Hit Me Baby, One More Time

Hit Me Baby One More Time

Great PET results, right? RIGHT! Don't get too comfortable in that happy place. You are about to get another gut punch!

About a week after my telemedicine call with Dr. Kocs, I get a call from Super Nurse (Stephanie). Dr. Kocs wants me to come back in for more blood work. WHAT?! I'm on a "once a month" track right now for meds, shots, and blood work. What's up?

It turns out that some of the cancer markers are up. Now, before you say … awww, no big deal.... remember this: my cancer has NEVER, I repeat, NEVER shown up in cancer markers in my blood work. So now what are we dealing with? Is this a new cancer? A false positive (it happens)?  Who knows. This cancer crap is getting old!! Did I tell you I hate cancer? Well, I HATE CANCER!! I wanted to leave no doubt on my feelings about cancer.

I go in Friday afternoon for the blood test. Scheduling that was a ride in itself. Stephanie scheduled it for this Friday afternoon when she called me. Fast forward to this week. I get no less than three … count em …. three calls from Dr. Kocs office to schedule the blood work. One nurse even scheduled an appointment for next Friday. When I called the nurse back and told her I already had an appointment for this week, she told me there was no appointment for this week and Dr. Kocs' orders read to schedule the blood work for two weeks from 5/13, which would be 5/29. She said the notes in the chart showed conversations back and forth between Stephanie and Dr. Kocs on how quickly to get me back in. I told the nurse, "Fine, schedule the appointment for the 29th, but please go talk to Stephanie and confirm with her, because what you are telling me is different than what we discussed". Ten minutes later I get a call back from the nurse. My appointment for this Friday stands. Guess Stephanie won that battle on timing!

Truth be told, I think Stephanie is probably the one that found that cancer markers in the first place. It wouldn't be the first time Stephanie picked up on something and pushed the doctors into action. The first time this happened was post surgery while I was in the process of reconstruction. She called to ask what are we going to do about the close margin. What close margin? Next thing I know, I am sitting in my plastic surgeon's office, he gets a call from Dr. Kocs, then they conference in my surgeon, and the boys start talking close margins and what are our options, the whole time I am sitting on the table, waiting on my next "tissue expander fill". In hindsight, it was quite comical. Turns out any further treatment posed more risks than benefits, but then again I may not be in this situation had we done radiation then. Oh well. Can't second guess medical decisions.

Stephanie caught it again when she noticed the January 31 CT scan results were being compared to the first CT I had when I was first diagnosed with MBC; that was October!! The more Stephanie looked the more concern she had. That's when we found out that they read the scans incorrectly. Instead of everything being stable, the chemo quit working somewhere between 12/1 and 1/31; my tumors were back to their original size or bigger.

The point is, Stephanie is my guardian angel. She looks out for me. Always has since I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. God only knows where I'd be without Stephanie!

Anyway, I go in Friday, they do the blood work, and then I wait. I don't expect results until Tuesday because of the holiday. It's going to be a very long 4.5 days. So what to do while I wait? What any PM would do …. download all the blood work results, pop it into a spreadsheet, highlight the tests that could indicate cancer, and start comparing them beginning 12/6 to present. At a minimum, I will highlight those things to discuss with Dr. Kocs or Stephanie when they call with the results.

For now, we stay the course. If they don't like what they see? I'm not sure. Take a wait and see approach? I'm ot much of a "wait and see" kinda girl! Change the protocol? Possible. I know we have about 20 or so in our pocket now, not including new stuff coming up all the time. But, if we do start a new protocol, that's 3 in 9 months that we've burned through, roughly one every three months or averaging one a quarter. Hmmm. My prefence is we stay on a protocol for 6 months, a year, before switching, if possible. We all know cancer could care less about my "preference"!