She’s Radioactive

After the dinner hour.  My daughter made the dinner tonight. She, my husband and my son ate at the regular table while I ate at the counter in the kitchen. Gotta keep 6 feet of distance from the kids till midnight, due to the isotopes from the bone scan today.  My son thought I might be glowing when I got home. Nope kid, I won’t be your nightlight tonight.

I actually dozed off during the scan. (Not been sleeping so well recently.) Much as I’d rather not be visiting medical offices, I have to say that the staff and docs so far have been wonderful.  Explaining things, making me as comfortable as possible. Courageous people helping folks like me.  Priceless.

The good news for today is that the bone scan is OK.  Tomorrow night we head up to Seattle so we can see someone at the Seattle Cancer Care Association on Wed. morning.  Second opinion. The word we got from the contact at the Mayo Clinic is that the treatment plan the local oncologist has laid out is the same as they would do at Mayo.  Unfortunately, the triple-negative type of breast cancer, which is what I have, is aggressive and obstinate, so no hormone therapy (tamoxifen, herceptin, etc.)  Just straight-on chemo and radiation.

Thursday brings another trip to the hospital — outpatient — to install a portal in my chest to be used for chemotherapy. They tell me it’s easier than injecting everything repeatedly into arm veins.  My arm veins have been poked up quite enough recently. On Friday I’m due for a PET scan, which checks for any suspicious activity in soft tissues.  That should be the last of the diagnostic tests.  After that, we lay the plan for chemo.

I’ve been told that, given the agents that will be used, I should expect to lose my hair.  I’m thinking the kids can do some artwork in permanent marker on my scalp. My husband thinks we can all shave our heads. Geez — the things you have to do to look for comic relief. Last week, when I was sitting in one of the waiting rooms, I heard a cell phone go off. The phone belonged to a man easily in his 60s.  The ring tone?  Tarzan’s yell.

Ahh –ah-ah-ah-ah—-Ah–ah-ah-ah!

Maybe I should take that yell as my motto.