I could discuss the weather. (South Carolina was really nice. Denver seems like it is in transition from winter to Spring.) Ho-hum topic.
I could discuss my new pedal kayak.
This pedaling was done on the fresh water so it has nothing to do with the map below.
Not a topic with punch. My knees are sufficiently healed to get in and out of a kayak and to pedal. Not much meat to this discussion. I did get to see a mama dolphin and her two week old calf but I didn't get a photo so that doesn't really count.
This is basically where I kayak in salt water but it would be at the far left side of the map.
I could discuss my attempt to learn to golf, but if I were to go back and read my long-ago post about my attempt to learn golf, it would appear that I am not making much progress in that arena. The only progress I am making revolves around not joking about how naturally inept I am at that sport. It is non-productive and tiresome at some point and it works against my skill acquisition. After I am done joking about it, I am left with just a pointless conversation about golf, a game I actually know very little about.
I could discuss tennis. Sometimes I think I am making a breakthrough but then I get real with myself. Oddly, I am a much better tennis-lesson taker than a tennis player. I am a tennis lesson ace if I do say so myself.
Nothing new on the cancer front. I could mention that I am having Herceptin but this topic has been worked to death.
Nothing new on the surgical front. I am out of surgeries for the foreseeable future.
Nothing new on the rehab front. I am 5 months post-op from my knee replacements. I get stiff at times but that's about it.
Nothing new with Pilates except that every time I travel to South Carolina, I come back and basically start over once again trying to improve my Pilates skills and strength. This topic gets old fast.
Where does that leave me? I am getting a haircut today. I am going to water aerobics tomorrow morning. I am going to watch Survivor tomorrow night, but even that is getting a little stale. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Reunion Part 3 will wrap up the season and after that, what will there be to look forward to?
2008. April 12th. That day I thought I was toast.
There is a common notion that breast cancer is highly curable. Everyone knows someone who has had breast cancer and lived to tell the tale. Some women who have been diagnosed have lumpectomy and radiation or lumpectomy and chemo and/or radiation. Some have mastectomy and then treatment. Some have mastectomy and simultaneous reconstruction or no reconstruction and treatment or no treatment or anti-hormonals or not.
It sounds like such a benign disease in some respects. After five years without cancer returning, the statistical odds of a recurrence for a typical breast cancer patient is approximately the same as the risk of developing breast cancer for the general population of women who have never been diagnosed with breast cancer before. If you are one of those women in the first five years after diagnosis, it doesn't feel benign and having surgery and treatment carries its own unique psychological traumas. But the odds can be quite favorable for complete cure.
And then there is inflammatory breast cancer which is really not a great kind of cancer. Since inflammatory breast cancer is cancer of the sub-dermal lymphatics of the breast, the existence of the disease is not apparent until at least Stage III and may not be apparent until it has progressed to Stage IV. IBC is not considered curable.
On April 12th, 2008, I was diagnosed with Stage IV IBC. I was told that first I would need chemotherapy every three weeks for six treatments. I was told that I would then need a bilateral modified radical mastectomy and that reconstruction would very likely be impossible and was certainly inadvisable for at least two years. And I was told that I would need to have 25 sessions of radiation after I recovered from surgery. Then to really make me feel hopeless, I was told that I might need more chemotherapy if I did not have a complete clinical response to treatment.
I did have a complete clinical response to treatment. I had surgery and I had radiation which made my chest leather-like and made the residual skin scar down to the chest wall. I finally had reconstruction in 2014 which allowed me to have that leather-like skin replaced with skin from elsewhere on my body. I have had eight years of Herceptin which may (or may not) be the reason the cancer has never returned.
Statistically, IBC can return at any time and there is no five year "Get Out Of Jail" card. Eight years recurrence-free makes it less likely but not entirely home-free from my cancer ever possibly reappearing. My doctor has me on the ten-year or forever Herceptin plan (depending on how she is feeling on any particular day) because she says that IBC is sneaky. Maybe I don't need it but it is not worth stopping the drug to just see what happens.
I have lived long enough to have breast reconstruction. I have lived long enough and played enough tennis to wear out my original-issue knees. I have lived long enough and well enough to have lots of fun. I am quite healthy, oddly enough.
I used to think that I would only need Herceptin for eight years which if that were true would mean that today would be my last dose. I used to be under the eight year delusion because that is what my oncologist told me when I whined to her after having had several years of infusions. Unfortunately, she forgot that she mentioned eight years as a cut-off point several years ago. She hesitated a bit when she opined that I need to have it for ten years, I suspect two years from now, she will say that 12 years is an even dozen. Then perhaps, she will go with the theory that 13 years is good because it is equivalent to a baker's dozen. Then she will retire and I will be declared "cured".