Change of Plans

Like all well laid out plans, inevitably something will happen to thoroughly muck up those plans. We had a whole family vacation planned around my trip down to Mayo for reconstructive surgery. It involved a hotel stay with a swimming pool, camping with family and visiting the zoo. And, of course, after talking this plan over for a couple of weeks, we finally decided to put the plans in "concrete" and make reservations at hotel and campground, only to get a phone call from Mayo a mere two days later informing us my surgeon would be going on vacation during my scheduled surgery, so my surgery had to be rescheduled. The good thing is, though, instead of bumping me to a later date, they pushed up my surgery date to August 3rd, with pre-op appointments on the 2nd. So now our well-laid out plans have been canceled and we have begun to make new "mini" plans.

I have no idea what kind of recovery or restrictions I will have after surgery, as all the information I had about the reconstructive surgery was based off having immediate reconstruction at the time of the mastectomies, since that was our original plan. I don't know how much the recovery time and lifting restriction time changes with delayed reconstruction vs. immediate. I don't really know what kind of a hospital stay I am in for, either.

In four more days, I will be receiving my last dose of "chemotherapy". Emotionally, I am torn about this. Guaranteed, I'm not sad this phase is over, but I am having a really hard time feeling as happy as I should be feeling. Most of that is because during our last visit with my Oncologist we learned that my Herceptin treatmenst will be continuing weekly, rather then the once every three weeks we were told when we started treatment. My oncologist didn't spend any time explaining this decision, or give us any time to ask questions as to why this changed, but from asking around, I think it has to do with the strength of the dose. When Herceptin is given every three weeks, the dose is higher, and runs a higher risk of damaging the heart. The once a week treatment is a lower dose and much easier on the heart, from what I can gather, so that must be why that decision was made. For some reason, going in for infusion once every three weeks for nine months seemed so much more doable then continuing my once a week schedule for another nine months. I feel a little like I was told I was going to be running a half marathon, training and mentally preparing for that and then as I see the finish line coming for my half marathon I get told that I need to run a full marathon. I don't feel mentally prepared or strong enough to endure another nine months of weekly infusions. I know I'll get thru it one treatment at a time, but it has been hard getting over the emotional let down of not having things be as I expected. But I will deal and get thru it.

The Herceptin treatments will be easier to tolerate then the "chemotherapy", so that is a bonus. Herceptin in not considered a chemotherapy but rather a monoclonal antibody. The way we've had it explained to us is the cancer I had makes too much of a certain protein. This protein allows the cancer to multiply quicker and to "hide" from my immune system. The Herceptin attaches to this protein on the cancer cells slowing the growth of the cancer cells and essentially tagging the cancer cells so my immune system attacks and kills those cancer cells more effectively. My extreme exhaustion should slowly start to go away (although I was told it could take 5-6 months for this to completely resolve) and the discomfort in my body from the Taxol should begin to improve. There is no guarantee all this discomfort will go away, but it should improve over the next six months or so. Each Herceptin infusion should last only about 30 minutes, but then I have to be monitored for 30 minutes after every treatment. So each treatment with take about 1 to 1 1/2 hour, depending on how smoothly things go. The most difficult part of this treatment will honestly just be the inconvenience of having treatment every week and working our schedules around that. I was looking forward to having a Friday that didn't involve medicine, needles, and the hospital... I'm really going to enjoy that Friday when it comes 9 months from now!