I am very happy and feel like I won the lottery because people with triple negative breast cancer have a 50/50 chance of having one or both of the breast cancer genes - that's like flipping a friggin' coin odds - not great. I wasn't too worried about it until the few days leading up to my appointment, I had successfully put it out of my mind over the past few weeks but I was a Nervous Nelly walking into the appointment. So needless to say on Friday when we found out Dom and I high fived each other and afterwards I did a happy dance in the elevator. These results are also good news for my family - my parents, sister and cousins too.
The genetic counsellor also did a calculation on what my chances are of developing cancer (other than Triple Negative) and determined that based on my family history and my details I have an 18% chance of developing another type of cancer up to the age of 80. That might sound like a lot but its not actually, she said that for every member of your family that has cancer that increases your risk 3-5% then there are your own factors - weight, age, overall health, physical fitness level - that all influences that - so you can't really do your own calculation but you could get an idea based on the number of blood relatives that have had cancer. Also of note, people who smoke are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer than those who do not smoke - that's a scary stat for you smokers who are reading this...Basically she said that I'm in good shape and 18% chance isn't bad for the next 43 years.
Triple negative has its own recurrence rate and its the highest in the first three years of having it - around 30 to 35% chance of it recurring somewhere else in the body (that's called metastatic cancer - its still Triple Negative breast cancer cells - they just attach somewhere else in the body) - but that stat also changes depending on how well your tumour responds to the chemo - if it responds really well and maybe even disappears then you are in a good place. So based on that, so far so good for me because since this new chemo my tumour is decreasing in size rapidly. After the three years, the chances of it drops dramatically too - so as long as I make it through the first three years, I'm rockin'.
That's a lot of stats so let's move on and get back to last week - on Wednesday we went to Montreal to see Alt-J. If you don't know who this band is, they are a toe-tapping British Indie band and it was by far, the best concert I've been to in a long time - years probably. It was at the Metropolis in Montreal which is an old theatre so we stood in the balcony. The main reason the concert was so good was that everyone in the entire place was completely into the concert - no one was chatting through the concert - everyone was singing along to every song and honestly, the crowd was yelling so loud for an encore that I had to plug my ears. And Alt-J is a toe-tapping, sing along, good band.
We stayed at a really cool boutique hotel in Montreal too - called Zero Hotel.
We spent our free time going to brew pubs so Dom could try beer - of course the only photos we took were of the beers that Dom tried - here's one with a snippet of me in the background.
Our friend Marc took care of Lola and May while we were gone which was much appreciated - it was great to get away for a night.
On Thursday we had to get back to Ottawa for my PICC cleaning and an appointment with Dr. Dent. Dr. Dent had a student with her that day - so the student came in to see me before her and I swear she was like 16 years old but as I frequently remind Dom, people that look like teenagers to us are probably about 10 years old than they look. Anyway, she seemed nice except she called me Ms. Knight which made me feel old - I told her to call me Melanie. So we chatted about how better I felt with this type of chemo and that my side effects are virtually non-existent. I told her that I go to acupuncture and massage and thought this helped and she agreed about the massage but didn't really acknowledge that I said the word "acupuncture" which was weird and yet completely consistent with everyone else at the Cancer Centre. I told her I wanted Dr. Dent to examine me (she hasn't done so since just before Thanksgiving when I went in freaking out about my swollen lymph nodes which ended up not be swollen once I saw her).
So Dr. Dent came in and examined me - what I mean by this is that she took a look at my tumour - and she was a bit more chatty than usual but I credit that to her having a student. She was really impressed with my baby legwarmer over my PICC line too. Anyway she was pleasantly surprised at how much my tumour has shrunk. She was like "wow your tumour was about 6 cm when you first came here and now it must be about 1 cm". Remember I said Dr. Kehoe joked that Dr. Dent doesn't carry around a tape measure? Well she should, because her eyeball measurements are not accurate - my tumour is more like 3 cm now - did I mention I have a tape measure and measure my tumour regularly? Anyway, this was my internal conversation in my head, I did not tell Dr. Dent that she needs to get herself a tape measure, I just didn't get overly excited when she said 1 cm. Regardless she was so pleased that I was doing so well she said she didn't need to see me before my next chemo and that she'd see me before my last chemo treatment - did I mention that's December 12? Yes!!!
Friday was chemo day and it was a full day with a blood test, genetics appointment, then chemo. Dom got me settled for chemo and took a picture because he said I looked like a grandmother - I corrected him and said Nanny Knight (that's what some of my friend jokingly call me). Ironically, the real Nanny Knight is on side bar to the right.
I look really tired in this photo but I think that's because we had to get up early for all of our appointments that day - and its my lack of eyebrows, they are still fading - sigh. Anyway, right after Dom left, Nanny Knight got a phone call from security at the hospital who told me that someone had just turned in my wallet - I didn't even know I lost my wallet - that sounds like a Nanny Knight thing to say, I know. The only thing I thought was that as we were walking to chemo, my purse felt light and I was immediately proud of myself for having a purse that wasn't overly heavy! Security said that everything seemed intact - even the $20 bill was still in there - so I told them that since I was hooked up to the chemo machine and Dom just went home, we wouldn't be able to pick up my wallet for a few hours. About 15 minutes later, in walks a security guard to hand deliver my wallet to me - what customer service! I thanked him and double checked to ensure that everything was there - and of course it was. This is what I call karma - because you know what? If I found someones wallet - I would take it to security too - and if I worked in security, I would have delivered a lost wallet to its owner too.
We had a quiet weekend of running errands and just hanging out. I didn't sleep well Friday night because of the steroid shot they give you when you get chemo but I made up for it on Saturday sleeping for 12 hours. On Sunday night Kim and Dave brought over some dinner with a thank you card from their wedding and a gift certificate for The Keg which is so great - we're going to use it on a night out over the Christmas holidays since this will be a quieter Christmas than usual.
I'll stop there but with one more winner of the cancer present competition - not that there is one but if there was, this would be a winner. The best cancer card I've gotten so far from the Petitts - Doug and Charlene - who are my mom's good friends. I love this card, totally my sense of humour. I don't need to say anything more...
