Praise THE Lord.....the drain is GONE! Honestly, I'm most excited about the surgeon removing the drain and tubes from my body this past Friday!! I wasn't sure she was going to remove them, she had thought about waiting until Monday just to wait until all the fluid was absolutely gone. However, I had written down how much fluid came out every eight hours (as instructed) and handed her the numbers. The last three recorded numbers had to add up to 50cc or less. At the time of my appointment on Friday, the last three numbers added up to 38cc. She asked me, "You really want this drain out, don't you?" I said, "YES!" So she said, "ok, let's do it, today is the day." I was SO excited!!
Sleeping at night and moving around with this drain is incredibly uncomfortable, even coughing or laughing really hard hurts. My friend Lindsey came with me to the appointment so she offered to hold my hand (I'm kind of a 'hand holder' during physically painful moments like injections, IVs, etc.), and I hope her hand recovers well because I was holding on for dear life! I was warned by my friend Lisa who is a Physician's Assistant - in her attempt to be brutally honest with patients - that it would burn....that it would actually burn A LOT when the surgeon took the drain out. In my mind, I thought, "oh I'm sure she'll just give me a local anesthetic...." No. There was no local anesthetic, and I just happened to NOT take my pain medication that morning - massive mistake. So I fished through what I call "my cancer bag" which is a pink Vera Bradley bag I carry around full of papers, reports, notes, etc. and found a pain pill to swallow before the drain removal began. The surgeon removed the stitch holding it in place, and she said, "Ok, I'm going to count to three and pull it out very fast......1......2......3......" Now, I'm not a girl who uses foul language at all - and thankfully I'm still not - but if I have ever been so tempted to throw one out there, it was in that moment laying on the surgeon's table as this 12 inch long drain was ripped out of my side after nesting in there for a total of eight long days. It burned. It burned A LOT. Lisa was absolutely correct. But.....it was OUT! Oh happy day!!! Here is a pic of the Jackson Pratt drain that was stuck in my body (below):
Furthermore, I had to see my oncologist on Friday as well which was the main reason I went to the Cancer Institute anyhow since he wanted to see how I was coming along on my decision for a treatment plan. He walked in and handed me my pathology report from my recent surgery. My heart sank for a minute because usually if it's good news, they send someone much more junior like a medical student doctor or lab technician of some kind to tell you the results. However, this was my oncologist handing it to me so it made nervous at first. He had a smile on his face and said, "Look...." while pointing to two lines on the paper. It said 15 lymph nodes had been removed and the number of cancerous lymph nodes were "0." ZERO. Praise God!! This means my lymph node staging will stay the same. However, the unknown is whether or not there are any cancerous cells in my blood stream.
My oncologist explained to me that there are two ways melanoma spreads throughout the body, one is through the lymphatic system - which we can now rule out and two is through the blood stream. He said even patients that are stage 2 are heavily monitored for blood stream travel, and I'm stage 3 so I will be having more CT scans in the coming months and years. Another highly risky fact I learned about melanoma is that melanoma does not respond to chemotherapy well at all. My surgeon said they could easily give me the same chemotherapy drugs they give to patients with breast cancer or brain cancer, and melanoma would not go away. Melanoma cells are very rarely ever responsive to chemotherapy, except when they are in tumor form. From my last PET/CT scan, we know that I do not have any remaining tumors in my body of 7mm and higher. However, melanoma is a tough beast because it is like sand, it spreads in little pieces and we will only know if it is in my blood stream as time passes with coming months and maybe years. As long as my CT scans continue to be clear, I should be on a path to being completely cancer free and healthy. So because melanoma doesn't respond to chemotherapy, they have to give me immunotherapy which is a lot like chemotherapy. Immunotherapy can be just as tough but is designed to boost your immune system so it can fight the cancer cells in the bloodstream or any that are not in tumor form. Think of it this way:
Chemotherapy = kills cancerous tumors
Immunotherapy = kills cancerous cells
Often when patients have finished chemotherapy, they are put on immunotherapy to make sure any/all cancerous cells remaining are destroyed and to help the body fight them off. I will officially start immunotherapy on Monday January 7, 2013. My Mom will fly in for the first week of treatment. My oncologist has advised me to not work during the first four weeks which is when I will be on the highest possible dose of Interferon - the drug they've chosen for immunotherapy. However, I'm going to try and work through it, as much as I can. I really do love my job, and I'd hate to let my co-workers and bosses down, so I'm going to at least try. I'll be at the hospital everyday for four weeks straight. Each day, I'll be there for 3-4 hours getting treatment through an IV and they have told me to come straight home and sleep. The side effects for Interferon are quite tough. One out of three patients experience depression (PLEASE pray against this!), and nearly all have flu-like symptoms times 10 - so lots of chills, aches, fever, great fatigue, nausea, vomiting, etc. As I've mentioned, hair loss and/or hair thinning is also a possibility. I'd say beginning treatment is what I'm most nervous about. I know God is good, and this is going to be a time when I will most likely need support, prayer, and encouragement more than ever before. So far, I've been very far from any kind of depression, my walk with God has been quite awesome and I pray I will not fall into any mental traps with this drug.
After four weeks of high dose Interferon, they will drop me back to half-dose for the next 11 months as I will then be taught how to administer the drug by self-injection just underneath the skin. A friend of mine asked me today, "so when can you celebrate for being cancer free?" I'm not sure of the answer to this question to be quite honest, but I know it will be at minimum a year from now. Technically, I believe I cannot enter remission until after two years. After two years, I can stop having CT scans and oncological check-ups. Melanoma patients are most at risk for recurrence at year two or three after their first diagnosis. My oncologist, Dr. Jang, went over my survival rates with me on Friday as well. He punches in my age and all these facts about my diagnosis into a computer, and this tool calculates a prediction of my outcome. Basically, it said I have a 62.3-74.7% rate of surviving another 10+ years. I'm not sure I like this number or not. However, my friend Tamara reminded me that our God is so much bigger than statistics. Our God is One who parts the red sea, He raises the dead, He turns water into wine, He feeds 5,000 on one loaf of bread and one fish. Cancer is no match for our God.
I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. - Job 42:2, NIV
You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry. - Psalm 10:17, NIV
While beating cancer is a desire of mine, I'm beginning to learn that I do not need to be declared "cancer free" by a doctor in order to beat cancer. I believe a person can have cancer, but that doesn't mean cancer can have them. God decides whether we live or die, but how we live our lives is up to us. For me, I want to use every second of my life giving it to God. I can beat cancer everyday actually, by allowing God - not cancer - to control my life. I'm living my life out of the palm of God's hand, and not in the grip of a fatal disease called cancer. I understand that even after a doctor declares a person "cancer free," a person may still be beating cancer for a lifetime through emotional and spiritual damage done by this horrific illness. I choose to beat cancer now. I choose to not let this disease wreak havoc on my emotional and spiritual well-being, and I believe God has largely used the people around me as His hands and feet to keep me well. It is because God has used the support of so many including such a loving local church that I'm apart of, to beat the pants off cancer in my life right now. Furthermore, He has also used the gift of His word, His loving and solid word. If you have lifted so much as one little prayer for me throughout this entire journey so far, my heart wells up with an overwhelming thankfulness for YOU and a thankfulness for God Himself.
I've started an album full of cards and emails people (probably including you who is reading this!) have sent encouraging me along this battle. I have not thrown away one card or deleted one email sent to me as a message of encouragement from anyone who has taken the time to care enough to send one (this includes the little cards sent with flowers too!). I've done this because when I start treatment, this will allow me to look back and read all the messages sent to me full of God's word and dripping with Christ-like love to encourage me to keep going.....to know God uses every second of our lives for His glory. Please know that you have made a huge difference in my life, that I'm grateful for you, and I ask God daily to encourage YOU for His glory and to draw you closer to Him than you have ever been before. I pray He reveals Himself to you in ways you'd never expect, that could only be of God. I ask God to show you how much strength He has blessed you with and to bless you with wisdom as your pursue desire to live for purpose in His kingdom. He has beaten cancer for all of us!
Sleeping at night and moving around with this drain is incredibly uncomfortable, even coughing or laughing really hard hurts. My friend Lindsey came with me to the appointment so she offered to hold my hand (I'm kind of a 'hand holder' during physically painful moments like injections, IVs, etc.), and I hope her hand recovers well because I was holding on for dear life! I was warned by my friend Lisa who is a Physician's Assistant - in her attempt to be brutally honest with patients - that it would burn....that it would actually burn A LOT when the surgeon took the drain out. In my mind, I thought, "oh I'm sure she'll just give me a local anesthetic...." No. There was no local anesthetic, and I just happened to NOT take my pain medication that morning - massive mistake. So I fished through what I call "my cancer bag" which is a pink Vera Bradley bag I carry around full of papers, reports, notes, etc. and found a pain pill to swallow before the drain removal began. The surgeon removed the stitch holding it in place, and she said, "Ok, I'm going to count to three and pull it out very fast......1......2......3......" Now, I'm not a girl who uses foul language at all - and thankfully I'm still not - but if I have ever been so tempted to throw one out there, it was in that moment laying on the surgeon's table as this 12 inch long drain was ripped out of my side after nesting in there for a total of eight long days. It burned. It burned A LOT. Lisa was absolutely correct. But.....it was OUT! Oh happy day!!! Here is a pic of the Jackson Pratt drain that was stuck in my body (below):
Furthermore, I had to see my oncologist on Friday as well which was the main reason I went to the Cancer Institute anyhow since he wanted to see how I was coming along on my decision for a treatment plan. He walked in and handed me my pathology report from my recent surgery. My heart sank for a minute because usually if it's good news, they send someone much more junior like a medical student doctor or lab technician of some kind to tell you the results. However, this was my oncologist handing it to me so it made nervous at first. He had a smile on his face and said, "Look...." while pointing to two lines on the paper. It said 15 lymph nodes had been removed and the number of cancerous lymph nodes were "0." ZERO. Praise God!! This means my lymph node staging will stay the same. However, the unknown is whether or not there are any cancerous cells in my blood stream.
My oncologist explained to me that there are two ways melanoma spreads throughout the body, one is through the lymphatic system - which we can now rule out and two is through the blood stream. He said even patients that are stage 2 are heavily monitored for blood stream travel, and I'm stage 3 so I will be having more CT scans in the coming months and years. Another highly risky fact I learned about melanoma is that melanoma does not respond to chemotherapy well at all. My surgeon said they could easily give me the same chemotherapy drugs they give to patients with breast cancer or brain cancer, and melanoma would not go away. Melanoma cells are very rarely ever responsive to chemotherapy, except when they are in tumor form. From my last PET/CT scan, we know that I do not have any remaining tumors in my body of 7mm and higher. However, melanoma is a tough beast because it is like sand, it spreads in little pieces and we will only know if it is in my blood stream as time passes with coming months and maybe years. As long as my CT scans continue to be clear, I should be on a path to being completely cancer free and healthy. So because melanoma doesn't respond to chemotherapy, they have to give me immunotherapy which is a lot like chemotherapy. Immunotherapy can be just as tough but is designed to boost your immune system so it can fight the cancer cells in the bloodstream or any that are not in tumor form. Think of it this way:
Chemotherapy = kills cancerous tumors
Immunotherapy = kills cancerous cells
Often when patients have finished chemotherapy, they are put on immunotherapy to make sure any/all cancerous cells remaining are destroyed and to help the body fight them off. I will officially start immunotherapy on Monday January 7, 2013. My Mom will fly in for the first week of treatment. My oncologist has advised me to not work during the first four weeks which is when I will be on the highest possible dose of Interferon - the drug they've chosen for immunotherapy. However, I'm going to try and work through it, as much as I can. I really do love my job, and I'd hate to let my co-workers and bosses down, so I'm going to at least try. I'll be at the hospital everyday for four weeks straight. Each day, I'll be there for 3-4 hours getting treatment through an IV and they have told me to come straight home and sleep. The side effects for Interferon are quite tough. One out of three patients experience depression (PLEASE pray against this!), and nearly all have flu-like symptoms times 10 - so lots of chills, aches, fever, great fatigue, nausea, vomiting, etc. As I've mentioned, hair loss and/or hair thinning is also a possibility. I'd say beginning treatment is what I'm most nervous about. I know God is good, and this is going to be a time when I will most likely need support, prayer, and encouragement more than ever before. So far, I've been very far from any kind of depression, my walk with God has been quite awesome and I pray I will not fall into any mental traps with this drug.
After four weeks of high dose Interferon, they will drop me back to half-dose for the next 11 months as I will then be taught how to administer the drug by self-injection just underneath the skin. A friend of mine asked me today, "so when can you celebrate for being cancer free?" I'm not sure of the answer to this question to be quite honest, but I know it will be at minimum a year from now. Technically, I believe I cannot enter remission until after two years. After two years, I can stop having CT scans and oncological check-ups. Melanoma patients are most at risk for recurrence at year two or three after their first diagnosis. My oncologist, Dr. Jang, went over my survival rates with me on Friday as well. He punches in my age and all these facts about my diagnosis into a computer, and this tool calculates a prediction of my outcome. Basically, it said I have a 62.3-74.7% rate of surviving another 10+ years. I'm not sure I like this number or not. However, my friend Tamara reminded me that our God is so much bigger than statistics. Our God is One who parts the red sea, He raises the dead, He turns water into wine, He feeds 5,000 on one loaf of bread and one fish. Cancer is no match for our God.
I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. - Job 42:2, NIV
You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry. - Psalm 10:17, NIV
While beating cancer is a desire of mine, I'm beginning to learn that I do not need to be declared "cancer free" by a doctor in order to beat cancer. I believe a person can have cancer, but that doesn't mean cancer can have them. God decides whether we live or die, but how we live our lives is up to us. For me, I want to use every second of my life giving it to God. I can beat cancer everyday actually, by allowing God - not cancer - to control my life. I'm living my life out of the palm of God's hand, and not in the grip of a fatal disease called cancer. I understand that even after a doctor declares a person "cancer free," a person may still be beating cancer for a lifetime through emotional and spiritual damage done by this horrific illness. I choose to beat cancer now. I choose to not let this disease wreak havoc on my emotional and spiritual well-being, and I believe God has largely used the people around me as His hands and feet to keep me well. It is because God has used the support of so many including such a loving local church that I'm apart of, to beat the pants off cancer in my life right now. Furthermore, He has also used the gift of His word, His loving and solid word. If you have lifted so much as one little prayer for me throughout this entire journey so far, my heart wells up with an overwhelming thankfulness for YOU and a thankfulness for God Himself.
I've started an album full of cards and emails people (probably including you who is reading this!) have sent encouraging me along this battle. I have not thrown away one card or deleted one email sent to me as a message of encouragement from anyone who has taken the time to care enough to send one (this includes the little cards sent with flowers too!). I've done this because when I start treatment, this will allow me to look back and read all the messages sent to me full of God's word and dripping with Christ-like love to encourage me to keep going.....to know God uses every second of our lives for His glory. Please know that you have made a huge difference in my life, that I'm grateful for you, and I ask God daily to encourage YOU for His glory and to draw you closer to Him than you have ever been before. I pray He reveals Himself to you in ways you'd never expect, that could only be of God. I ask God to show you how much strength He has blessed you with and to bless you with wisdom as your pursue desire to live for purpose in His kingdom. He has beaten cancer for all of us!
Good luck with the upcoming immunotherapy - and YAY for the drains being out. It's so much easier to move without them. ~Catherine
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI have a quick question about your blog, would you mind emailing me when you get a chance?
Thanks,
Cameron
Hi Cameron - sure! But I need your email address. :-)
Delete