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Well, I’m sitting here in the cooling house at 5am in the morning – the fire has gone out and I suspect that it’s probably around 2oC outside but I don’t want to put the air conditioner on or relight the fire in case I wake the kids.
It’s the morning after Paclitaxol No. 8 so I’ve made it 2/3 of the way through this part of the chemo treatment. Woohoo! Coping mostly okay at present although I wish the tell-tale tingles in my fingers and toes would stop. That’s the thing that’s most likely to pause or stop the treatment if anything does. Tony Michele, my oncologist, was happy to do the treatment yesterday as last week it was still mild and intermittent, but that can change at any time. He explained that when the chemo starts affecting the longest nerves in the body, which are the ones that run to the fingers and toes, that’s a sign to proceed with extreme caution. If the issue becomes constant, I will have to have a break to recover and possibly lower the dose, or stop altogether to prevent the possibility of the neuropathy becoming permanent. I’m hoping that I can make it at least until No. 9 before that happens (best case would be all the way to 12) as that’s the magic number – the last 3 are just extra insurance. But apparently, it’s pretty common for this to happen. Fingers crossed – while I can still cross them!
On Wednesday, I had an appointment with a genetic oncologist. I don’t know what type of breast cancer my sister, Lori, had and I haven’t been able to find out details, but it’s always been in the back of my mind as to whether it might be familial. Given that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer, the specialists have been quick to point out that it is highly likely that it’s just coincidence. But I have still been anxious and concerned that if it is genetic, I may have a time bomb waiting to go off in the other breast and that even with increased monitoring, it may be difficult to detect early. Even when it was discovered, my cancer was hard to see in all of the tests.
To get to the point, the genetic oncologist discussed my family history (which is a mess of generations and unknowns – apparently not uncommon as cancer was often not talked about) but her main point was that Lori was 32 when diagnosed which is really young, I am 54 which apparently is still on the young side, Lori constitutes 100% of my siblings, and in her opinion, this is highly likely to have some genetic basis. Most people know of the BRCA 1 & 2 genes that predispose to breast cancer but there are a number of others, and it seems only about 1/4 of these have been truly attributed to breast cancer. There are a lot more genes that are likely or possibles that are still considered to be “normal” until proven otherwise.
The upshot of this is that I get to decide whether to take the blood test to see what I am dealing with. The results from the test could be conclusive or could go in the “wait and see until we know more” box. The results could be scary stuff but could also tell me whether I’m at a high risk of developing another primary in the left breast, ovarian cancer, or should be getting screened for other types of cancer more carefully. Of course, these genes just predispose us to cancers, with lesser or greater propensity, and I suspect that as years go by, it’ll be found that most of us have some of them – it’s just whether the link is found and followed.
While in some ways this news just confirmed what has been lurking in the back of my mind for a long time (and to be honest, a murky fear for many years), I was surprised how shaky I was after the appointment, and now, how surreal it feels to hear this stated by an expert in the field. I guess that you get so used to being told that you’re jumping at shadows that when someone with a torch shows you that some of those shadows really might be monsters, it takes a bit of getting used to.
It has actually been quite a long and tiring week – more so than usual. And looking at the time, I should probably think about turning that air conditioner on to get the chill off the house for when the kids get up.