Week 5: The Huntsman Cancer Institute

The first week of March my classes finished up. March 1 was my last night with my Butte Geometry class. Because it was such an insane & exhausting week, I was seriously worried about being able to survive the drive to Butte. A dear friend (one of the first people I met when I moved to Dillon 33 years ago) Carolyn Bott, drove me to Butte so I could grade papers as she drove. Then she hung around for 4 hours to drive me back. Now that's a true friend! Thank you Carolyn! It was so hard to say goodbye to my Butte students. They are such a great group. They even had flowers and a card for me. I was very touched by that. Then Wednesday the 3rd I gave my Final Test to my Dillon Number Theory class. Western found another teacher to take my Block 7 Algebra class, and Dave Cypher, my mentor teacher who I student taught high school Geometry with, graciously agreed to take over my Butte class for the 2nd half of the semester. So I am officially unemployed... but only temporarily.

My husband Rich and I went to Salt Lake for my surgical consult at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital on March 9. I met with 2 doctors who would be involved in my surgery. Dr. Lee Nuemayer is a professor of breast surgery at the University of Utah. So when she comes in, she brings an entourage of student doctors, residents, interns, etc. She talked to me about surgical options, and it was decided that I was a candidate for the skin-saving mastectomy, which means that all of the breast tissue is removed, but the skin and nipple are saved. That is somewhat new, because mastectomy's used to always mean losing the nipple too.

Next came the Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Jay Agarwal, and his whole entourage of student doctors. He discussed all of the possible options for breast reconstruction. Vickie, "my" breast health nurse at Huntsman, had already shown me photos of patients who had had no reconstruction done, as well as results from other types of reconstruction. I must admit that the cases where no reconstruction was done looked so strange with a breast on one side, and nothing on the other. Not very appealing! She then explained there is another method where they take skin & fat from the belly to build a new breast. That one didn't appeal to me at all. I know, you get a tummy tuck out of the deal, but seeing the incision from hip bone to hip bone didn't get me excited a bit! Then there's the procedure where they take some muscle and skin from your back, below the shoulder blade, swing it around under the arm & attach it to the chest so blood vessels get going - then later build a breast out of that - are you kidding? That one fell off my list immediately. Then the one they call the more "simple" reconstruction involves putting an expander under the muscle & skin after the masectomy. Then saline is injected into the expander every few weeks to stretch the muscle & skin, in preparation for the final reconstruction surgery where the expander is removed, and an implant is put in. ( I guess for those girls wanting the DD look, it's going to take a lot of saline injections!)

Wow. I hated all of the options. Such crummy choices all the way around. I was pretty well debating between no reconstruction, or the expander/implant method. I had talked to a number of people who told me that although the expander/implant route stinks, after it's all said & done, I'd probably be glad I did it. I sure hope so, cause after talking to Dr. Agarwal I decided I'd go that route. Later that day I had to go have an MRI to look for any other little tumors that might be kicking around, particularly in the other breast (double mastectomy, anyone?). Anyone who has had an MRI knows that's kind of an interesting experience. I wasn't finished with that until almost 7 pm. Another very long day!

Week 4: Conrad & Jamie to the Rescue!

After having more conversations with my kids about all the decisions I need to make, my son Conrad pointed out to me he knows an Oncologist, Dr. Dickson there in Rexburg who has his own clinic. I asked Conrad to check with Dr. Dickson for ideas on where I should do surgery, etc. So, while I basically sat like a confused zombie, Conrad & Jamie went to work and made phone calls. Jamie ended up calling the Huntsman Cancer Hospital and found out who their premier Breast Cancer doctor was, and ended up making me an appointment! I was like "What!?" I didn't even know you could do that! I thought only my own doctor could make those kinds of connections down there. Suddenly I went from being clueless, confused, and basically getting nothing accomplished to having a Doctor, a plan, and an appointment. It's hard to even explain what a load that was off my shoulders! So my new motto has been "Who Needs a Personal Assistant when you've got Jamie?!" Thank you so much Conrad & Jamie! I love you guys!

Family is what it's all about!














Because of my diagnosis and upcoming surgery, Conrad & Jamie moved up the blessing of their new baby girl, Reese Catherine, to February 28. So a healthy version of me, as well as most of our family was able to be there for that. There is nothing I love more than having family get-togethers! We definitely missed Clint & Ashlie & their 4 boys, as well as Jake & Braelyn. But we had most of the clan there. Makes us old moms/grandmas happy!

Week 2 & 3: Phone Calls & Decisions

Tuesday, February 16, 2010: Dr. Weed called me this evening when she got back into town. It was no surprise to hear that the biopsy confirmed the diagnosis, but I guess deep down inside I was hoping to hear that I was one of those odd 5% with an ugly, cancerous looking, yet surprisingly benign tumor. No such luck! But, the biopsy reports were good overall. The tumor wasn't overly large - less than 2 cm. And it was termed ER-positive and HER2 positive, which are both good, cause these types of tumors tend to be really responsive to chemo treatment. Of course, I must admit, hearing things like mastectomy and chemo made me want to puke!

So, with a definitive diagnosis with some details, I called all 5 of my kids, as well as my parents to give them the news. Definitely a strange kind of phone call to make. My kids were all pretty shocked, but then so was I. Breast cancer just does not run in my family, so it isn't anything I've ever given a lot of thought or worry to. Like I told my daughter Tasha - I guess there's some in the family now, so she'll want to be a little more vigilant with self checks and regular mammograms than she might have been before. Coincidentally, Tasha has been taking 2 classes this semester, Physiology & Physics so she can apply to Radiation Therapy schools where she will be treating cancer patients. She did some volunteering in the hospital there in Logan, and got to see some cancer patients get their treatments. Now it's a little more close to home for her. Calling my mom was hard, because she and my dear sweet dad had only gotten back home from Portland a month or so before where Dad was being treated with his 4th bout with cancer. Needless to say, Mom was not at all happy to hear my bad news. This cancer stuff is no fun!


Wednesday, February 16, 2010: I spent most of the day at the college, like usual, then went to another late afternoon visit with Dr. Weed. She went over my biopsy results, and then told me I needed to make the decisions as to where I wanted to have my surgery, chemo, etc. done so appointments could be made. I had absolutely no clue where I wanted to go for anything. I had already talked to a friend and associate Laurie Henneman about her breast cancer experience a few years ago, with surgery in Seattle, and chemo in Helena. With no connections in those areas, I was thinking I would prefer Salt Lake for surgery, since I have lots of family in that area, and I had no clue for chemo. I think I just sat there like a bump on a log. I told Dr. Weed I'd think about it, because I just didn't know what to do, and I didn't even know how to go about making any decisions.

Week 1: The Adventure Begins!

April 15, 2010 - Well, here I am, sitting in the "Chemo Recliner" at Teton Oncology, in Rexburg Idaho, getting my very first dose of nasty toxic chemicals, a laptop computer perched on my - what else? - lap. I have to stop typing frequently so I can set my palms on ice packs, because the nurse explained that one of the drugs can cause burns on the palms, and the ice packs help minimize that. WHAT!!?? What on earth are these guys pumping into me!? Weird! So, anyway, I have been intending to Blog about the whole experience from the get-go, but I have discovered that our fingers are very closely tied to the pectoral muscle, and my mastectomy was very nasty to my pec, and writing, typing, clicking mouses, remotes, etc. has been very "uncomfortable!" The soreness has finally waned enough to start using these fingers, so thus starts the Blog!

I have had so many people ask me about how it all started, so I guess I'll sort of start at the beginning:

WEEK 1: WHAT A CRAPPY WEEK!

On Sunday morning, February 7th, I took a shower to get ready for church. Occasionally I try to follow my doctor's advice, so I went to the big mirror to do a quick visual breast check - you girls know what I mean - the one where we're suppose to look for unusual puckers, dimples, changes in shape and appearance, etc. And there it was: a very distinct "dimple" (or a concave spot, as I would hope my Geometry students would describe it) right there on the side of my right breast. So, yes, my first thought was, "Oh, crap!" I think I pretty well knew right then that I was in trouble.

On Monday, February 8th, I started teaching a new block class, Number Theory. I must admit, I may have been a little distracted after the previous day's discovery! Right after class I went to my office and called the hospital to make a Mammogram appointment. I told her about my "dimple". She made an appointment for me to come in early that afternoon. Thankfully my long time Mammo Tech, Leslie, was there to do it. I really wanted her to be the one there. After Leslie was done, she told me there was a mass, and she was pretty sure they would want to biopsy it, so she went ahead and made an appointment for after class the next day (Apparently Leslie also called my doctor - cause Dr. Weed called me the next day.). Rich had left early in the morning for four days for a job in Bozeman, so it would be four days before I could even tell him the news. After my mammogram, I had to take off for Butte because I have been teaching a full semester Monday night Geometry class at Montana Tech. It's a 4 hour class from 4:30 - 8:30, with 10 pm the earliest I make it back home. Makes my Mondays very long days - especially this one!

Tuesday, February 9th: I taught my Math class all morning, then graded some papers, worked with a few students, then - off to my biopsy! Uh huh - you guessed it - loads of fun! Actually, it wasn't that horrible, and my sweet "mammo tech," Leslie, was there to lend moral support. The Radiologist stuck a needle in several spots of my breast to numb it, so that really was the worst part. Good thing, cause he used this big, very fat, very long, mega-needle, which he inserted into my breast, and using Ultra-sound to guide it, inserted it into the tumor. His needle (more like a sharp metallic tube) was able to snip off several worm shaped pieces of the tumor, which he put in a jar of fluid. (Do you think he might have this creepy room in the basement of his home, with shelves full of groady specimens of body tissue, that he goes down and talks to every night?) Then the Radiologist (sadly, I don't even remember his name) patted me on the arm, and told me that it looked like I had a cancer, and he was very sorry. Even though I wasn't really all that shocked, I can honestly say that a lot more of me was numb than my right breast.

Then I went next door to an appointment that had been made with Dr. Weed, where she got to have her first "Cancer" visit with me. She told me that the official lab results would be back at the end of the week, but she also believed that it looked like cancer. I told her that I had just started teaching a Math class that I wanted to see through to the end. She told me I shouldn't be worrying about my class - I had better things to concentrate on. But with classes only being 3 1/2 weeks long, I asked her if realistically - would anything happen before then? and she conceded "probably not." So my plan from the start was to stay to the end with my Dillon class, but sadly, I knew I would have to give up my little Butte group. It's funny how, as a teacher you can get rather attached to a group of students. The Dillon class was a little unusual, because I have had half of them before in other classes, so I started from the first day kind of attached to this bunch. The Butte classes are always a pretty exceptional group - a little older, more mature and serious, and all Elementary Majors - which always makes them such a fun group to work with. I was very sad at the thought of having to abandon them midway through the class.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010: While all of this fun cancer stuff was going on for me, my sweet 13 year-old dog Zebbie (a golden retriever/lab cross) seemed to be dying. She has really been declining the last year or two with arthritis. She finally hit a point where she could hardly get up and walk around, and rather than sleep in her favorite spots, on the porch, or under the tree with her sister Keita (our other 13-year old dog) she would lay out in the one snow patch we had next to the shop. She was losing so much weight, and she wouldn't eat any dog food I brought out to where she way laying. Early in the week I ran to the store and bought canned dog food which Zebbie, thankfully, ate. Every day after I'd get home from school I'd go out to check on her, feed her, and give her a drink. When I went out to check on her on Wednesday I thought at first she was dead, but when I looked closer, I saw that her sides were moving. I thought there was no way she would survive the night.

Thursday, February 11, 2010: I spent the whole day at the college teaching my class, grading papers, and working with students. When I got home early in the evening, I went to check on Zebbie with great trepidation, cause I dreaded finding her dead. Even worse, she was awake, with her head up, and she was crying. I was absolutely devastated. Here I was, home alone, and with a bad back that I tweeked earlier in the week. Even though she had lost a lot of weight, she is a big enough dog that there is no way I could pick her up and try to run her to the vet past hours to have her put down. All I could do was pet her and cry, til she went back to sleep. When Rich got home that night, I got to tell him my cancer news (I wasn't about to tell him that one over the phone). And I asked him to please check on Zebbie first thing in the morning, and if she was still alive, to please take her to the vet. I just couldn't deal with one more day of seeing her cry.

Friday, February 12, 2010: Spent the whole day at school again, and when I got home, Rich told me that Zebbie was dead when he checked on her, so he buried her behind the shop. I was sad yet relieved. Poor Keita has spent her entire life with Zebbie by her side, so she is wandering around so lost and confused. Even though she has been a lot more healthy than Zeb, I'm sure she will start to decline quickly just out of loneliness. I never got a call from my doctor's office on my biopsy results. I found out Dr. Weed was out of town til Tuesday, and no one there would tell me the results. That was so frustrating, cause I intended to call my family over the weekend. Even though we knew with 95% certainty that is was cancer, I didn't want to call anyone until it was 100%, with more details. Aaaarrrggghhhh! Yeah, I'd say this week will go down in history as one of the worst!