Bad news at a bad time

Photo - NYU Langone's Laura Perlmutter Center for Women's Imaging at 34th St, a few empty blocks east of the Empire State Building. 

This is usually not the most personal of personal blogs, but I'm going to share some bad news of my own here in the time of COVID-19.

The breast cancer that I'd though had been taken care of 4 years ago has reappeared in my liver. This is going to be a part of my life now, and I want to share this so that down the road I can talk about it if I want to. Also I wrote this nice explanation on Facebook & figured I might as well put it here, too.  

Saturday morning before last, I was lying in bed and put my hand on my belly, just under my ribcage, and felt a round lump that shouldn't have been there. I didn't immediately think cancer - in fact I googled "lump below sternum" and Google suggested a type of hernia involving abdominal fat. This seemed plausible as I'd been doing a lot of situps for the first time in way too long as part of my sequestration health efforts, and had been pushing it pretty hard.

I went to see my GP on Wednesday morning. She didn't like what she felt and sent me for a sonogram at the Perlmutter imaging center.. Sonogram technician got back to her and after a bit of a wait they sent me on to the main hospital for a CT scan.

After that it was 4 pm and I hadn't gotten any more messages or instructions so I decided to ride the ferry back to Brooklyn (can't paddle right now so I'll take whatever boat ride I can get). Got a pizza at Grimaldi's (possibly my first Grimaldi's pizza ever, and hey, no line!) and headed for home. Dr. Rastegar called me just as I was getting off the train at my station and gave me the news that it looked like my breast cancer had metastasized to my liver.

Thursday I went to see my oncologist and got a PET scan. Friday morning, TQ drove me back to the hospital for a 6:30 am appointment for a liver biopsy (fortunately not too hard to do with the lump that had been my first hint being an easy target).

The results were supposed to take up to 5 business days, but Monday afternoon I got a call from a very happy oncologist. Results were already back and it seems like they were as good as possible for a bad situation. This was definitely my breast cancer returned, and it's likely to respond to hormone therapy, which she was having her nurse set up. The nurse called me around 3 - insurance had approved the request, and when could I come?

Conveniently, all of this is going on during a 2-week furlough from work, so I said "Whenever's good!" and she said "How's this afternoon?" So I've already had my first treatment. What's better than a shot in the butt? 2 shots in the butt!

BTW, everybody at NYU Langone has been great - I would understand if they were tired and stressed, but they didn't show it and I was given multiple assurances that I would still be taken care of, too.

Unfortunately, my understanding is that this isn't so much a licking-it kind of thing as a lifelong maintenance - monthly shots and pills for the rest of my life, unless research comes up with something better down the road (fingers crossed). If hormonal treatment doesn't work, we'll move on from there, but of course I'm hoping for good results. Welcoming thoughts, prayers, white light, healing vibes, whatever you care to offer.

And sincerely hoping to be sharing some more urban paddling adventures here before too much longer - Sebago is closed right now and social distancing is in effect, but things will hopefully get back to normal sometime in the next few months. At the moment I would be perfectly capable of going out & doing ten miles or more and I'm hoping we've started treatment early enough that that will continue to be the case.

So glad I got that last paddle in though!

And as I mentioned, I did get a boat ride out of this, and yes, I had my camera. East River pix coming soon!