Saturday, April 12, 2008

4/12/2008: Amazing News

What a crazy week. I had my MRI on Wednesday and it went better than my first one back in January. They had to use a special machine because of my port. A breast MRI is really uncomfortable. You have to lay face down on the MRI table with your boobs poking through these two holes and you have a cushion for your face similar to when you have a massage. The technicians pull at your boobs to make sure they are inside the holes. There is a bar that presses against your sternum as you lay there with your arms extended over your head. Then they move you around the table and the machine makes the most horrible noises that are SO loud. Then they give you an IV that makes you taste metal in your mouth and makes you feel like you just peed yourself. I wasn't on the table correctly so my nurse just grabbed the bed sheet and pulled it. I cracked up. She said, well you are so tiny I will just drag you where I want you. The good thing is, the technicians all are amazing. They said when I get my new boobs to come back and show them off. I love those ladies. Dad and I went to lunch afterwards and when I came back to pick up my pictures they told me they had to redo a couple of shots. Boo!

I had my Herceptin treatment today and it was pretty rough. I was only a couple of minutes into my treatment when my chest started tightening and I couldn't breath. The nurse came in and cut off the medicine, put me on saline and then gave me a shot of Benedryl. Now I am totally exhausted, but at least I can breathe now. They waited about 20 minutes then started the Herceptin again. I asked my nurse to check with my oncologist, Dr. Heyer, about my MRI results. She came back and said, "All of your lymph nodes have shrunk." YAY!

Once my appointment was over I went to MRI of Reston and requested a report of my MRI. I'm sneaky! The report has a lot of biological mumbo jumbo that I don't understand. (So I reviewed it with my friend Andrew who knows all about this stuff.) The report says everything is stable or decreased. The MRI still saw the fluid under my incision and said it had decreased from 48 x 35 mm to 30 x 22mm. One lymph node went from 50 mm to 23 mm and the other 15 mm to 12 mm. The area of tissue diseased inside my left breast went from 16 x 7 mm to 10 x 6 mm. And no new lymphadenopathy is evident! (That basically means there is nothing new.)

The report did say, "More prominent geographic enhancement with some abnormal kinetics in the upper-outer left breast compared with prior study. The remainder of the breast parenchyma in both breasts is generally stable. This area could represent neoplasm." Andrew said not to focus on that or worry. He said technically a neoplasm is a precancerous lesion or tumor ... but just because it wasn't there before doesn't mean anything. He also said maybe a few of my "hot spots" (cancer cells) all grouped together to hide from the chemo ... but neoplasms are generally really small. If this was a huge issue I think my oncologist would have said something to my nurse.

So all in all, amazing news. This means chemotherapy is working and the cancer is being killed. This time next week I will be 2/3 of the way through treatment. YAY!

No comments:

Post a Comment