Monday. It's going to be important that I continue to get my blood checked weekly so that my levels stay up - the procrit takes a couple of weeks to kick in, so one week lag causes a longer lag in recovery. I still don't feel quite like myself and yesterday toook a nap in themiddle of the day and probably could have kept on sleeping. I went to bed around 8 and woke up at 6 this morning becuase I really want to go to the gym-I've only been once in the last week.

Biopsy yesterday-
I went back to the Eisenhower Breast Center and it was great. I know pretty much all of the nurses there: Kim, Belinda and now April (who is actually a rad tech). Anyway, I got a full mammogram on both sides plus some special views of the suspicious areas in question: 2 oclock on the left and 10 oclock on the right sides. What was really cool was going in to look at the films with Dr. L (Lanskowsky) becuase it showed a linear formation of the calcifications in the left and she thouht they were probably DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ meaning pre-cancedrous calcifications in that breast). So, it was off to the stereotactic biopsy table. This is a device that looks kind of like an ironing board with a hole in it. You lay on the table so that the breast is available through the opening and they use an x-ray guided machine to basically lance the calcified area. They have to do it this way and not via a core biopsy needle since the cacifications are not visible to the naked eye and can sometimes be sprinkled over an area so they have to lance it a few times. Thankfully this time was a lot less painful than the first couple of times I had this done.
Aftter I was done with the samples of the left side, I went in to look at the films of the right side. The question we had before us was did I want to biopsy the right side if I'm having the breast removed surgically anyway. We looked at the position of the calcifications on that side and they seemed to be in the cone of the breast so we decided not to do the sterotactic biopsy on that side. When they remove the right breast later on they'll biopsy the whole thing anyway and we'll see what it was. There is no urgency to biopsy it now b/c DCIS grows pretty slowly and the treatment for it is removal anyway. The chemo doesn't work on this type of cancer. However, one interesting thing of note was that Dr. L said that the chemo causes death of the cancer cells and the calcium globs onto those dead cells so it can seem like there is an area of DCIS when in fact it might have been a more invasive cancer at this point that has died and there are calcium deposits that have settled there. Regardless, we'll find out on Tuesday what the left side was since the pathology will be available then.
I'm glad that I went to City of Hope since they did find this abnormality in the first place. Although my experience with the surgical consultation there wasn't the best, I'm so glad that they reviewed my films since this tipped my thinking to the double mastectomy more securely.

Surgery date:
Beleive it or not, I'm having surgery on Halloween. Yes, it's kinda crazy but the week prior (the 24th of October) was taken. I really wanted to do it on the 24th (the two doctors work together only on Tuesdays in the OR) but someone was already scheduled that day. Too bad becuase that would have been three weeks afgter my last chemo. Guess I'll have to wait four weeks, but I know that God knows what he's doing. So, perhaps another week prior to surgery will help me to heal up more before the trauma that my body will go through and that will make the healing better. We'll see. I stil have to get Dr. Luke to sign off on that date stating that he feels my counts will be fine. They should be since I'll be on top of it weekly.

A busy weekend ahead with Saturday night worship (playing and singing) Sunday worship (singing and then Sunday night Siren (Surrender is playing). Then chemo on Monday. I'm glad that I rested yesterday and Thursday too. Originally I was going to just sing on Saturday but Paul asked me to play too, to that adds more prep to my Saturday.
Joy is going to go with me to chemo on Monday, so that's great. Two more to go!!

Julie