Jeanne begins chemotherapy on Thursday. We appreciate your prayers that the side-effects will not be adverse, and more importantly, the treatments are effective. The current plan is to have weekly sessions. But, one thing we are learning is to be very flexible.
Some church members blessed us with a "chemo survival basket" full of treats, a blanket, music CD, a portable DVD player, and many other goodies. Thank you.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
"recent happenings"
Note: this is the a copy of our Jan. 17th email.
O.K. everyone-are you as confused as we are???
Here's the latest, which seems to change quite frequently these days. Last Thursday we were going to meet with a doctor at OHSU, then our specialist doc was going to take all of our reports, films, etc. to her "tumor board" to review and give their opinion. We were prepared (ha) to go to OHSU Thursday am, then potentially spend the night in Portland and have a mastectomy on Friday. I hope none of you showed up at the hospital on Friday. We were not there. We went to the beach instead. Because of scheduling conflicts, we couldn't get all of our info. to both the OHSU folks as well as the doctor's review board and had to make a decision as to which one to go with. Because there were 5-6 doctors at the tumor board, and only 1 that we would be speaking with at OHSU, we decided to go with the "multitude of counselors". They all concurred that it would be best to begin with chemotherapy, then after a couple of months of that, get a mastectomy, then some more chemo, with maybe a round of radiation thrown in, just so I get to experience more of what modern medicine has to offer. We had wanted OHSU's input since occasionally you can get in on clinical trials, which can include the most updated advances, but since the Inflammatory Breast Cancer was so elusive in it's detection, not revealing itself in any of the pathology, I will not be considered for any trials. This is disappointing, but our oncologist here seems very willing to chat with other docs who see more of IBC than we typically get around here. (It is only about 1-3% of all breast cancers nationwide) He also plans on using the same chemo agents that are being used in the trial that is happening at OHSU, (minus one) and seems to be up on the research that is available, which admittedly, doesn't seem like much.
The good news is that I had a bone scan on Friday, and my bones look clean. Tomorrow I'll be getting a CT scan to see if the cancer has spread to any organs, so I'd appreciate your prayers for that.
I apologize for any lack of communication to anyone-this is hard to keep up with emotionally as well as having a BIG learning curve, plus having to occasionally wash a load of laundry or two, etc. so please bear with us. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail, especially. I'm using the phone a lot for research, and Dr. questions, etc, and we can get to e-mails fairly quickly. The chemo should begin this Thursday, barring any more changes in schedule. It will be happening every 2 weeks for a period of time, then we'll do the mast. and check for pathology, then cont'd. with either radiation and chemo, or just chemo.
Thanks for all your prayers, thoughts, food, firewood, quilts, the chairs, the childcare, the notes, the hugs. You all are a wonderful cheering squad, and we love you all dearly.
Jeanne H.
P.S.--the beach was lovely.
O.K. everyone-are you as confused as we are???
Here's the latest, which seems to change quite frequently these days. Last Thursday we were going to meet with a doctor at OHSU, then our specialist doc was going to take all of our reports, films, etc. to her "tumor board" to review and give their opinion. We were prepared (ha) to go to OHSU Thursday am, then potentially spend the night in Portland and have a mastectomy on Friday. I hope none of you showed up at the hospital on Friday. We were not there. We went to the beach instead. Because of scheduling conflicts, we couldn't get all of our info. to both the OHSU folks as well as the doctor's review board and had to make a decision as to which one to go with. Because there were 5-6 doctors at the tumor board, and only 1 that we would be speaking with at OHSU, we decided to go with the "multitude of counselors". They all concurred that it would be best to begin with chemotherapy, then after a couple of months of that, get a mastectomy, then some more chemo, with maybe a round of radiation thrown in, just so I get to experience more of what modern medicine has to offer. We had wanted OHSU's input since occasionally you can get in on clinical trials, which can include the most updated advances, but since the Inflammatory Breast Cancer was so elusive in it's detection, not revealing itself in any of the pathology, I will not be considered for any trials. This is disappointing, but our oncologist here seems very willing to chat with other docs who see more of IBC than we typically get around here. (It is only about 1-3% of all breast cancers nationwide) He also plans on using the same chemo agents that are being used in the trial that is happening at OHSU, (minus one) and seems to be up on the research that is available, which admittedly, doesn't seem like much.
The good news is that I had a bone scan on Friday, and my bones look clean. Tomorrow I'll be getting a CT scan to see if the cancer has spread to any organs, so I'd appreciate your prayers for that.
I apologize for any lack of communication to anyone-this is hard to keep up with emotionally as well as having a BIG learning curve, plus having to occasionally wash a load of laundry or two, etc. so please bear with us. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail, especially. I'm using the phone a lot for research, and Dr. questions, etc, and we can get to e-mails fairly quickly. The chemo should begin this Thursday, barring any more changes in schedule. It will be happening every 2 weeks for a period of time, then we'll do the mast. and check for pathology, then cont'd. with either radiation and chemo, or just chemo.
Thanks for all your prayers, thoughts, food, firewood, quilts, the chairs, the childcare, the notes, the hugs. You all are a wonderful cheering squad, and we love you all dearly.
Jeanne H.
P.S.--the beach was lovely.