Changed Oncologists or "Happy Tuesday"

Changing docs is getting to be a pretty ordinary thing around here. In my old life I would have never thought of changing docs. I thought you picked one out, they naturally sucked or maybe you got lucky and had a half-way decent one with a good sense of humor, and you stayed there 'cause why not? Now I realize, if they suck butt - SWITCH. It takes a couple of phone calls, and a consult visit, and you're done with the last bozo you had. You'll recall I switched surgeons because surgeon #1 wouldn't do "unnecessary surgery" and instead just prefered that I go through all this crap over again in 7 years if it came to that. Afterall, what else did I have to do with my time? You may also recall that my Oncologist was Mr. Rogers incarnate and her staff was comparable to the folks that work the late afternoon shift at Hardees. So last Thursday I called my surgeon's nurse, got a couple recommendations for a new one, called my insurance and their office, set up an appt and went to meet her today.

Her name is Dr. Fran Matthews and she works at Central Illinois Hematoloy Oncology on Madison. I went to see her today and all I can say is "eh." The facility is nicer than Holzer's (Springfield Clinic on 7th), the staff seem more on the ball (called me back within five hours with an appointment time! *GASP*) and while Dr. Matthews has the personality of a lamp post, she's likable and seems like she knows what she's doing. I think this one's a keeper.

She was able to get my pathology report from surgery and told me some stuff that I'm sure my surgeon meant to tell me on Wednesday's visit. Such as Dr. Peralta removed 25 lymph nodes but only two seemed cancerous. (boo) She also says there may be a chance that some of the tumor was left behind in the incision and must be zapped with radiation. Which brings me to the third bit o' bad news; I need radiation. Yuck.

She gave me a run down of my probable treatment plan that will start in a few weeks when I'm healed up from surgery. 16 weeks of chemo (adriamycen, cytoxan, taxol), followed by 5-6 weeks of right chest wall radiation, followed by tamoxifen pills for five years. Reconstruction will be going on through chemo and radiation and then after radiation is done, the implants will replace the expanders.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I go for a post-op visit with Dr. Peralta (surgeon) who will explain the path report a little more and based on that will decide on the complete follow-up plan. I'll blog more as soon as I know the plan.

Thursday I meet Doc #4 which will be my radiation guy; Dr. Wynstra at St. John's.

If you'd like to know how I look, here ya go:



Nice, eh? Didn't you all wanna see me in my undies? I also have naked pics for my own records and will take new pics after each fill up through reconstruction. They look a tad bit lopsided - there's also a huge diagonal dent/fold in the right side from when they bandaged me up but it should flatten out. Jim thought it was a scar, it's such a deep fold. But I imagine it'll flatten out as time goes on and the expander is filled. I have a scar running from where the nipple used to be, down to the underside of each breast, and then a scar running across the bottom of each breast that you can't even see unless you're looking up from underneath. They did a really good job. The drain sites are leaking less and less. Soon I should be able to do away with the guaze. I still have a lot of inflamation on the sides especially that should go away soon. Yes, it's still sore and I'm still on meds and advil. Those of you who didn't know what my boobs looked like before, they were a large C cup. Right now they're an A but most of that is inflamation. I don't really want to go back to a C cup. I'd like to go to a large B, but we'll see how things go. Basically my PS says she'll fill them until I like the size and that's when we'll stop and do the replacement (after radiation).

It was a happy/sad moment when I got rid of all of my old bras. That's the cool thing about implants. PERKY 20-YR OLD BOOBS FOR LIFE. No bra necessary. Yippee!