These past 10 days have been some of the happiest days of my life since my cancer diagnosis on March 11.
We have celebrated three family milestones in 10 days, all of them revolving around our kids, their partners, and their futures. Slowly, but surely they are using their wings and are flying nicely on their own as fully-grown adults.
The celebrations started on June 6th with our daughter Marissa’s wedding shower. The weather co-operated and gave her sunshine to add to the warmth of the celebration. It was a joy to see her so happy by being in the presence of women who have shaped her life, watched her grow, and came to share in well-wishes for her upcoming marriage.
At one point she leaned over to me at and smiled saying “Mom, can you believe this? All of these women are here for me and I know each and every one of them by name. This is so amazing. The wedding’s going to be like this too, but there will also be the men who have been special to me too.”
It truly was a memorable mother and daughter milestone. Memories were made amid laughter and tears. My daughter is all grown up and will be leaving home in a few short weeks to become a wife. The time has passed so quickly…
The shower wouldn’t have come together without the generous hearts and rolled-up sleeves of family and friends who made it happen. I am grateful for their love, support, and physical work to create the shower as my health prevented me from being as actively involved as I would have liked to be.
Last Thursday was another milestone moment for Marissa and our family. She convocated from the University of Winnipeg and received her 4-year Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications and Interdisciplinary Linguistics at the University of Winnipeg.
The event marked the end of 21 years of educating two children and preparing them for the “adult world” of work and independence. Marissa’s landed a great first professional position working as an admin assistant to a Dean at her alma mater.
Last night our son Josh and daughter-in-law Jill called and proudly proclaimed that they won a house bidding war and are owners of their first home. It was the 44th house they saw in person in addition to over 200 they had researched on local real estate websites and agent listings.
It is has been fun to share in the excitement of their pursuit to buy a home. I will miss the many eager phone calls and visits about house viewings, the ups and downs of looking at junky houses vs. good ones, and the merits of house styles, neighborhoods, and interesting features with each home viewed.
Most of all, it has been rewarding to watch them evolve with each experience into savvy real estate consumers. They became quite adept at sourcing good houses from bad ones, and estimate that they saw about eight bad houses for every good one.
Interestingly, both kids and their partners have chosen River Heights as their neighborhoods. They can walk to one another’s places in under 10 minutes. It’ll be a bit of a commute from where they grew up in the Kildonans but convenient for where they need to commute for work and school.
Life’s comings and goings with two sets of adult children and partners has been a good distraction in living with cancer. Tomorrow, the reality of cancer treatments and their schedules enters my world. There will be anxious and frustrating moments. Holding on to these 10 days of happy moments will give me comfort.
Today, I celebrate the fullness of life and the rewards of parenting well. I hope to get well to continue to celebrate many other milestones in my life. I continue my fight against cancer with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
Living with cancer is like riding a merry-go-round. You have your ups and downs. Eventually you go full circle.
On Wednesday this week, I had a cellulitis recovery follow-up appointment with my surgeon. He pronounced me officially healed from the bacterial infection.
Part of this visit also comprised of him briefing me about the medical rounds last week, where various doctors reviewed my case to determine the next treatment steps.
We’ve gone full circle on this cancer trip.
Originally my surgeon was confident that he had removed all of the cancer and that there were no other cancer cells in adjacent areas.
Then, there was the news two weeks ago that upon further examination of the biopsy results, there was the belief that there were some cancer cells in margins adjacent to the surgery site. At that time, my surgeon had forewarned that a second surgery was a possibility to remove more cancer cells in tissue and skin that would require skin grafting to close the incision.
Some good news came during this latest post-surgery visit.
The team of doctors that reviewed my case had revisited the biopsy results during their meeting. They have ruled that there is no further cancer and confirmed that all of it was removed with the mastectomy. My surgeon is very pleased with this revised opinion. A wave of relief washed over me.
He also advised that a medical oncologist’s office would be contacting me within two weeks to set an appointment for my first treatment consultation. I heard from the medical oncologist’s office the next day, when a phone message from their office was waiting to be returned when we got home from our daughter’s university convocation.
My stomach churned as I returned the phone call. The anxiety came from knowing that this phone call was going to get to the “grit” of this cancer fight in moving to the next phase of active treatment.
There was some comfort in knowing that I am now able to continue to move forward in fighting cancer, and that I will be starting to see my medical oncologist for the first of many appointments. It is going to be a series of ups and downs that will last for several months, starting with chemotherapy.
I will meet my medical oncologist for the first time next Wednesday to discuss my treatment plan. I am fortunate as the medical oncologist who will be treating me is the head of the breast disease site group. She is also the same medical oncologist who called for a case review of my file with the team of doctors.
When they reviewed my case, the doctors also revised the diagnosis on the type of cancer I have. Originally, the first pathologist’s report indicated that I had a very rare form of breast cancer called a carcinosarcoma that lodged in breast tissue and skin. They are now calling my condition a metaplastic breast cancer.
It is still very rare, and affects less than one per cent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. It is still an aggressive form of cancer and has a lower survival rate when compared to other forms of breast cancer.
My nurse educator has explained to me that metaplastic breast cancer cells have features and other characteristics similar to sarcoma cancer cells. I am now officially being treated as a breast cancer patient rather than a sarcoma cancer patient. The doctors believe that my metaplastic breast cancer started as an invasive ductal cancer.
The nurse educator further advised that my cancer was at Stage 2A when it was removed. It is considered to be at an earlier stage as there was no spreading of cancer to lymph nodes and there was no metastasis to other areas. This was more good news.
According to my surgeon, I will likely undergo four to six rounds of chemotherapy, followed by a month off to recover. I will then have a month of daily radiation treatments, and will need more time to heal and recover to my pre-cancer state.
I understand that my first chemotherapy treatment is likely to occur before the end of this month. A second one will follow about three weeks later, which puts me within a week or two of our daughter’s wedding. I hope that I am well enough to celebrate this happy occasion in her life.
Seven weeks ago today, I had my mastectomy. It has been a difficult and frustrating recuperation. It took longer than it should have. My patience was tested time and time again. However, “Sandra’s stubbornness” has served me well in fighting the setbacks that come with this disease.
There were drainage issues with my incision. There were two visits to emergency departments. One resulted in a hospital admission that began a three-week battle with cellulitis, which required daily home care and delayed my recovery.
There have been mobility issues on my surgical side with my arm, neck, and shoulder. These past three weeks have been filled with 45 minutes per day of arm stretching and strengthening exercises, coupled with two-physiotherapy/acupuncture appointments per week to regain the use of my upper body. I’m progressing well. The physio sessions are expected to continue until chemotherapy starts.
My surgeon has also advised me that I should undergo specialized physiotherapy to treat a post surgical condition called cording. This is a form of scar tissue that develops and causes binding on the side of your upper torso near the surgery site. The cording hinders the upward and outward movements of my arm. In the next few days, I will meeting with a different physiotherapist whose sole practice is to treat complications related to breast cancer that are not delivered by physiotherapy “generalists”.
Despite all of this unpleasantness, I had two joyful “life’s milestones” occasions to celebrate this week. I was well enough to attend my daughter’s bridal shower this past weekend, and her university convocation yesterday.
Since the diagnosis, I have known that there is a distinct possibility that I would be in chemo treatments by the time of my daughter’s wedding. She has said that if I need to come in a wheelchair to her wedding, then so be it.
I am bent, but I am not broken as I live with cancer. I fight on with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
How do I spell freedom? C-A-R. I now have the ability to drive a car again.
Monday night, nearly seven weeks after my mastectomy and cellulitis post-surgery complications, my physiotherapist has cleared me to drive a car.
Oh Joy!
I have been in physiotherapy and acupuncture twice a week for the last three weeks to regain mobility and the range of motion in my arm, neck and shoulder as some of my other post-surgery complications. My daily one-hour stretching sessions and exercises to regain my strength and the use of my arm and shoulder are finally paying off.
The last seven weeks have been a test of my patience and independence. I have felt somewhat of a hostage in living with cancer and being housebound.
I didn’t realize how much I have taken for granted in being able to get into a car and drive using my arm to steer a wheel. It has been such a natural act since I was 16. I have never been away from driving a car for more than a few days in several decades of driving.
I also have taken for granted the daily ability to freely lift, stretch, wave, and raise my arm up over my head to put on clothing or do simple household tasks requiring a full range of motion in using my arm and shoulder.
Ah, the simple things in life in living with cancer! It’s now a little daily thrill to be able to put on t-shirts, pullovers, and other lift-over-the-head garments. This ability comes just in time, allowing me to move away from weeks of wearing sweats and zippered tops, to wearing something dressier to our daughter’s university convocation on Thursday this week.
In this post surgery recovery, I have gained a new respect for independence and the freedom to come and go as I please in hopping into a car and driving away. These past few weeks, I have had to rely on others to get me to medical appointments and errands. This is new for me.
It has been frustrating and hard to ask for help as I have lived many years doing these day-to-day tasks independently. I now have a sense of how it feels to lose your license and your freedom when you can no longer drive.
Herein lies a lesson for me. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s become necessary in living with cancer.
Slowly, but surely I am starting to own this required change in behavior. It’s happening in baby steps. In a way, maybe this is how I am evolving in my ability to ask for help. It’s feasible that in the next few months I will have to rely on others to get me to even more appointments should chemotherapy and radiation become part of my next treatment phases. I may have a better idea about this after my next appointment with my oncology surgeon today.
In the meantime, as soon as my homecare nurse finishes changing my surgical wound dressing, I will be jumping into my car to run errands in the neighborhood. I will heed to my physiotherapist’s caution to return to driving slowly and for short distances until my arm and shoulder strength continues to increase. If I don’t, she’ll know that I didn’t listen when I see her later this week.
A new day of adventures wait for me outside of my house. I’m looking forward to riding away today in my car as I continue to learn to live with my cancer diagnosis with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
It has been an interesting walk in this cancer journey since my last blog on May 24. I finally feel well enough to start blogging again.
More and more, it is becoming evident to me that I still have much to learn about living one day at a time when cancer is part of your life.
This reality reminds me of some wisdom imparted to me by a cancer-surviving friend prior to my mastectomy. He warned that I would have no control over my life in living with cancer. He was right.
Despite the best efforts of my medical team and me, cancer still has the upper hand in how I live my life each day. It’s really hard to live one day at a time.
There are days when it’s a struggle to stay upbeat and positive because in the back of your mind you know that you could be dying. Despite this mental battle, I am still choosing to resist being dragged down by this disease. A negative attitude just takes too much energy out of me. I’d rather spend the energy I do have on staying positive.
My life has been one of planning, anticipating, managing family life, juggling work projects, and multi-tasking. My life has been lived being by in control of situations that surrounded me. I don’t do very well in living my life one day at a time. Perhaps it’s my impatience in living with the unknown.
Others around me are talking about their summer vacations, their winter holidays in sun spots, their child’s destination wedding in a warm climate in the next few months, the lives of their grandchildren, their countdown to retirement, and what they will do with the next stage of their life.
I can only contemplate what I will do today. I don’t know what tomorrow brings.
I have to keep reminding myself that I have to live one day at a time. Family and friends who are there for me and the great care by my surgeon and the other cancer care medical professionals comfort me. Living with cancer isn’t an easy journey.
Treatment Next Steps
The cellulitis bacterial infection that I have been healing from has finally cleared. The prolonged surgery recovery and wound care is now back on track—albeit set back by a couple of weeks because of the infection.
Last week when I returned to see my surgeon for a follow up visit on the infection’s healing, more news was given to me about my surgery’s tissue biopsies. It wasn’t good news.
It looks like I will have to have a second surgery to remove more cancer. My surgeon says there are some cancer cells in surrounding tissues, which were found with further testing after my surgery.
He explained to me that he cut as close as he could to remove the cancerous growth. He explained that he couldn’t cut any further as there would have been insufficient tissue and skin to close the procedure. He is expecting that a second surgery will be required to cut away more cancerous tissue. It will require harvesting of tissue and skin from elsewhere on my body, which will then be grafted to the surgical area to close the site.
At this point, we don’t know when this next surgery will take place. It’s likely to be sometime this summer. Part of the reason there isn’t a date yet is that my cancer case is being presented this Thursday as a study to a group of cancer medical experts who will assess it and determine the next treatment steps.
As I understand it, the group of medical professionals that will be reviewing my case will include medical oncologists, oncology surgeons, oncology radiologists, pathologists, and possibly oncology pharmacists. Because my carcinosarcoma cancer of the breast is so rare, many minds are collaborating on the next treatment steps, which are expected to begin with the second surgery.
My nurse educator had forewarned me that this study was a possibility, predicting that this step might occur. She also advised that the medical team might consult out of the province, and possibly out of the country in consulting with others on how they treated this type of cancer in their patients.
Other reasons why a surgery date is not yet known is that this is a more complex surgery to schedule that will require my surgeon, a plastic surgery team, possibly a different hospital than my first surgery, and setting a date (potentially) around well-deserved summer holidays for some members of my treatment team.
With all of this to contend with, I hold hope that I can still attend our daughter’s wedding this summer, as we don’t know when the surgery will occur. My surgeon has said they will try to work the next operation with the wedding date in mind. I may know more when I see him at my next appointment on June 9.
In the meantime, I am staying busy with our daughter’s wedding shower plans for the event this Sunday, followed by her convocation on June 10. These are happy days in her life and in ours. I will celebrate both of these special days with joy and gladness for the gift she has been in our life.
I will continue to keep my chin up and continue to fight this cancer battle with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
It’s been four and a half weeks since my surgery. I am finally starting to feel better.
The cellulitis infection that I have been battling these past 10 days, along with surgery recovery, seasonal spring allergies, swelling of my arm from the intravenous antibiotics, and drug side effects have taxed my body.
I have been feeling miserable and lethargic. Light physical activity was an exertion. The post-surgery exercises to regain my arm and shoulder strength and mobility were difficult to do, as the infection constrained my ability to move and added more irritation and pain to the surgery’s severed muscles and nerves.
It has been a slow and stubborn recovery in combating cellulitis. It is not a very common complication of mastectomy surgery and can be fatal if not treated aggressively. Ongoing monitoring of the infection was critically important in treating it. It took the partnership of my surgeon, various nurses, and me watching the symptoms to see if the infection was diminishing or increasing.
The hospitalization to receive heavy dosage intravenous antibiotics and then a strong oral antibiotic when I got home was slow to make this infection leave my body. In the last week I had the wound drained twice by my surgeon, and three times by nurses to try and get the infection under better control.
The infection was still not clearing properly one week later, and I started to develop chills. With this new symptom, my surgeon directed me to get to the emergency ward of the hospital to have him check the infection. He came in on a day off, on a long weekend, so that he could cut open the wound site to drain the infection to facilitate clearing it.
I now require daily drainage of the site and replacement of surgical dressings by nurses for the next few days until the infection is completely cleared. The re-opening of the surgery incision is working well. The infection fluid that has been pooling and preventing recovery is now clearing my body.
I am feeling stronger and healthier for the first time since my mastectomy.
It has been a frustrating and difficult recovery. I am on the mend and the “old me” pre-surgery is showing some signs of returning! I am able to do my strengthening and conditioning arm and shoulder exercises more easily now. I even had enough strength this morning to resume short walks in my neighborhood to get my body healthier to continue to aid in my surgery recovery.
I am getting better each day. I continue to tackle living with cancer with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
The saga of fighting cancer continues. I had a new twist to contend with over the weekend.
On Saturday, I developed a cellulitis infection as a surgery complication. The infection symptoms medical caregivers tell you to look for post-surgery were not the ones I was experiencing, so this infection came as a big surprise.
Cellulitis is a nasty infection that spreads quickly. It requires high dosage antibiotic intravenous drugs to start ridding your body of the toxins that have attacked it.
Coupled with discomfort of the infection, remnants of mastectomy surgery side-effects, and some heavy duty antibiotics and painkillers, my body feels like it’s under attack by multiple enemies. The antibiotics and painkillers are doing their job, but they have made me drop-dead tired.
It’s early afternoon as I write this blog. I don’t have enough energy today to get out of my pj’s and have a shower. I’m that tired. This type of tiredness is new to me. I’ve have never felt this kind of fatigue.
My surgeon says this is a normal symptom that I am going through with post-surgery recovery and infection fighting, which is compounded by strong antibiotics and painkillers. He also forewarned me that I would experience an even greater fatigue than this in chemo treatments that are likely to come.
This unexpected chapter in living with cancer began when I went to get medical attention for the infection. I ended up in the same emergency ward that I attended a couple of weeks ago following my surgery.
It was quite a different story this time. There was no partying “cast of characters” in this episode, except for one. She was on some kind of mind altering substance and thought she was at a different emergency hospital. She was initially seen and was waiting for her test results in the ER waiting room. Once she realized she was at a different hospital, she walked out the door and did not return. Her name was called for the follow up to her tests, but she was not to be found. One surmises that she went to the other hospital’s emergency ward.
This time, our wait in emergency was one hour vs. 11 hours from our earlier encounter two weeks ago. This time, the visit resulted in an admission over the weekend in a hospital that was different to the one in which I had my surgery.
Hospital surgical wards are interesting places. They have their own sounds.
There are the feet shufflers and the hackers and hurlers who deal with surgery complications. There is a multitude of visitors and their voices. There is the buzz of beeping machines, and the rhythmic sounds of medical pumps administering medicine to patients. The nighttime sounds of a surgical ward do not mirror those of daytime. It’s quieter. Overnight sounds you hear include witnessing the moans, snores, and nightmares of roommates that you don’t hear in the daytime.
On weekends, the hospitals are often filled with part-time staff, residents, and interns who are your primary caregivers. Senior medical staff is on call if their services are needed.
Over the course of the two days that I was in hospital, three different surgeons on call reviewed my case, but only one came to see me. The primary care was in the hands of a senior surgery resident along with interns specializing in surgery. One surgeon on call directed the senior surgery resident and an intern on how to handle my case during the emergency room’s examination. This surgeon did not see me.
A second surgeon supposedly was the one who admitted me into the hospital late Saturday night for treatment of a spreading cellulitis infection. I did not meet him until Sunday afternoon when he came to see the infection on my surgery site.
An intern who was in the ER when I was admitted handled the Monday morning medical rounds. Later that day, a third surgeon signed my discharge papers and issued me my prescriptions for home care.
The discharge nurse tells you upon discharge from the hospital after surgery, that if you have any complications you should to report to any emergency ward for attention. We chose a hospital that different from the one where I had my surgery. It was closer to home, and the commute with an infection discomfort and horrid fatigue was easier to handle than going to the surgery hospital at the opposite end of the city.
Regrettably, we should have made the longer trip, as the other hospital is the home of my surgeon and his colleagues. I had an infection follow up appointment with my surgeon yesterday. Intuitively, I got the sense that my emergency and continuity of care would have been better delivered by him or one of his colleagues at the surgical hospital vs. trusting it to others at another facility.
This is another lesson learned in my cancer treatment and care. As my infection is still causing complications, my surgeon has given me his after hours contact info and wants me to call him directly at any time if I need further care. He will take care of me at the hospital in which I had my surgery. I am comforted and relieved to know that I can bypass emergency wards and a lack of continuity of care in helping me to recover by dealing directly with my surgeon.
I am working on trying to regain the use of my right arm, which lacks mobility and strength because of the mastectomy. My surgeon would like to have my mobility improved and supports physiotherapy, acupuncture, and massage to improve muscle injury, tension, and restriction. These have worked for me in the past with long-standing chronic neck and shoulder mobility problems.
The addition of my affected surgery muscles will be a new challenge for my physiotherapist. We will embark on physio treatments starting tomorrow. In time, I expect that I will be able to return to restful sleep once again after the infection has passed, my stiff muscles become more pliable, and my muscle tension headaches cease.
I’m trying to get more rest than in the past so that I can continue to recover from the surgery and infection. I will blog when I can.
In the meantime, I keep my chin up and continue to fight this cancer battle with Strength, Courage, and Determination.
She liked it so much she had to go back.