Game Plan

Met with the oncologist today for an hour this morning and it seems like a blur.  He explained all the tests that were run on my tumors, tissues, and lymph nodes and how the results worked towards the reoccurrence of cancer in my body.  Nothing like running the numbers of probability to get this math geek’s mind racing.  As we knew, the cancer I have is hormone based which is bad and good.  Bad being it was spreading through the tissues easily, but good because taking the tamoxifen will help keep it from rearing its ugly mutations again.  Also, as expected, the fact that the cancer had worked its way to the lymph nodes increases the likelihood that it could come back.  This also means that if I only to do the tamoxifen the probability that cancer would return was not really in an acceptable range.  This is where chemotherapy enters the discussion.  It will be four courses, one course delivered every three weeks.  Doing this treatment and the tamoxifen afterwards (for five years) works the numbers in my favor, keeping the cancer away.

Then there are all the wonderful things to contemplate for the next couple of weeks.  Side effects.  Yes, I will lose my hair sometime around the second course of treatment.  So not happy about that.  Not sure I have the head shape to be hairless.  Then, because I am otherwise healthy and athletic there is a strong possibility that I will experience bone pain from one of the drugs that helps boost my immune system.  Now doesn’t that just sound pleasant.  I love how having strong muscles and bones is making this experience more painful than most.  They are giving me an anti-nausea pill to take before each session, that’s nice.  And, of course fatigue.  That I already have from everything thus far.  Those are the major ones we discussed.  When the time comes, we shall see how my body ends up reacting. 

The game plan goes live in two weeks, first course the day after my birthday.