Today I had another super hard day. My port won’t draw blood but it seems to be fine to put the chemo in. Chemo is meant to happen tomorrow. Had an appointment with the breast surgeon and she gave me the bad news that after reviewing my MRI scans it seems that the AC chemo has been ineffective in reducing or downstaging my cancer. Also the bad news that I do in fact have inflammatory breast cancer. Although this was alluded to earlier it is the first time I got this as a proper diagnosis, one month into treatment.
I had felt like it was getting smaller and better but no whilst it feels a bit softer the tumour/cancer does not seem to have shrunk at all. So I have no idea what they will be putting in my semi functioning port tomorrow.
It has really upset me but at least I think I will be soon getting the targeted treatment, but maybe not tomorrow as it has to be approved by Medicare first.
I also had a trip in an ambulance last week cos I thought I might be having a heart attack, but it turned out it was just very bad heartburn and gas caused by eating way too much pasta. The heartburn drug made the nausea so much better. Anyway I have no idea what the oncology plan will be but it will hopefully involve Herceptin and Perjeta and hopefully my inflammatory/ HER2+ cancer will respond better to this.
The oncologist said if the cancer wasn’t showing progress they might switch to a surgery first plan however the surgeon said this would not serve the interests of my survival well at this stage.
I cried on the tram. Couldn’t help myself. Crying is public and in private tonight. Hadn’t cried for a whole month until this evening but it’s like I am letting all my feelings out. Thought I was being so strong and stoic but there’s only so much one can take.
