The End of Cancer - hit me like a brick

Tuesday
Today I had 4 surgeons visit and check out the handiwork, I'm not sure how many actually worked on me that came to look. My Breast .Surgeon and Plastic Surgeon obviously but not sure about the registrar, Chapra And Scott? It could have been some guy off the street for all I know!

A drain came out and my cannula too. So just 2 drains left hewey and Lewy now. I'll have at least 1 come home with me. I still have the leg pumping machine and compression stockings on - joyful in this 40 degrees. I have a balcony room, which is huge for 1 little bed, with nice views of the gardens to the side and across to the Asylum in Kew to the right. - at least I don't have to share like some people do.

My breast surgeon came in with a printed copy of my pathology result. Heidi had kindly brought up some things for me that I desperately needed. Who knew that short pj shorts and loose fitting singlets would be the go to clothes, and a wonderful cup of real coffee, so she was there when Christina gave me. she said it was the best result they could ever have hoped for and deliver to a patient.

Mum and Dad came up and I was so overwhelmed when I was reading it to them, that I started to cry. I realised all at once in that split second in time, that this is the end of cancer for me!!! I hadn't played out the likelihood in my head of a 100% CPR result. The breast surgeon said she hadn't seen a 100% result so much and was expecting maybe a 10% residual.

Ever since that day on 5 June 2015 at the breast screen clinic at St Vincents Hospital, and the breast surgeon, Christine Foley delivering the news "you have breast cancer" and the nurse who burst into tears as well - all the treatment, the fears, the anxiety, telling family and friends, why me, the wakeful nights and silent shower tears.

The experiences since then making me a stronger person, and the experience of cancer and losing my best friend because of it. The experience of another through her blog and eventual passing in Simona, - leaving behind a loving family and 3 year old baby boy. To my lovely friend Lisa for her strength and common sense advice for me and Maria pushing me to check things out after telling me about her life without her mum because of a late diagnosis and sitting with Cora for her chemo treatment - all pointing to and alerting me to my diagnosis. An EARLY locally advanced one at that. If only it was earlier then I may not have needed chemo, but lucky it wasn't later!!

My pathology report states a complete Pathological Response to the invasive breast cancer and I thought there were 2 lymph nodes effected, it ended up being 4 out of 15 lymph nodes. So I had 11 more to go before it would have been rampant. The result was "no evidence of malignancy in 15 lymph nodes. 4 nodes are partially replaced by scar but no residual malignancy is seen in these nodes (0/15)".

I have been in good hands along the way, even down to the pathologist who was used for the mastectomy pathology. My B.S said that he is the 1 pathologist who would suggest something was not quite right with the result and she would follow his thinking. It seems my plastic surgeon and radio oncologist are leaders in their field also and the hospital I'm in is a specialist breast hospital with well trained nurses for being doctors' eyes and ears.

I was lucky to be eligible for the study for the 'new treatment sequence protocol to reconstruct locally advanced breast cancer' which the P.S I happened to go and visit while deciding between public vs private happened to be championing it. The sequence of the treatment has meant we could watch the responsiveness of the chemo and radio, and I stayed in tact for the duration rather than dealing with the cancer psychologically, physically and emotionally all at once with immediate mastectomy. Dealing with the treatment, with a concave chest, which is more difficult to reconstruct would have taken atoll.

Well now I am no longer eligible for the Penelope B trial, where they were going to take my ovaries or at least inject me each month to suppress my ovaries. I looked up the patient profile and I no longer qualify for it - the patient has to have some residue cancer, of which I have none :). The oncologist did say that if I didn't qualify when the pathology is in that's a good thing.