Very aggressive - Five Years
"The type of chemo that was prescribed I would be loosing my hair, I would be doing it once every 3 weeks, - it was actually the next week I found all the details – it was because the next week I met my wonderful oncologist Dr. (Chinin) Leal. What a blessing she has been in my life. She’s happy, she’s positive, she can look me in the eye and tell me exactly what is going on and what needs to happen and she doesn’t mince words but she is also a mom with children, she has two children and over the last eight years I felt like I’ve gotten to know her as a friend as well as my oncologist. She’s very Johnny-on-the-spot in responding to any emails I’ve sent her and I know she is cheering for me when things go well and sad for me when things aren’t going well, but she’s not debilitated by the sadness to do her job and be a really good oncologist.
"So I would be going through chemo – we found out the next week when we visited with her that – she told us the particular – she would be asking what would you like to do I was going like I have no idea – so she would give us some different recommendations and Ralph also went with me on these appointments – at the meeting with the breast care coordinators they said its really important that when you go to these meetings that you have somebody there with another set of ears to listen and also somebody that can take notes. And also when you go to your meeting with the oncologist – go in with a whole bunch of questions that you have so you can get answers to know – write down the answers – take the time that you need so you can understand what’s going on – because there’s so much information that you are getting all at once. They are trying to get you all the information that you need but you can’t always remember. So Ralph was the one I took with me to all these appointments. Writing down notes and you know we met with the breast care coordinators and they also talked about surgery and they also talked about radiation – you know these are the different things you’ll probably be going through – we’re here for you – any questions that you have – and so they were great. Really supportive really helpful especially when I didn’t know what to ask or what was coming next or I didn’t understand what was happening.
"We found out very quickly that we did not want to go on the internet and do any research – Ralph had done a little bit of going on the internet at first and the numbers are not good – the percentages of how many people make it to five years, how many people make it to ten years and the numbers are not good and so we learned very quickly you do not go research this you do not enter this depressing place – go on the internet with this – we found out very quickly we were just going to have to turn this over to the Lord, it was basically in his hands we were going to do everything that we could to treat it and to go through it and if it came right down to it was going to be up to the Lord if I survived. Inflammatory Breast Cancer is a very fast moving very aggressive kind of cancer. If you are going to pick a kind of breast cancer this is not the one you want to pick.
"We also learned very quickly there are many kinds of breast cancer, there are 20 - 25 kinds of breast cancer. They are all treated a little bit differently, so you have to figure out – ok, what are you going to do, how are you going to do this? They’ve come up with different protocols, different things you have to do. You do have some choices - ok what do you want your side affects to be between this one and this one? But we really had to leave it up to the oncologist just to figure out what particular medications were going to be into the soup of chemo that we were going to be going through. They also had another meeting for us to go through where we learned about chemotherapy taught by Diane Loneger? I can’t remember her name; she was an oncology nurse as well as a breast cancer survivor. That was encouraging and comforting to see her beautiful head of hair and to know that she lost her hair and it came back in.
"On September 14thwas my first day of chemo. Ralph took the day off to go with me. We knew that it would take about three or four hours that we would be there, so we set up a time in that I wasn’t working yard duty that day I had somebody else to cover for me. I got somebody to drop Kylie off at school and we headed on down to Kaiser. We read books, we had some food with us that we ate. In order to do the chemo, they put a needle into your veins, they put the medication in that way – they put an IV in and then they put the medication in there. We found out very quickly that I have teeny weensy veins, this was not going to work over the long haul. They had to poke me four different times before they found a vein that was good enough. One of the medications in particular was extremely toxic and they want to make sure they have a really good vein to put it in or it can fry your veins and that could do some serious damage in your hand. There were putting this all in the back of my hands.
"So they finally got that good vein in there we were able to get through the chemo but then they said, “You need to get a port put in.” “What is a port?” A port is a little contraption that they put in; often it is in your upper chest down from your collarbone they put it in your right side because that’s where you have the best access to big veins. They put them there under the surface of the skin and they poke a needle in there and it goes right into a very good vein and it’s just the best way of putting in chemo especially for someone who has teeny weensy veins – and it’s difficult to find a good vein each time. So they set up an outpatient surgery over at Kaiser Martinez. So they set up an appointment for me to get the port put in the next week because I need a couple of weeks to heal before chemo, which was three weeks away. I had three weeks between chemo. I was going to be doing six chemo sessions, which meant that my last would be December 28 just three days after Christmas.
"They give you a list of possible of side effects that can happen. I started chemo – just let me back up a minute – I started chemo on September 14.
" Kylie’s birthday was September 13th, so we set up a plan for a party a couple of weeks later like the end of September – she had never had a birthday party where we had invited friends – so we decided to do that. It was the under the sea party – It was the day I got my port put in – was the day of the party. It worked out really, really well. We decorated the living room, moved all the furniture out and into the other room as much as we could – there were still the couches in there, we moved the table and the chair out – and the kids were able to- We filled the whole place with balloons, there were streamers from the ceiling and they were white and blue and foam green. There were all kinds of treasures under the water so you could find things – and there was a piñata.
"We had the schedule all set up. Amy and Kristy who were 15 and 13 at the time, and we also had Paige Hosking come over and help plan the party and they did a fabulous job. They would turn and ask, “Ok mom what do we do here?’ And I was just laying in the on the couch. Right before I was diagnosed with cancer – finally we were going to order a sectional couch for the family room. A couple of years before I had order furniture to put in the living room so didn’t have a playroom anymore we had a living room. I wanted to have a couch that we could all sit on when we were watching TV. So we ordered a sectional, it was a big burgundy couch. Perfect timing because it arrived the day before I started my first chemo. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time laying on the red couch as I was recuperating from different cancer treatments. Held up amazingly well, its fabulous we have a red couch and the whole family can all sit on it while watching TV, which was my goal. It’s great."
"So I would be going through chemo – we found out the next week when we visited with her that – she told us the particular – she would be asking what would you like to do I was going like I have no idea – so she would give us some different recommendations and Ralph also went with me on these appointments – at the meeting with the breast care coordinators they said its really important that when you go to these meetings that you have somebody there with another set of ears to listen and also somebody that can take notes. And also when you go to your meeting with the oncologist – go in with a whole bunch of questions that you have so you can get answers to know – write down the answers – take the time that you need so you can understand what’s going on – because there’s so much information that you are getting all at once. They are trying to get you all the information that you need but you can’t always remember. So Ralph was the one I took with me to all these appointments. Writing down notes and you know we met with the breast care coordinators and they also talked about surgery and they also talked about radiation – you know these are the different things you’ll probably be going through – we’re here for you – any questions that you have – and so they were great. Really supportive really helpful especially when I didn’t know what to ask or what was coming next or I didn’t understand what was happening.
"We found out very quickly that we did not want to go on the internet and do any research – Ralph had done a little bit of going on the internet at first and the numbers are not good – the percentages of how many people make it to five years, how many people make it to ten years and the numbers are not good and so we learned very quickly you do not go research this you do not enter this depressing place – go on the internet with this – we found out very quickly we were just going to have to turn this over to the Lord, it was basically in his hands we were going to do everything that we could to treat it and to go through it and if it came right down to it was going to be up to the Lord if I survived. Inflammatory Breast Cancer is a very fast moving very aggressive kind of cancer. If you are going to pick a kind of breast cancer this is not the one you want to pick.
"We also learned very quickly there are many kinds of breast cancer, there are 20 - 25 kinds of breast cancer. They are all treated a little bit differently, so you have to figure out – ok, what are you going to do, how are you going to do this? They’ve come up with different protocols, different things you have to do. You do have some choices - ok what do you want your side affects to be between this one and this one? But we really had to leave it up to the oncologist just to figure out what particular medications were going to be into the soup of chemo that we were going to be going through. They also had another meeting for us to go through where we learned about chemotherapy taught by Diane Loneger? I can’t remember her name; she was an oncology nurse as well as a breast cancer survivor. That was encouraging and comforting to see her beautiful head of hair and to know that she lost her hair and it came back in.
"On September 14thwas my first day of chemo. Ralph took the day off to go with me. We knew that it would take about three or four hours that we would be there, so we set up a time in that I wasn’t working yard duty that day I had somebody else to cover for me. I got somebody to drop Kylie off at school and we headed on down to Kaiser. We read books, we had some food with us that we ate. In order to do the chemo, they put a needle into your veins, they put the medication in that way – they put an IV in and then they put the medication in there. We found out very quickly that I have teeny weensy veins, this was not going to work over the long haul. They had to poke me four different times before they found a vein that was good enough. One of the medications in particular was extremely toxic and they want to make sure they have a really good vein to put it in or it can fry your veins and that could do some serious damage in your hand. There were putting this all in the back of my hands.
"So they finally got that good vein in there we were able to get through the chemo but then they said, “You need to get a port put in.” “What is a port?” A port is a little contraption that they put in; often it is in your upper chest down from your collarbone they put it in your right side because that’s where you have the best access to big veins. They put them there under the surface of the skin and they poke a needle in there and it goes right into a very good vein and it’s just the best way of putting in chemo especially for someone who has teeny weensy veins – and it’s difficult to find a good vein each time. So they set up an outpatient surgery over at Kaiser Martinez. So they set up an appointment for me to get the port put in the next week because I need a couple of weeks to heal before chemo, which was three weeks away. I had three weeks between chemo. I was going to be doing six chemo sessions, which meant that my last would be December 28 just three days after Christmas.
"They give you a list of possible of side effects that can happen. I started chemo – just let me back up a minute – I started chemo on September 14.
" Kylie’s birthday was September 13th, so we set up a plan for a party a couple of weeks later like the end of September – she had never had a birthday party where we had invited friends – so we decided to do that. It was the under the sea party – It was the day I got my port put in – was the day of the party. It worked out really, really well. We decorated the living room, moved all the furniture out and into the other room as much as we could – there were still the couches in there, we moved the table and the chair out – and the kids were able to- We filled the whole place with balloons, there were streamers from the ceiling and they were white and blue and foam green. There were all kinds of treasures under the water so you could find things – and there was a piñata.
"We had the schedule all set up. Amy and Kristy who were 15 and 13 at the time, and we also had Paige Hosking come over and help plan the party and they did a fabulous job. They would turn and ask, “Ok mom what do we do here?’ And I was just laying in the on the couch. Right before I was diagnosed with cancer – finally we were going to order a sectional couch for the family room. A couple of years before I had order furniture to put in the living room so didn’t have a playroom anymore we had a living room. I wanted to have a couch that we could all sit on when we were watching TV. So we ordered a sectional, it was a big burgundy couch. Perfect timing because it arrived the day before I started my first chemo. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time laying on the red couch as I was recuperating from different cancer treatments. Held up amazingly well, its fabulous we have a red couch and the whole family can all sit on it while watching TV, which was my goal. It’s great."
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