Chemo starts soon.....

So, since I hadn't had a chance to blog in a few days, I have a lot to catch up on, so this will be lengthy. I've been so tired lately, and then I decided to take on a 1000 piece jelly bean puzzle that took 17 or so hours to do. But, it kept my mind off cancer the entire weekend, and I LOVE puzzles, so why the heck not? hehehe

1. Had my mediastinoscopy Monday. My procedure was supposed to be at 1pm, so I got there at my requested 11am time, and sat in the lobby till almost 12:30.....did I mention I couldn't eat and was STARVING? Yeah, so I finally went and asked how much longer it would be and the front desk lady tells me "oh, you're delayed until 2-2:30...they didn't tell you?" Uh.....NO! So, I was in a pissy mood when they finally came and got me 30 minutes later to start my prepping. Then, because I have little tiny viens (you'll see a pattern here soon) it ONCE AGAIN took 3 tries for the IV to go in. Both hand spots were blown, so they ended up using my arm by my inside elbow. So, now I have bruises on both hands...YAY! This has happened on EVERY surgery I've ever had, and I keep telling them "you can't use my hands", but APPARENTLY protocol says they have to at least try and torment the patient first before anesthesia will allow the arm to be used.....that's just DUMB! So, I finally go back for surgery, get my IV of "jagermeister" and fall asleep. I woke up to recovery, and Chris practically comes bouncing in my recovery room like Tigger and says "it's not cancerous!" I thought it was so cute. He hasn't been so excited in a while, and I could just see the excitement on his face when he came in. So, aside from this nasty yucky scar on my neck, a hoarse throat, and a golf ball size lump in my throat when I swallow, I'm fine. Oh yeah, and I can't move my neck to either side, have to sleep sitting up with ice on my neck to reduce the golf ball size swelling on the outside as well.....and my back is sore, but I can't get a massage because I can't lay on my stomach. So, I feel like I've been run over by a mack truck, and have an elephant sitting on my chest, but really.....I feel fine. :-)

(The doctor told Chris that my trachea thingy was teeny tiny, so he had a hard time getting down there....see the pattern growing? Why is it that my wedding ring is a size 4.5, my veins are teeny tiny, and my trachea is teeny tiny, my mouth is teeny tiny; braces involved, and my ankles and wrists are teeny tiny, but the rest of my body is "big boned" as I call it? I SOOOOO don't match)

2. I went yesterday to see my oncologist, who is growing on me, and I like her a lot better now. Let me tell you......I was younger than EVERY patient there by at LEAST 40 years! I haven't seen so many slippers, wheel chairs and walkers since I visited my grandma in the nursing home. I felt WAY out of place, to say the least. So, she delivered the good news, which we already knew, that it is not cancerous, it is Sarcoid. Yay. She also said she wanted to present my case at her tumor conference she is attending next week because my case is so unusual. Go figure....Tiffany is unusual.....hahaha. She was referring to the fact that on the PETscan the nodes were measuring so hot that even the tech who read it said "mestatic disease" and it wasn't, so I proved that "Hotter doesn't always mean "CANCER" ". She wanted to give my port one more week to heal, and also give this neck incision more time to heal, so I start chemo next Tuesday. It's a 2 day regimen, so I go in August 3 and August 4. The first day is AC chemo (adriamycin and cytoxan, now known as doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide) and day 2 is anti nausea drugs, fluids, and Neulasta. I also have a chemo anti-nausea pill to take on day 1, 2, and 3 called Emend. So, I repeat this process every 3 weeks for 4 doses. After the second dose (Happy Anniversary to us) she will repeat my U/S and see if it has subsided in size at all. We should be able to feel if it has before then, but for shits and giggles, we'll do the U/S. After all 4 doses I then go to Taxol, which is once a week for 12 weeks. She also wrote something on here about Zometa via IV for Q6MM? x 4 doses. I also got my prescription for my wig, some phenergan, and the Emend that I'll be taking in pill form.

3. MD Anderson called yesterday and informed me that if I start treatments, they can't transfer my care....they can only give me a second opinion. So, my choice is to wait for them and not start chemo till late August, which I don't want to do because I've already gone 5 weeks, 6 by the time chemo starts, and this is aggresive cancer, OR go ahead and get treated by my current Dr's and screw MDA. For being the best cancer hospital in the world, they sure do make this process difficult. By the way, I should mention that between all these Dr appts I've had, surgery testings I've had, and followup appts I've had, I had to do all the legwork for MDA. I had to get all my films, slides, Dr notes, pathology reports, etc and fax them over BEFORE they would even set up my appt. Then, she tells me that it is $250-$2500, which may or may ot be covered by insurance for them to review my slides. So, I am trying to really decide if that ungodly amount of money is worth it for me to go down there and have them say "yep, you have cancer and that's the same thing I would do if I was treating you...bye bye". I'm so aggravated with them. This girl I talked to (which I will leave nameless but refer to her as "Stupid insensitive bitch" or SIB) has no compassion for anyone, I'm quite certain, and she doesn't know how to do her job. It's obvious that she is reading a dialogue when she tells me everything I need to bring with me and she didn't even know that the 56 pages I faxed to her were in my file already until I told her that I called to verify already and they are there. "hehe... oh yes, here they are".... SIB also tells me that I'm not allowed to see the oncologist there if I had treatments that week. HELLO......SIB......you are a freaking CANCER hospital and I have cancer, so why am I not allowed to go in there if I received chemo when your hospital GIVES chemo????? Like I'm some sort of walking timebomb that could blast off an infection at any given moment and infect everyone within a 5 mile radius. UUUGGGHHHH. I do not like her, I do not! So, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to even keep the appt she set because I get chemo the week they have me set up to go.....and ya know....I might infect someone....

So, that's it in a nutshell. That's what I'm in for over the next year. Have you ordered your "Team Tiffany" shirt? Store tab should be viewable on the top right of the blog. Mens, Womens and Girls shirts are available along with a pink "Cancer Sucks" bracelet, and yard stakes (courtesy of My sis Dolly). All proceeds go towards my treatments, and the rest leftover will be donated to cancer research.

Ta-Ta for now....