SUE'S ESCAPE FROM CANCERLAND: Back to the farm

Friday, September 25, 2015

Back to the farm

On this beautiful day, we went back to the pretty pumpkin farm with Shanna and Tessa.
Below she is buried in corn

3 comments:

Elephant's Child said...: Those smiles say it all...; September 25, 2015 at 11:49 PM
Teri Bernstein said...: is tessa in corn? or what???; September 29, 2015 at 10:38 PM
Sue in Italia/In the Land Of Cancer said...: Yep Tessa is in the corn pit. Much cleaner than sand. I assume they cover it up each night so birds and other critters don't eat it up. Kids seem to love the corn pit but Allie panicked trying to wade through it.; September 30, 2015 at 6:51 AM

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.

Friday, September 25, 2015

Back to the farm

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