A slap from Taxol and the triple negative

Taxol decided to give me a little parting shot. I was just so tired , feeling really off, that I went in for bloodwork. My WBC was down to 1.9 and my Hemoglobin was a 8- making me chemo anemic. No wonder all I wanted to do was sleep. There’s nothing much that can be done for the WBC- they have to give Neulasta 24 hours after the chemo, but I did get a hemoglobin booster. So now I’m just trying to build back up my immune system so I can be healthy for the surgery.

We did not go to South Carolina- my MIL was doing well and only needed one stent with the rest to be controlled with meds. Scott’s brother came up from Florida to handle everything so far- thank goodness he was available. Scott will probably go down later this week or next- I don’t know if I will go or not. I’m still trying to work out a “reasonable accommodation leave” (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) with the Trader Joe’s HR department and one of the things I need for continuation of my insurance is a 20 hour per week average for the year before my surgery/leave. Unfortunately, apparently none of the time I was off for workman’s comp counts for or against that average. I’m going to be going in for surgery the first part of March- so for the year before that I will only have 8 weeks before I stopped working the end of April, plus 2 weeks in Sept, and finally any time I have from the middle of December when I started working again. It’s important that I not work under the 20 hours, or I might not make the average.

I’ve decided against the reconstruction. I just don’t like the idea of the implants at all and the surgery using my muscles- well I like that idea even less. I’ve made the decision to have a double mastectomy and my ovaries removed. Since they don’t know where the primary came from, and since it is already metastatic, this is the option that most of my medical team recommended. And it’s really the only one I currently feel comfortable with.

I’m also very bummed, no more like distressed, from an offhand comment made by my oncologist when I told him that I was choosing not to have any reconstruction. He basically said he thought that was best given the stress my body was under- and that given the aggressive nature of my cancer if I had a reoccurrence there was not much more other then chemo that could be done.

You know what? That hit me like a ton of bricks. The ‘aggressive nature of my cancer’- I’m what’s called a triple negative- estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative. With everything I tried to read and learn about my illness, I never realized that being a triple neg meant a more aggressive cancer with less treatment options if you have a reoccurrence. I knew that it was more likely to have a reoccurrence but I guess it was the “aggressive” I missed. I think having a hidden primary meant that so much time and effort was spent trying to find that tumor- because really no one could tell me anything more about my cancer if that was not found- that no one ever really explained the significance of the ER-/PR-/HER2neu–!  I mean there is still a small possibility that this may not be breast and if it is I also don’t know if it is Ductal, Lobular or Invasive- which is what everyone seemed to be so focused on finding out. While that may have been important, it now seems that the triple negative was also very important- something that I wish my doctors had explained more fully.

I feel like I’ve been newly diagnosed all over again. I’m still ready to fight and keep going- but just having to twist my mind around more information.