Today I had my fourth OF SIX Zometa infusions! I thought I just had four. I was wrong. I even looked back on the original notes and it very clearly says "6 Zometa" so that's on me!
Anyway hopefully it'll be a mild side effects dose! I've got good Chinese takeout and a heating pad and I'm settled in for the evening.
Cancer truly sucks.
I got my third (of four) Zometa infusions yesterday. I'm out of the habit of going to the infusion center, but it's nice to see everyone and I got the nurse who is the best at finding a vein so there wasn't any bruising afterwards. All of my bloodwork looks good (I had cut my calcium intake in half because I was tired of taking the huge calcium pills, and this risk paid off! Levels are good!) and the Zometa infusion only takes 15 minutes. I was probably only at the hospital for a couple of hours, which is a very nice change from chemo days (where I would be there for 3-5 hours, easily).
My NP told me that my reaction to the first treatment (which was absolutely horrible with a ton of bone pain) was very rare, and that Aleve is good for bone pain (and so is Claritin, which I take for allergies anyway). This is good to know, and I took some when I got home just in case. So far I'm feeling good and she said that everything looked great and I'm where I need to be.
I was a little tired yesterday, and I can feel some tiredness today and a little joint and bone pain but nothing that's keeping me from doing whatever I want to do. I went for a little bike ride, I haven't had to take a nap.
There is always a moment when I am waiting for them to get blood for labs where I can't help thinking that I wish I didn't have to do any of this. I wish that none of this had ever happened. I wish I could go back to the life I had before I found out I had cancer. That feeling goes away, but I want to record that it does happen because when I'm farther out from treatments I forget. I will never get to go back to the life I had before.
My life now is great! I am feeling good, I am so happy with the care I have received and continue to received, I'm so grateful that I have access to the healthcare that has gotten me to this point. And, and, and, it's just true that my life is different now. It's not even really worse. It's just different. And I very occasionally get sad about how things used to be, when I thought that I would live forever (even though I knew I wouldn't). That sadness doesn't last. But while I'm waiting for them to find the vein and take blood and see if I'm healthy enough to do the treatment that will make me feel bad but maybe help me in the long run, I can't pretend that it doesn't exist.
Anyway tl;dr: Zometa infusion #3 is done and it went well and I'm feeling pretty good!
The surface. The "normal." The hey we have to do work because we have bills and this is what we do, the normal everyday stuff.
The macro. The world. The "wow things are actually extremely bad and not in a "I'm overreacting" or "This is hyperbole" way. Climate change (which begets the fires we see more and more, hurricanes, extreme cold conditions, etc etc), AI encroachment (which poisons the technologies we use and sucks up resources that living creatures need to live), politics (the richest man in the world did a Nazi salute TWICE at a presidential inauguration and the mainstream press is trying very hard to not acknowledge that), genocide (here and abroad), the targeting of the marginalized (especially trans folks), COVID, public health being gutted in the United States, bird flu, just an endless list of the horrors.
The hyperpersonal. The "I just need a little more time." I just need a little more time. I just need to outlive my parents and my cats (or at least most of my cats, as one of them is a baby).
I think about all of these every day but I try not to do it in a way that keeps me from living my life and moving forward and doing what I can in these times!
A year ago, I went to the hospital to get mapped for radiation (this is where you go in and they figure out exactly how to position you for treatment, and they put three little positioning tattoos on your body so you're always lined up perfectly so the radiation is only hitting the places they want it to and nowhere else, because the amount of radiation it takes to kill cancer is really bad for the rest of you). A year and a half ago, I was halfway through my first round of chemo (AC chemo, the second round was Taxol), going every other week and getting bloodwork to make sure I was healthy enough to continue receiving treatment. Two years ago, I didn't know I had cancer.
I wasn't that upset about the cancer when I was going the process of diagnosis and treatment (I was upset! I was not AS upset as people expected me to be). I think it's hard to engage with the thing in its fullness when you are experiencing it, because you need to move forward and through, and if you look at it too closely, it's overwhelming.
I say this like I'm done with treatment, which is, of course, not the case. I take anastrazole every day, I still have three Zometa infusions to go (I get them every six months and while I am getting them, I have to get bloodwork to make sure my kidneys aren't being damaged by the drug, and I have to take very good care of my teeth, because Zometa can cause osteonecrosis in the jaw and I have been assured that this is very bad). The first Zometa infusion was fine the day of treatment and then terrible for the next few days. Bone pain, everything hurt. My doctor has told me that people usually do better with subsequent treatments, and suggested I take some Tylenol beforehand. It doesn't matter, I'm still going to get the infusion. It's next Friday, and I am dreading it.
As for smaller things, I have carpal tunnel from the anastrazole (a body prefers to have estrogen! it takes a long time for the systems of the body to adjust to life without it) and this presented some challenges when my city got a foot of snow in 24 hours. I definitely feel it in my wrist and elbow on the right side, the cancer side, but I have a wrist brace and an elbow brace and compression garments and it's not bad. Sometimes my joints burn but I've gotten used to it. Surgery last March also included an oopherectomy and a total hysterectomy, and recovery was more difficult than I had expected given how relatively easy the recovery from the double mastectomy (in November of 2023) had been. I wondered while shoveling if I'd feel the strain more in my abdomen, as internal structures take longer to heal than you think (it was fine). You don't get back to normal so much as you discover the new normal of your life. Anyway I can still shovel a driveway, even if I have to take a few more breaks to do it.
This is obviously not a full accounting of the ways that my body is different. That would be a tedious list. As time passes I move farther from the body I used to have, and the tension between the memory of what I was once capable of and what I can do now eases. It still hits me from time to time.
This culture pretends that we'll live forever at the peak of health, and we don't talk about how to handle what happens if something happens. I am here to tell you that something will probably happen. And the sooner you make your peace with the idea that your body might not be the way it is now, that you might not be as strong or as sturdy as you are in this moment, the easier it will be for you when your situation changes. The kinder you'll be to yourself when you reach whatever point that is in your life. The kinder you'll be to the people in your orbit when their lives change. I can't do all the things I used to do. I'm not as strong or as sturdy as I used to be. My life is still meaningful and valuable and good.
There is a book by Brian Fies called "Mom's Cancer." It's a graphic novel, and he made it while his mother was going through treatment for stage 4 lung cancer. I did not re-read it when I was diagnosed, but I read it again tonight. It's a remarkable book. I was particularly struck by the depiction of things brought along to a taxol treatment. Water bottle, handheld game, music device. I looked at that page and thought "yes, I remember that." It's very matter-of-fact. And that's sort of the whole experience. Your life changes, it's never the same again, you aren't told that it's going to be like that, and you learn a lot of things that you never wanted to learn. And then, if you're lucky, you live with it! Things happen. Then they continue to happen.
I have been very lucky. I am not looking forward to my Zometa infusion! But I am grateful to be in community with people who have experienced this profoundly disruptive thing, to be here to tell you how I'm doing, to recommend this book! (It's a really good one! it won an Eisner, which is like the Oscar of comics!)
Anyway maybe I'll start blogging again from time to time, about things unrelated to cancer. Maybe also sometimes cancer. It's not a thing you really get over. You just do well and you hope you'll continue to do well. So far, I am doing well. I hope I'll continue to do well.
Hello, I'm doing well! I have been dealing with some carpal tunnel (known side effect of the medication I'm on), but I got a bike that involves a more vertical posture and I have a wrist brace and those two things have helped a lot. I have been biking (mostly ebikes), I have been cooking more, I am spending a lot of quality time with the cats, and I'm OK.
As part of my adjuvent therapy (the ongoing treatments that I'm doing beyond the big chemo/surgery/radiation trio), I have mentioned that I'll be taking anastrazole every day for five years (and I've gotten pretty used to it, and the carpal tunnel it caused has mostly improved) and I will also get a Zometa infusion every six months for two years. Last Friday, I had my first Zometa infusion.
As with all things, all bodies are different, and there is no real "here's what to expect" checklist for any treatment. Doctors can tell you that there are certain side effects to expect, but because of the aforementioned "all bodies being different," you can hear the words and not understand what's really going to happen to you. This is all to say that I went into the Zometa infusion expecting bone pain ("is this bone pain?" I have often thought to myself when I have a random ache or pain that I can't identify! But not anymore!) and maybe some flulike symptoms for a few days. The day of the infusion I felt pretty good. Maybe a little nauseous, that feeling of "I am coming down with something," but I had plenty of energy and went to a great outdoor art fair in a neighborhood I like. I had some tacos, I hung out with my friends, I wandered around and the weather was perfect.
Overnight, I experienced bone pain. What I had wondered about before was probably not bone pain. Bone pain is pain. In your bones. It's terrible! I hated it a lot. By morning, I could barely move. I spent most of Saturday sitting in the recliner with a heating pad, complaining. It was probably the most painful experience I have had in the whole cancer process so far. And to recap: I did AC-T chemo, I had a double mastectomy, I did radiation, I had a full hysterectomy and oophorectomy. I have done some stuff. And this hurt the most. By Sunday things were a little better, I could walk very slowly around the block with the help of a cane, I could walk around the house without screaming (this is not a humorous exaggeration. Saturday was very challenging), the weather was great again so we grilled in the backyard. Pretty good day. Way better than Saturday. By Monday, still some bone pain, still some tightness in my back, but I could move more normally and I mostly wasn't in pain. I still felt pretty tired, so I'd get bursts of energy and then I'd feel really wiped out. Today I'm still aware that I'm recovering, but I'm good enough that if I didn't want to show it, you wouldn't know. I have three more of these infusions! I hear that the first one is the worst, and I hope that's true.
My occupational therapist says that what she's seen over the years has convinced her that anywhere there's weakness in the structures of the body (old sprains, old injuries, anything like that) is extra affected by these treatments just because of the way they work. Before I was diagnosed with cancer, I had some nerve issues in my elbow and fingers on my right side, some joint issues, some back issues (the MRI suggested that I had arthritis in my spine, and the nuclear bone scan showed a lesion on my spine but the bone biopsy way back last year came back clear), I have an ankle I sprained as a kid, and all of those spots flare up with these treatments. I can feel it. It's so weird.
Anyway, having cancer is not as easy as "well I did these things and it's gone so I'm done" for me! It would be really cool if that were the case, but instead, it's just a thing that's part of my life all the time, and mostly it's ok, and sometimes it makes for a difficult weekend. I'm very grateful to have my partner in my life (he stayed with me all weekend, taking care of me and the cats and also playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV). I'm very grateful to have the cats! I got a lot of good time just resting in the recliner with buddies. I'm grateful to live so close to my parents, who brought some food over. It all could have been a lot worse, but it also was not fun.
As I think I said in the very beginning, when this happens, cancer, any major health thing, the "oh I wish things were different" is really a "I wish this had never happened to me." But it has happened to me. And it's ok. Despite everything you have read in this post, I'm happy! I never expect treatments to be painless or cool (and I am never disappointed), it's all just a part of my life. I used to have a different life and a different body, and now I have this one. I do not spend my time wishing it were different anymore, because that's both a waste of time and a weird internalized ableism, and I'm doing my best to leave it behind. It serves no one. I appreciate the good days and all the things I can still do.
So last week I did a lot of things. I biked a lot, I walked a lot, I had rested a bit after the Vegas trip but not very much. On Thursday or Friday I thought my back was going out, but it was a little different from when this happens usually (I have a bad back and I'm very familiar with what it feels like when it starts to get weird and then I either rest and take muscle relaxants and NSAIDs or I end up having to REALLY take it easy because my body will not let me do anything else), more pain along my left side and in my low back on that side. I looked it up, it aligned with the symptoms for sciatica, I did a lot of stretching, and it got better.
I had occupational therapy today and I asked my OT about this. What I learned was that for breast cancer patients like me, the drugs you go on for five years are basically trying to remove all the estrogen from your body. However, estrogen has a role in LOTS of things in your body (bones! muscles! ligaments! joints!) so this process is a little complicated for a body. Eventually things will even out, my body will figure out how it works without estrogen. This could take a year. It could take a couple of years. While I'm going through this process, my body isn't going to work quite the way that I'm used to it working. I'll be more prone to injuries. I'll need to stretch more. I'll have pain that I didn't used to have. I'll need to watch out for overdoing it because every system is going through a major shift. We're focusing on strength and stability and stretching in my sessions, and I'm getting used to the new normal.
Normal is a thing that is constantly shifting. It's such a relief to know what's going on, though. It wasn't particularly stressful, I've had a year to get used to "sometimes things hurt that didn't used to hurt" and "sometimes you're just going to be really uncomfortable and you might not know specifically why but generally, it's everything you're going through." But this isn't anything they can really prepare you for when you start taking this medication. You are told that there are potential side effects. They list the side effects. The focus is on the effect on the cancer, not on your everyday life as you continue into the future. It's so, so important to work with those supportive teams that aren't the main teams.
I will say it again: If you ever go through this and the place you're going has PT and OT that are specific to your cancer, get a referral as soon as you can. Your main team (surgeon, oncologist, radiation oncologist) will get you through the big stuff, but the little stuff is just as important to your quality of life in the times after the big stuff.
I'm about nine weeks out from my surgery and I went for my first bike ride in a long time. It was great. I'm feeling good, I mostly don't have the abdominal pains from overdoing it even when I do a lot (like mowing the lawn or biking or hiking a lot), and when I do, I just rest and they go away pretty quickly. I am feeling close enough to normal to be pretty happy about everything.
That surgery is very strange, and the feeling of organs slowly shifting into their new locations over time is profoundly weird. But I am lucky to be at a point where I mostly don't notice it, everything seems to be working properly, and I'm glad I got it done.
These numbers are meaningless until they intersect with your life. Every time you see the "20% chance of recurrence" or whatever, remember that it doesn't functionally mean anything. Not really. We do our best, we live our lives, we move forward. Things happen, many of which are completely out of our hands. Everyone will fall on one side or another of those statistics. Hopefully you're lucky. Sometimes you're not. That's ok. When you fall on the statistically improbable side, especially for bad news, you really get to reckon with how much of your life is just dealing with whatever happens while you are alive. It really is ok. You can live happily with this knowledge, I promise. Doing so just involves letting go of the expectations you had about what your life would look like. This can be a gift.
I have to get a dental clearance before I can start Zometa. It's a bone-builder infusion that will both help with the bone density loss that comes with cancer treatments and menopause AND it may help prevent recurrence of breast cancer due to what it does in the bones. I'll have four infusions over two years, but one of the possible side effects is an issue in the jawbone, so my dentist has to sign off before they can start. I don't know if this means another dentist visit (I just went in February) but it's just the ongoing reminder that I'm in a process and that process is ongoing.
I'll try to update when I do start it. I like having the record of how things are going, because I don't remember the details later. There's just so much stuff.
Edited to add: got the clearance from my dentist and I'll have my first infusion in July!
Edited 1/16/26 to add: SIX! I have to get SIX infusions over 3 years! It's in all my handwritten notes but I kept writing 4 infusions in the blog (and in my mind) and I have no idea why!
This is a very snappy title for what will probably be a pretty short, kind of boring entry. So my body is different now. And I don't mind it. I'm very fortunate to have been basically indifferent to the aesthetics of the physical changes (read: didn't care about having breasts when I had them, don't care about not having them now). But sometimes I will be wearing outfits that I wore for years before all of this happened and I will remember how those outfits used to fit and how they used to look. And it's profoundly strange. I liked the way I looked before. I like the way I look now. But, for example, I'll roll over to sleep on my side and I'll remember how my body used to feel in the pajamas I still wear. And I feel the smallest twinge of sadness because it's different now.
My life is full of moments like this.
There is a little cat who used to live in my yard, and the night before I started radiation, she came to the front door and yelled until I brought her inside. It had been below freezing for a week, and she was dying. Her name is Zelda, but I call her the tortie, because I've called her the tortie for her whole life. She's a perfect little baby, she's lived around my house since she was a kitten (she's about 8 years old), and given the state she was in when she came to my door, I don't know how she made it. She could barely walk. She was starving. It was so, so cold. She's better now, but she's inside. She's happy, and she is adjusting well to life in the house, but she still sometimes stares out at the yard and paws at the window. But she can't go back outside. Her health is different now, her situation is different. The world is different. Obviously I relate to this, and the most incredible thing here is that this is all true, and not a story I've made up as a metaphor for my cancer.
My life is good, and I am happy, and I also miss the life I had before that was good in a different way.
EDITED TO ADD: The little tortie made it until August of 2024 and then passed away while I was on a trip. My very good friend Amanda was watching the cats and buried the tortie is a beautiful spot in the yard. The tortie loved being outside. She was an incredibly alive little thing, she was so friendly, and I miss her every day. I am writing this in January of 2025. She has been gone for months. I still look for her in the house, in the neighborhood. She's gone but still here, you know?
Saw my oncologist today and talked through the reasons she suggested the ribociclib. The kind of cancer I have is more likely to come back later. So after 5 years, I won't have really achieved a particular sort of milestone, I'll just be happy to have gone another 5 years. With everything I've done, my longer term risk of recurrence is still at about 20%. It's possible that the additional medication might knock that down another four or five percentage points, but as I told my doctor, I'm healthy now. I'm as healthy as I'll be now, and I don't want to lose the "feeling like myself, able to do things, not at the hospital all the time" in the pursuit of something that may or may not even help me in 10 or 20 years. If I had children, my personal calculus would be different. But I'm don't, so I'm doing this and I'm really happy with my decision.
Monitoring will be minimal, and I'm mostly going to be paying attention to new pain that persists for weeks. Or a cough. Or anything out of the ordinary.
The "cancer free" concept, while technically accurate, is a complicated thing for this kind of cancer. As far as we can tell, it's gone. But you're never really done. I'll spend the rest of my life knowing that it might come back. And if it does, I've got about 3 years past that point, if I'm lucky. Back at the beginning of this, when they thought it might be in my bones, I sat with the idea of a shorter life than I'd anticipated. I made my peace with it. That work was useful. I carry it with me.
I really do feel incredibly lucky. I'm so grateful for where I'm at and how I feel right now, and I hope things go well for me. I hope it never comes back. But regardless of the future, I'll have no regrets about the decisions I made here.
I have started anastrozole, which I will be on for the next five year. It's a pill I take every day, I'm doing well with it so far. I'm also taking calcium and a D3 supplement to try to keep my bone density from decreasing further. I have osteopenia (not unusual given everything), and it's fine, I just don't want it to get worse. My oncologist wants me to take another drug in addition to the anastrozole called ribociclib. It's not approved for my situation, but recent studies have been promising. I had initially agreed to do this (assuming we could get insurance approval), but the more I think about it and look into it, the less I want to. This medication has more side effects the one I'm on, and those side effects can be more severe. It will also involve regular monitoring of my heart and liver, since those can be affected. I've realized that I have done so many things to try to reduce my risk of recurrence, that I've reached a point where I don't feel like I need to absolutely max out those efforts. I can do many but not all of the things that are recommended, and I will still be in a better place than I was before this all began. I will trade "an additional reduction in my risk of recurrence" for "feeling good a couple of years sooner" and I won't regret it at all.
I think back to what my ob-gyn told me at the beginning of all of this, that my cancer doctors would be focused on my cancer, and it was up to me to be focused on my life. I'm doing my best.
I had my post-op check-in (I'll have another one in five more weeks) and everything is looking good. Incisions are healing, I'm doing well. I also had a check-in with my oncologist, and I'll be starting anastrazole today (assuming the pharmacy gets it ready before this evening). I'll be on that for five years, and there's another pill my doctor would like to put me on, but it's not approved for my kind of cancer yet, so we'll see what my insurance company says. If that doesn't happen, she has a couple of other options she'd like to try. I do think about how I've already done SO much, and every additional thing does a little more to help keep the cancer from coming back. But there are no guarantees! I've already been unlucky once, so I don't approach any of this with the idea that I'm fine and I'll always be fine. I try to think of it like this: I am doing everything I can, I am listening to my doctors, I am asking questions and being proactive in my treatment and trying to balance the many, many things that are required of me, and I'm still trying to live a good life.
If this cancer comes back, I will know that I did my best, and I'm happy with the time these measures bought me. If the cancer doesn't come back, fantastic. Incredible. I would change nothing about what I've done, either way. With every step, I make decisions knowing that time moves in one direction, I'm doing my best with what I've got, and there's no reason to second-guess anything that's already done.
This is actually a thing that I got good at after my brother died, because you can't second-guess things around a suicide. You can't wonder what you should have done differently. You can't live in that regret. You'll never heal, you'll never move forward, you'll just dig a hole and stay there. Don't misunderstand me: You can dig a hole, you can stay there for a while. But eventually, you have to figure out how to rejoin the world.
You're alive. Be alive. There are so many things to experience.
It's very challenging to actually rest the way you're supposed to rest after a surgery like this! I'm feeling ok, I'm a little sore, I'm doing my best to not do things. My partner is staying with me to take care of pretty much everything (I can't lift things, I'm not supposed to do repetitive motions, I can't do housework, I can't pick up the cats, etc etc) for the foreseeable future. I can walk around the block and then I have to sit down because that's as much energy as I have. I feel like I'm being powered by a watch battery. Not enough power for this body! But I know it'll get better as time goes on. I'm getting a lot of great recliner time in, and I'm thinking about watching all of "Legends of Tomorrow." I took a week off of work for medical leave but I have been doing some work (it's very boring to just sit). Recovery is hard!
I had a hysterectomy and oophorectomy (ovary removal) this morning. Bloodwork was good enough to do it, though I'm still slightly neutropenic. It was a laparoscopic procedure, done robotically, and I was home by noon. I'm now under a heated blanket with a very small cat on my lap (which is fine, I checked) and I'm SLEEPY.
Anyway just wanted to let everyone know that it went smoothly, I'll be vigilant about checking my temperature and taking it easy for the next six weeks (ugh), and I'm doing well. Very happy to be done with the big stuff.
Hello! It's been too long (there wasn't much to report). I finished radiation on Feb. 20th and have been healing up from that. My skin looks ok in most places, and then there are a couple of spots under my arm where it's cracked and the new skin underneath is very pink. I have been putting aloe on the general area every morning and night, and I have silver sulfadiazine (aka Silvadene) cream for the areas that are a little raw.
Next week, I will have surgery to remove my uterus and ovaries (uterine cancer risk increases with certain cancer drugs, and my particular cancer is fed by estrogen, so the ovaries -- which produce estrogen -- must go). Today I went on for pre-surgery tests (EKG, chest X-ray, blood work) to make sure I was healthy enough to have the procedure done. Mostly things are looking good, but I'm neutropenic (my white blood cell count is low). This is not unusual for someone who's been through chemo and radiation, but it does mean that they'll need to check the morning of surgery to make sure my levels are high enough for them to safely operate.
The surgery itself will be laparoscopic, and done robotically! They'll make three small incisions and take everything out through there, it'll take two to three hours, and I will (assuming all goes well) get to go home the same day. After that, no driving for a week, and a number of other restrictions (basically "limit movements that engage your stomach muscles, no lifting anything heavier than 10 pounds" and a couple others) for six weeks.
My partner will again be staying with me as I recover, and I'm going to take a week off of work in theory (I can check email on my phone so I might forward some emails?). I assume the cats will keep me company as well.
It's always a little bit of a bummer to find out that my white blood cell counts are low, even though it's totally understandable! It just makes me feel fragile. I hate it. I'm looking forward to getting through surgery (and it's fine if it needs to be rescheduled) and getting to the next phase (pills every day for 5 years, bone builder infusions every 6 months for 2 years).
Cancer takes a lot of time.
We had freezing rain here! My partner lives near the hospital where I get my treatments, so I stayed overnight so my drive would be easier for radiation this morning. My car was COVERED in ice but I only had to go a few blocks. Radiation is going well. On Mondays, I have a short meeting with my radiation oncologist. She's great.
In the afternoon, I saw my surgeon and got my port removed! Since I'm done with chemo, and I don't have a regular schedule of infusions, it made sense to get it taken out. It took about half an hour, and it was a little more difficult to remove than they expected. I hadn't had it in for that long, in the grand scheme of things, but my body had tried very hard to incorporate it so there was a lot of tissue connected to it. This is called "scarring down." It sounds worse than it is. They cleaned and sterilized the area, cut through the scar from the port insertion (so no additional scarring!), cut through the tissue that was trying to hold on to the port, removed the catheter, and popped it out. I did not watch! I do not need to know what any of that looks like! But it was fairly painless and over quickly. I'm so happy with the job that my surgeon did, and I told him so. He said that they work very hard to make things look nice with a flat closure, and that people didn't always realize that they really did try to do an aesthetic job. I also saw the ultrasound technician who had done the ultrasound when I was first diagnosed in the hallway while I was leaving, and I was able to thank her in person for how kind she had been to me in those appointments. (She's also REALLY good at her job.)
I have talked to a number of people and doctors in my orbit about whether to get my uterus taken out when I get my ovaries out, and at this point I think I'm hoping to get it all taken out since I'm having a procedure done anyway. The downside is mostly "harder recovery," and the upside is "no more pap smears, no risk of uterine cancer."
Unrelated to all of these events, last weekend, one of the outside cats that I watch out for (I put out water for them, build little shelters for them for the winter, stuff like that) showed up on my doorstep starving and freezing. She yelled until I brought her inside. She's a very friendly cat, and I've been wanting to bring her in for a long time. She's been around since she was a kitten, for about 8 years. I got her in to see the vet a couple of days later, did bloodwork, and due to (we think) the extreme stress of having a bad tooth and not being able to eat, as well as having to navigate sub-zero temperatures for a week, she was very weak with a super low red blood cell count. She's on antibiotics and steroids (the antibiotics are just a precaution since she's been outside her whole life). In the course of pilling her on Sunday morning, she ended up breaking the skin on my pointer finger on my right hand. In my old, pre-cancer life, I would have cleaned it out, put antibiotic ointment on it, and then just kept an eye on it. But now, I can't afford to take things lightly. I went to a convenient care (like a non-urgent Urgent Care, basically) near my house (I am very lucky to live where I live), and the NP gave me some prescription-strength ointment to use, and felt that I had started treating it early enough to not worry. You may recall that on Mondays, I see my radiation oncologist! I made a point of telling her about the cat bite, and we agreed that, out of an abundance of caution, a course of oral antibiotics would be a good idea. I'm very fortunate to have this kind of access to doctors and medication. We're going to keep an eye on it, but I'm so much less worried now that I know I'm doing everything I can do keep myself healthy. Cat bites can get badly infected very quickly. Since the incident, I have been more careful about pilling the little cat, and we have done very well.
I start radiation tomorrow! It'll be 25 sessions, it's every weekday at the same time, and it doesn't take very long. They say about 15 minutes per session. Once a week, I'll meet with my radiation oncologist so I can tell her if I'm experiencing any troublesome symptoms or ask any questions I might have. I'm excited to get started (and even more excited to be done)!
