the rollercoaster.... c.a.n.c.e.r.
WELCOME!
I have officially made the switch to Blogger as my blogging "home." I have heard from many people that this site is a lot more user friendly.
Today I am blogging about that word that nobody likes to talk about or bring up -- cancer.
And I completely get why people don't want to ask me about it or why it's a hush hush subject. But if you know me personally, I cannot think of anything that I won't talk about; I've been very open about my cancer from the beginning, because I want people to have answers just like I want answers. This post is coming now, almost six months after I was diagnosed because I just now have a treatment plan. Every cancer is very different and I will try my very best not to bore you with details, but my specific case is very rare because of the details. I have seen four different medical oncologists before my family and I a.) came to a treatment plan that we feel comfortable with based on the knowledge of the medical professional behind it and b.) have an oncologist that seems to understand my case, my needs, my personality and is able and willing to treat me for the rest of his career or my lifetime. That is why it was so important to not just .settle. for an oncologist. I will be seeing this man about six times a year for the next five years, and then it goes down a bit from that. As I say, we pretty much need to be besties.
I feel like a timeline of events will be most helpful:
November 2017- I noticed a mole changing on my right breast for, if I'm being honest, about a year. I finally pushed my fears aside and went to my dermatologist. When she removed the mole, I saw the fear in her face and she told me she was going to put a "rush" on the pathology and she hoped we would hear before the long Thanksgiving weekend. The night before Thanksgiving around 7 PM I got a call and the voice said "Lauren, it's Dr. Chermak... I'm driving to Wisconsin right now but I needed to talk to you." I listened, but was in shock. I immediately hated myself for my long-term relationship with tanning beds in high school and college.
December 2017 - The margins (how deep into your skin) on my tumor (mole) were not large enough to justify doing a sentinel lymph node biopsy -- the nodes in my right armpit closest to the mole/tumor. But, the surgeon we were working with wanted to be extra careful, so he took out a large area around the tumor on my breast (I have about a 7 inch long scar) and he also ended up taking 3 lymph nodes to biopsy - to make sure the cancer had not spread from the mole, into my lymph nodes. Waiting to get the results from the biopsy felt like weeks, but when we got the call, I'm surprised I didn't throw up. The cancer did, in fact, spread to my lymph nodes and they had diagnosed me with Stage III melanoma. The silver lining was that it wasn't in tumor form, it was single cells.
December/January - We had met with a medical oncologist who gave us some scenarios and options. But first, I needed to have a PET scan to make sure the cancer had not spread anywhere else in the body. That came back negative (praise JESUS) and we were studying up on immunotherapy. Since we were all assuming we had gotten all the cancer out of my body, we would be doing preventative treatment. Melanoma does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation, but it does respond quite well to immunotherapy drugs. They are given similarly like chemotherapy -- through a port or an IV, in a hospital, they both can have some pretty severe side effects, but immunotherapy does not make you violently ill, or lose your hair -- it boosts your autoimmune system. My oncologist was at a loss because my case seemed so odd -- small initial tumor, small margins, but still metastasized to my lymph nodes. For the sake of being "safe" he suggested doing a immunotherapy drug called "Optivo." I wasn't sold... I needed more than just being safe. Optivo meant IV drugs every other week at the hospital for a full year with some potentially scary side effects.
February/March - We escaped to our happy place, San Diego, for some clarity and time to think. My mom also found a Melanoma specialist oncologist who we were going to see for a second opinion. She was well-spoken, clearly took a lot of time to review my case, was the most empathetic doctor I have ever met, and emphatically said that the risks of Optivo did not outweigh the benefits I would gain from the drug. So now we were at 1-1 dead tie -- 1 vote for treatment, 1 vote for just closely monitoring my body with scans.
April - We got another opinion from a well known oncologist who strongly suggested doing an immunotherapy drug called Keytruda. 2-1 now. I also knew in my heart that I needed to find a new oncologist. Mine was a great doctor, but he was clearly in over his head. And, he did not specialize in Melanoma. I found a doctor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in Melanoma and made an appointment.
May - Our first appointment with the new Oncologist and I already felt better. He was confident, and thats what I needed. He also said that he wanted his pathologists to look at my lymph nodes that were removed. He said since this case is so rare, it doesn't add up in his head and that he wants to rule out that maybe the "cancer cells" they saw in my nodes weren't actually just benign internal moles. We can have moles all over the inside and outside of our body - and he was thinking that might be the case. That would mean I would have only stage I topical melanoma. The waiting made me almost go clinically insane. His pathologists reached out to pathologists from Harvard, UPenn and other prestigious institutes to get their take on my case. They all were stumped but in the end, had to say it had Stage III melanoma characteristics. I told myself I wasn't going to get my hopes up, but yesterday, I got punched in the gut... hard. So, in the next couple weeks I will be starting the immunotherapy drug, Keytruda. I'll go to the hospital every three weeks and get it injected through an IV for an hour... for a total of one year. And i'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared as hell.
But I know I will meet and see these cancer warriors that will make me feel grateful and will humble the heck out of me. It's all about perspective. I have a God that fights for me, family that loves me, even when I'm at my worst, friends that lift me up from the darkest days, and a husband/toddler duo who make me laugh when I think it's impossible.
I have officially made the switch to Blogger as my blogging "home." I have heard from many people that this site is a lot more user friendly.
Today I am blogging about that word that nobody likes to talk about or bring up -- cancer.
And I completely get why people don't want to ask me about it or why it's a hush hush subject. But if you know me personally, I cannot think of anything that I won't talk about; I've been very open about my cancer from the beginning, because I want people to have answers just like I want answers. This post is coming now, almost six months after I was diagnosed because I just now have a treatment plan. Every cancer is very different and I will try my very best not to bore you with details, but my specific case is very rare because of the details. I have seen four different medical oncologists before my family and I a.) came to a treatment plan that we feel comfortable with based on the knowledge of the medical professional behind it and b.) have an oncologist that seems to understand my case, my needs, my personality and is able and willing to treat me for the rest of his career or my lifetime. That is why it was so important to not just .settle. for an oncologist. I will be seeing this man about six times a year for the next five years, and then it goes down a bit from that. As I say, we pretty much need to be besties.
I feel like a timeline of events will be most helpful:
November 2017- I noticed a mole changing on my right breast for, if I'm being honest, about a year. I finally pushed my fears aside and went to my dermatologist. When she removed the mole, I saw the fear in her face and she told me she was going to put a "rush" on the pathology and she hoped we would hear before the long Thanksgiving weekend. The night before Thanksgiving around 7 PM I got a call and the voice said "Lauren, it's Dr. Chermak... I'm driving to Wisconsin right now but I needed to talk to you." I listened, but was in shock. I immediately hated myself for my long-term relationship with tanning beds in high school and college.
December 2017 - The margins (how deep into your skin) on my tumor (mole) were not large enough to justify doing a sentinel lymph node biopsy -- the nodes in my right armpit closest to the mole/tumor. But, the surgeon we were working with wanted to be extra careful, so he took out a large area around the tumor on my breast (I have about a 7 inch long scar) and he also ended up taking 3 lymph nodes to biopsy - to make sure the cancer had not spread from the mole, into my lymph nodes. Waiting to get the results from the biopsy felt like weeks, but when we got the call, I'm surprised I didn't throw up. The cancer did, in fact, spread to my lymph nodes and they had diagnosed me with Stage III melanoma. The silver lining was that it wasn't in tumor form, it was single cells.
December/January - We had met with a medical oncologist who gave us some scenarios and options. But first, I needed to have a PET scan to make sure the cancer had not spread anywhere else in the body. That came back negative (praise JESUS) and we were studying up on immunotherapy. Since we were all assuming we had gotten all the cancer out of my body, we would be doing preventative treatment. Melanoma does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation, but it does respond quite well to immunotherapy drugs. They are given similarly like chemotherapy -- through a port or an IV, in a hospital, they both can have some pretty severe side effects, but immunotherapy does not make you violently ill, or lose your hair -- it boosts your autoimmune system. My oncologist was at a loss because my case seemed so odd -- small initial tumor, small margins, but still metastasized to my lymph nodes. For the sake of being "safe" he suggested doing a immunotherapy drug called "Optivo." I wasn't sold... I needed more than just being safe. Optivo meant IV drugs every other week at the hospital for a full year with some potentially scary side effects.
February/March - We escaped to our happy place, San Diego, for some clarity and time to think. My mom also found a Melanoma specialist oncologist who we were going to see for a second opinion. She was well-spoken, clearly took a lot of time to review my case, was the most empathetic doctor I have ever met, and emphatically said that the risks of Optivo did not outweigh the benefits I would gain from the drug. So now we were at 1-1 dead tie -- 1 vote for treatment, 1 vote for just closely monitoring my body with scans.
April - We got another opinion from a well known oncologist who strongly suggested doing an immunotherapy drug called Keytruda. 2-1 now. I also knew in my heart that I needed to find a new oncologist. Mine was a great doctor, but he was clearly in over his head. And, he did not specialize in Melanoma. I found a doctor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in Melanoma and made an appointment.
May - Our first appointment with the new Oncologist and I already felt better. He was confident, and thats what I needed. He also said that he wanted his pathologists to look at my lymph nodes that were removed. He said since this case is so rare, it doesn't add up in his head and that he wants to rule out that maybe the "cancer cells" they saw in my nodes weren't actually just benign internal moles. We can have moles all over the inside and outside of our body - and he was thinking that might be the case. That would mean I would have only stage I topical melanoma. The waiting made me almost go clinically insane. His pathologists reached out to pathologists from Harvard, UPenn and other prestigious institutes to get their take on my case. They all were stumped but in the end, had to say it had Stage III melanoma characteristics. I told myself I wasn't going to get my hopes up, but yesterday, I got punched in the gut... hard. So, in the next couple weeks I will be starting the immunotherapy drug, Keytruda. I'll go to the hospital every three weeks and get it injected through an IV for an hour... for a total of one year. And i'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared as hell.
But I know I will meet and see these cancer warriors that will make me feel grateful and will humble the heck out of me. It's all about perspective. I have a God that fights for me, family that loves me, even when I'm at my worst, friends that lift me up from the darkest days, and a husband/toddler duo who make me laugh when I think it's impossible.
from the bottom of my heart, thank you for all your concern, messages, prayers and kindness. i feel it all, and it keeps me going 😘
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