Birthday-week update

As many of you know, I turned 29 this week, which was very exciting, except for all the BS I have in my life. Be forewarned, 30 is going to be a big one. Huge party. Huge.

Sean continued my birthday tradition from last year in which he took me out to six (six!) awesome meals. (For you ATLiens: Dynamic Dish, the Crawfish Shack, Cakes & Ale, Steinbeck's brunch, Spoon, and 4th&Swift.) I thought this idea would be a bust because of our new dietary restrictions, but we let that slide for the occasion and I had cheese (!) and pork (!) and a hamburger (!) and was easily intoxicated after a glass of wine. It was awesome.

The birthday-week events I would NOT like to repeat, thank you, were six doctor appointments (plastic surgeon, reproductive endocrinologist, cardiologist, two oncologists, and a physical therapist). Not much new from any of them. To summarize: new boob looks great, IVF is expensive, I need to fix the heart thing ASAP, I still need chemo, and I will be able to regain my right arm movement with some basic PT.

More details:
- My plastic surgery has gone very well. I have a little bit of fluid build-up in my back from where they took the back muscle (which they aspirated on Tuesday), but otherwise just great.
- A round of IVF costs $16,000. $12,000 for the procedure and $4,000 for the hormone drugs to get you prepped for egg retrieval. This is not covered by my insurance, and we don't even have that much credit. (And savings? You're joking right? Our household has a net worth of -$300,000.) That's the bad part. The good part is that no one really expects my fertility to be compromised because I am so young. It's possible, but I have yet to meet a survivor that has had issues with it. (Now, I might need some help after chemo and 5 years of hormone therapy, but we could deal with it then if we wanted to.) In other news, I have developed quite a rant about the importance of having children, probably because I took it for granted before, but it's not pretty. I will spare you. For now.
- The best news, as soon as I get over the fact in the first place, is that the heart issue is almost a bigger deal than the cancer, as "we usually find this when you're a child or we find it when you have a stroke". AND it can be fixed with the least-invasive procedure (they don't even call it "surgery") for me to date. It's a catheter-based procedure, which means they inject the fix-it parts through needles in my legs, thread it up there and pop the plug into place. Lovely. And, though there is some damage to my heart from working a little harder for the past 28 years, it might go back to normal. [They asked me, Were you always behind your peers in sports? And I said, yes, but that's because I was a dork. I now have this theory that I could have been a star athlete and an cool kid in high school were it not for this issue. Alas!] So, there's some sort of providence at work here. I'm not friendly enough with God right now to accept that, but it's possible.
- Because I still have one positive lymph node and am so young, no one is going to let me skip chemo. Because of the heart issue, my oncologist recommends a different type of chemo than the standard (which was 4 rounds of Andriamycin/Cytoxan and 4 rounds Taxol or Taxotere, two weeks apart). Now we're looking at six rounds, three weeks apart, of a Taxotere/Cytoxan cocktail. This is a weaker regimen than before, which will affect my heart less, but it is slightly less effective (surprise) than the stronger poison (Andriamycin is strong stuff) previously recommended. They'll want to start that a month after my heart procedure.
- Finally, to reduce the risk of lymphadema, my right arm has been on restricted movement since the lymph node surgery and lost some range of motion, which is normal. I'm currently stuck at a Heil Hitler but will hopefully regain full range over the next couple of weeks through some not-so-pleasant exercises.


In other good news, Sean is off on a much, much needed vacation to Vail for a bachelor party. If he gets hurt, though, there might not be a wedding. (Hear that, Jay?) Betsy has flown in to sub and make sure I don't hurt myself and to go with me to the 9th Annual Conference for Young Women Affected by Breast Cancer, conveniently held in Atlanta this year. There's a dance party on Saturday night and apparently there is absolutely nothing like 1000 breast cancer survivors singing "I Will Survive". Should be great.

Til next time.