More Tests, More Scans, & Preparing for Surgery

I physically could have kept teaching longer than I did (I lasted 2 1/2 weeks from when I told my students I would be leaving).  However, emotionally I was becoming a wreck!!  Breaking down in tears one evening, I shared with David that I didn't think I could continue teaching, even though I had not been given a surgery date yet.  I hated the thought of using up my sick days before I REALLY needed them, but I was "sick", after all.

In the weeks that followed my diagnosis, I had a head-to-toe bone scan, a CT of my abdomen, and a chest x-ray.  Apparently, once you have breast cancer, the next most likely places the disease will go party are lungs, bones, and/or liver.  Days and weeks of waiting and waiting dragged by once again, either waiting for a call to attend the tests or anticipating results.  I was still teaching during this time, however, every week was interrupted by at least one medical appointment.  Here is the end result of the tests I went through:

Bone scan - all clear!!
Chest x-ray - all clear!!
Abdomen CT - well, there's just a little something on your liver ... so ... let's do an MRI of the liver to try to determine what it is
Liver MRI - well, we think we see a "cavernous hemangioma" (a what????)  It's something to do with a blood vessel that's usually benign.  Further follow-up later!  (The follow-up CT STILL has not happened!!)

The exhaustion of planning, marking, and teaching on a daily basis, as well as zipping off to unpleasant ... but, hopefully, reassuring ... tests and scans was taking its toll on me emotionally.  It was time to say goodbye to my students, my classroom, my colleagues, and my school for many, many months.  Of course, my last day with my students was another emotional one.  We decided to take part of the afternoon to P-A-R-T-Y!!! After all, isn't that what the last day of school is all about ? :)  We ate cake, drank pop (shhhhh!!!!) and I was showered with an abundance of gifts, cards, and well wishes.  Here is what my chalk boards looked like on my last day ...

NOVEMBER 21 WAS A VERY, VERY SAD DAY,  indeed !!

During the weeks I had kept teaching, I felt like I had put my illness on the back burner ... almost as if  I wasn't acknowledging it was happening.  As long as I could keep concentrating on planning a day,teaching, or marking at night, I didn't have make time to focus on reading, researching, and learning about my disease and what I would face in the weeks and months to come.

I wanted to be an informed patient, so I started reading veraciously!!  I wanted to learn as much as I could about types of breast cancer (I didn't even know there were different types), what would happen during my mastectomy surgery, recovery afterwards, and reconstruction options.  I even made myself watch a YouTube video on one type of tissue-based reconstruction called a TRAM flap (short for "transverse rectus abdominus muscle flap").   It is a procedure in which a large section of skin and fat from your belly, along with a portion of one of the rectus muscles (providing the blood supply to the tissue) is used to fashion a new breast.  I thought that was the reconstruction option I desired ... even though the video made the procedure and recovery look atrocious!  I liked the idea of using my own tissue, as opposed to an implant.

The ironic thing is ... Boot Camp caused me to have to rule out the TRAM option.  I would leave my plastic surgeon consultation dejected.  I was told I did not have enough belly fat to have this procedure ... imagine! (Boy, that doc should see me NOW, after 3 months of little or no exercise!!) I would be having a tissue expander inserted under my chest muscle after the mastectomy was performed.

Now, all I needed was a surgery date ...