I had kept this mainly to FB and my personal Discord since it was just Jeff and Dave who were really "in the know" about my health and Dave I update via phone, but with Kodiac joining I thought since I have posted about my transplants in the past, why not post about my cancer.
So here it is:
I found a lump in the fall of 2023 and thought perhaps it was just a pulled muscle or something. After all my family was dealing with my mom's health and possible cancer as well as the death of my God Father from Colorectal Cancer and my sister-in-law's father's Pancreatic Cancer. Things were just too chaotic to really focus too much on a lump that did not hurt. After a month I mentioned it to my mom who urged me to get it checked. I called my family doctor who I have to leave a message and the secretary calls me back but I did not know they did call me back as it went to my voice mail instead of my answering machine. I ended up going to an Urgent Care in Tecumseh (just east of my city which is not too far and where it was suggested I go) and I had a mammogram and an ultrasound. After their findings they wanted me to get a breast biopsy. The findings were "high chance of cancer". The biopsy confirmed it.
I had cancer. Officially I was diagnosed with Stage 2A
Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Grade 3. It had spread but not out of the range of the breast. I guess the lymph nodes near the breast are still considered the breast area. I got this diagnosis 2 days before Christmas Day 2023. With Christmas this meant I start everything in January of 2024. This was an anxious time but once things started moving they moved fast.
I saw the oncologist on Jan 11th, had a related heart test on the 15th as Chemo would be hard on the heart, and then got the Chemo Port (Xcela Plus LASV Valve Port) inserted into my chest into my Superior Vena Cava. This is where my Chemo would be done from as my veins are very bad from overuse over the years and they can only use one arm on me due to the AV Fistula from hemo Dialysis.
My first Chemo was on Jan 22nd and was uneventful and then I continued to have Chemo every Monday after that. I saw my surgeon who would eventually do the lumpectomy and will be seeing him for that surgery this Tuesday.
The Chemo seemed to have no ill effects on me until about the 2-week mark. I started losing my hair and huge clumps. Washing, brushing and styling my hair became impossible, and I shaved my head completely. As my Chemotherapy continued week after week I noticed a change in my skin and nails (bleeding nailbeds, separation from the nailbeds resulting in dead white nails). I started getting huge rashes on my hands and a bit on my face as well as my nails started changing (hands and feet) and were bleeding and my cuticles disappeared without having to push them back (as well as a corn stopped growing - a positive).
Because of the bleeding issue, I was told to skip my last Chemo (finished early) and now am only getting Herceptin (Trastuzumab), a HER2 inhibitor targeted therapy, which works against HER2-positive breast cancers by stopping the HER2 receptor from telling the cancer to grow and divide. I get that every 3 weeks still.
I will be getting my Lumpectomy on April 30th and from there we will see if I still need radiation (no more chemo).
The nails people don't notice as they just assume it is nail polish (it is not) but the toe nails turning white I have been told I may lose a few nails but they will grow back. They have already separated from the nailbed (not all). 2 nails have started to turn black (I won't post toe pics. I have shared enough of myself). Also the numbness of the fingers and toes are one thing but I did not realize the full extent of it. It is so hard to pick things up, flip through pages, do up buttons, use zippers, etc. Still, it is all a small price to pay for my breast cancer to be cured. After all, it seems everyone around me is not doing so well with their cancer treatments resulting in having to stop early, go into palliative care, and/or dying. At least my cancer is curable.
I thought being immunosuppressed from chemo would be no different than being immunosuppressed from transplant medication but I was wrong. The latter affects only the B and T cells where as Chemo affects all. I had been hospitalized twice this month. The 2nd stay was just last week for Febrile neutropenia and URI - Upper respiratory infection with possible Sepsis. My body was not fighting it and I started feeling really bad. My blood pressure skyrocketed to 201/110 when normal for me is 110/78 and I had a fever and felt oddly dizzy and a type of tired where I felt like my body was being pulled down hard by gravity. And here I thought I had experienced all types of dizziness there was to experience (low blood pressure, post-surgical, septic shock dizziness, drunk, etc). It was a new experience for me and now I know what to look for.
But now I am back home. My fingers are starting to feel less sensitive so I can type more again, and I am catching up on sleep (my last hospital stay I got less sleep than I did in a long time due to other patients having issues throughout the night with breathing and medical staff having to come into the room at all hours of the night). I haven't been gaming as much due to all this so I thought it was high time I posted this in case anyone was wondering what was going on with me.
