SUE'S ESCAPE FROM CANCERLAND: Mother's Day

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mother's Day

Mug of boys' mugs..a favor from the godparents

Mother's Day flowers

Moms' wine. We made our own wine a few years ago and one of the Moms designed this label

So now it is all quiet after a week of noisy but loveable babies. Shanna et al will return to Boston tomorrow. This is the first Mother's Day that I have been home in a few years. We had a brunch at our house as taking 11 people to a restaurant with 3 babies in tow would not be fun. So until the wedding, this will be the last time we are all together for a while. It was a beautiful day today. I did not run but later, Steve and I went for a walk. Lots of fruit blossoms out now, delayed a few weeks.

To all you mothers out there, Happy Day!

1 comment:

Holly said...: happy day to you dear Sue!

we should talk...breast surgeon suggests double mastectomy for me due to channeling calcifications in the bad boob...; May 8, 2011 at 9:48 PM

About me

I am a mother of 3, wife of 1, and grandmother of 6. For years, I had been a medicinal chemist. Not long after I was retired early, I found myself with triple negative breast cancer. My struggles with it are in this blog along with the joys and trials of being a mother and grandmother. I love to be physically active, travel, read, and garden. Although my degrees are in chemistry and cellular biology not medicine, I keep up with the medical literature and report herein watching closely for good news against this deadly disease. As time goes on, my stay in Cancerland has become more a bad memory than a reality. This blog has since morphed into a photo blog in which I try to capture moments of beauty in my life.

TIMELINE

9-10-08: 1.6 cm tumor discovered by routine mammogram confirmed by ultrasound

9-21-08: Biopsy confirming Grade 3, triple negative invasive breast cancer

10-7-08: First surgery and sentinel node biopsy.

10-9-08: Tumor had grown to 3 cm plus an additional tumor was found. Poor margins but the 3 sentinel nodes were negative

10-16-08: Follow-up mammograms: lots of microcalcifications that could be DCIS

10-29-08: Second surgery removing 3x the tissue as the first: Good news: no sign of cancer in any of it.

12-2-08: First dose dense treatment with Adriamycin and Cytoxan followed by Neulasta the next day

12-16-08: Second dose

12-19-08: Hair began falling out. In 2 days I would be completely bald.

12-30-08: Third dose

1-13-09: Fourth dose

1-27-09: First of 4 doses of Taxol

3-10-09: Last dose of Taxol

3-31-09: First of 16 radiation treatments (so-called hypofractionated Canadian study)

4-21-09: Last radiation treatment

Early May: All eyelashes and eyebrows suddenly fall out but see evidence of stubble on head

Mid July: Have an inch of curly salt-pepper hair vs straight blondish-white of before. Officially retire the wig.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mother's Day

1 comment:

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