Ringing the bell on chemo

This past Monday was my 11th and last chemotherapy treatment. At the end, the nurse handed me a beautiful Tibetan bell to ring, which is a custom at the clinic when a person has her or his final treatment. It was a very nice feeling to ring that bell.

When I got home I was feeling a bit queasy. Up to this point, there was one chemo side effect that I had escaped. Well, forget that. I had the most horrible diarrhea all evening. Even prep for a colonoscopy wasn't as bad as this. When it finally subsided around 9 p.m., I was too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep. I was still feeling a bit sick to my stomach the next day; but seem to be OK now.

I met with my oncologist before my chemo treatment, and asked her a lot of questions about surgery and follow-up radiation and medication. She confirmed that a lumpectomy followed by radiation gives the same result as a mastectomy…reducing the chances of recurrence to 10%. We discussed the side effects and risks. I've decided to go with the lumpectomy.

My surgery is scheduled for June 19. The plan is to get me in at the crack of dawn, subject me to some unpleasant procedures, render me unconscious, remove the remnants of the tumor, check my lymph nodes and remove one or two of those, sew up the wounds, and send me home by the end of the day. If any complications arise, David will have to take me back to the hospital. God forbid that I should have professional care overnight. Might cut into the insurance company's profits.

I have a few weeks to heal and will then start radiation treatments five days a week for six weeks. That is going to be soooo convenient.

I admit to feeling some anxiety over the surgery. It seems that I am constantly running into reminders of death. I was waiting for a streetcar the other day, for example, when I noticed a newspaper box for the The Portland Mercury, which had a cover story on "How to Die in Portland." Then we saw a film in which Bill Paxton was one of the actors, and I remembered that he died this year from complications following surgery. I opened the newspaper and saw two obituaries for women who have died of breast cancer. The rational side of me says I don't have a lot to worry about, and I have been doing my best to keep a positive attitude and build up my strength. (I finally went back to the gym this past week.) But I feel that I have to take care of some things like updating my will and organizing a list of all my various financial accounts and explaining them to David.

On the other hand, I have started working on a client's newsletter that I will publish in July, organizing a silent auction that will take place in August, and thinking about where to go on a "road trip" in September so it's not like I am steeped in gloom. It's just this sense of a cloud hanging over me.