I went to meet Dr Boffa, a surgeon at yale/new haven to discuss the possibility of removing my sternum. I had already done a bunch of research about this (shocker I know) so I was interested in meeting with him and to hear what he had to say. We discussed my journey and where I am and what my options are. The cancer is actually in my manubrium which is the top part of our sternum, see pic to the side. This is actually a good thing. The long part of the sternum is spongey which would make the cancer spread easier. He wouldn't actually know 100% until he goes in if it hadn't passed to the long part of the sternum because of course I'm right on the edge but he seemed very confident it hadn't passed the line yet. So that's good, we would only remove that part. The collar bone would be the hard part though. That what's holds us together and we'd be disconnecting them from my manubrium so healing and waiting for it to naturally reconnect back to my body is the hard part. There are specific reasons we would consider the surgery and praying I don't need it. After 12 weeks of chemo we will do a petscan and see how the chemo is treating me. If the cancer has spread, then we wouldn't do surgery. If the cancer hasn't spread but still lights up like a light bulb in the same spot and we can't give me full/max dosage of radiation then we would consider surgery. Reasons I couldn't get full/max doses of radiation is because I already had radiation and my heart is there. My heart is just slightly lower than my cancer so hopefully we can line up my scan to hit the area needed and miss my heart. But also we need to ask my radiologist if that area was already hit with radiation the first time. We don't think we went that high but I won't know for sure until I ask my radiologist. Update in 7 weeks after my petscan. Let's just keep praying the chemo is doing what it's supposed to do. |
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Yup..it's Tuesday, cocktail time.
The big question of the day..is the chemo working? My hair hasn't fallen out yet and I'm on week 5. I was told it usually falls out between week 3 and 4 with taxol...hmmm! After seeing my doc, we went back and reviewed my dates from my last treatment. We're matching up and I have a couple more weeks with hair. I'm just balancing everything out just right using my integrative approach, taking in the chemo, killing the cancer and kicking it out before it hurts my good cells too fast, right?! It's a great, positive thought, right? It must be what's happening because we all know, without a doubt, I'm kicking its ass again. This round I'm even stronger without the toxic, negative people I had around me the first round. I'm a much different, stronger person this round, stronger than I've ever been! Let's keep kickin' ass! |
AuthorLisa Mangiafico Archives
February 2018
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