Suspended Animation

 

It was a long, long, very, very, extremely long weekend. It was hard to celebrate the coming of the new year when so much of what I know is going to happen in 2022  seems fairly shitty.  And, due to the screw up, I had the added pleasure of continuing to wonder if my heart is also (literally) broken. 

Waiting for test results is for sure among the top 5 worst things that cancer patients experience. I can honestly say that all of my significant tests were harder on me than my surgery was. Waiting for the test, itself, is no better- as evidenced by the severe panic attack I had the night before my CT scan in October, and the subsequent weeks (and meds!) it took to recover. 

Some people are “fight or flight”, but I’m a “freeze”. This has served me well at certain points in my life, but in this scenario, it just puts my life on pause. I am frozen until I have an answer, and sometimes am frozen BY the answer. I am essentially a deer in the headlights just waiting to get hit by the car. Basically just standing there. Since August... Much like when Patton was born, everything just moved on without me. It’s not ideal… I’m working on it, but it’s pretty hard to “unlearn” a parasympathetic nervous system response. So, I’m not making a lot of progress, and here we are.

Fortunately, I was able to get in for an ECHO stress test this morning. I had to go to Bedford to do it, but that got me in several days earlier. I am beyond thrilled to report that my test came back totally clear- both at rest and “stressed”. I have NO evidence of ever having had a heart attack, and I have NO evidence of left atrial enlargement. All chambers, parts, and pieces have been thoroughly looked at and are all working as they should. I do have a “minor mitral regurgitation “, but this is considered common and insignificant. My heart is fine!!

I still have to get my port placement surgery scheduled, but my oncologist contacted them today (as did I) to give them the “ok” to proceed. Hopefully they will call in a day or two with the date.

I also still have to decide which kind of chemo to get. There has been no direct study to compare the effectiveness of the 8 dose AC/T to the 4 dose TC, so I have to just choose (oh, hey, what is that bright light that seems to be coming straight at me?? I think I’ll just stand here!). AC/T is the “standard” protocol, but it seems unlikely that there’s much difference (my oncologist guessed around 2%). 4 doses seems so much more doable, but obviously I want the best chance of not having a recurrence… I just don’t know.