“The Longest Month Ever”

I gave my wife a kiss and told her it has been a crazy month since her surgery and she looked at me and said, “Its only been a month?  Wow, it is the longest month ever!”  I agree that it seems like we have come so far in a month.

Things continue to evolve emotionally and physically.  Yesterday while at the clinic she ran into an old co-worker.  They hugged and sobbed as soon as they saw each other there.  They hadn’t seen each other in 7 years, but they had a new bond and have already shared their stories with each other as well as numerous emails.  Having someone she personally knows going through it with her at the same age is a comforting thing for her.  It’s all the little things now.  Even yesterday when the Plastic Surgeon stood back, took a look and said, “I think it will all come out nice”, she took a mental note.  “Nice” isn’t always the most glamorous of words to describe something in a positive manner, but it worked for her.

Today was also a day we had been waiting for.  She finally heard an indication of what the test results said about her chance of recurrence for cancer.  This is an important outcome as it indicated the type of treatment plan you should follow with your oncologist.  When she called me at work, I picked up the phone with trepidation.  It was like the day she called to tell me she had cancer and I rushed home.   Those aren’t fun calls.  The day she called to tell me that my dad wasn’t breathing was just the same.  As I picked up the phone she said, “I hope you are free on Saturday as you and your son qualified for the Northern CA Family golf tourney in the 2nd flight!”  It was good news!  Not the news I was expecting but it was great and our son was going to be happy.  We talked for a few more minutes and then she continued, “Oh and the Dr. wrote me an email saying my scores came back low for recurrence”.

First I was  happy and could feel her smiling through the phone.  Then the psychologist in me said, “Wait, she gave you news about a golf tournament before she told you about her breast cancer”  I asked her if everything was alright and she said she felt like she was turning a corner and ready to get through this thing.

We watched a 45 minute video tonight to help us with her decisions she is going to have to make regarding her treatments.  Is it hormonal therapy, chemotherapy, both, or none? The clinic is pretty hands off and likes to let each person make their own decision so it is good to get educated. I told her that I was pro-choice on this and I didn’t want my own feeling to get in the way if she wanted to make the decision alone, but it is hard to look at your own health as one big statistic.  We haven’t made many decisions without each other for 22 years and she wasn’t about to start now.

So the oncology meeting is in a couple days.  We think they are going to tell her chemo is not really going to be beneficial and that Tamoxifen a hormonal therapy treatment with side effects will be her best plan, but who knows.  It is more of a sit and wait game again, but this time the wait is going to not be so stressful and the next month will go even faster.