The Mayo Clinic

Decided to keep the appointment at the Mayo. We flew out to Minnesota on Tuesday pm, leaving our kids behind for the first time.... it was wierd. Emily gave me one of her favorite stuffed animals for the trip (Soapy, a pocket sized black bear.)

OH and I had some great news just before we left town -- my PET/CT scan was negative! No metastases were seen in other organs -- phew! Makes this thing seem a lot more beatable. It's pretty big as it is.....

Anyway yesterday was our first full day here. It was really packed -- and yet the only hard time was at the beginning, because of the low blood sugar. They had sent me a letter telling me to fast starting at 7pm the night before -- not even water -- and had scheduled me to see the doctor at 8am, do some other stuff, and have my blood drawn at 10:30am. But it was too long for me -- especially since I had really been fasting since 6pm; we had to get to the airport after that (and of course I had been late to finish packing so I hadn't been able to eat a whole lot at dinnertime.) I would have said I didn't really eat breakfast much, but apparently that's really different than eating NOTHING....My sense of humor was gone by the time I got to the desk.... Iwas afraid I wouldn't be able to pay attention to the doctor. So they sent me to do the bloodwork lickety split and pointed me to the cafeteria ... and after a plate of eggs and potatoes (it was the potatoes that did it!) I was myself again.

We met the primary care doctor first. She coordinates my care. We saw the surgeon next, which was a surprise. (They had scheduled one for Monday, two days after we need to be back home....) The surgeon herself was great. She's young and sharp and bright -- I could ask her 4 things in a row, all complicated discission starters, and when she'd finish answering the first 2 and I'd have forgotten the rest, and she'd answer them. She was sure and firm and up front about her opinions.... I can't express what it was about her, but I just wanted to say yes, do it. You will be great. Fortunately I happened to have my detail oriented biologist handy (EVERYONE should have one of these while going through breast cancer treatment planning!) and he remembered to ask her where she'd trained and how many breast surgeries she performed every year, how many years, and how many with lymph nodes...... She passed both of our tests with flying colors, and didn't seemthe least bit offended.

We also saw a medical oncologist who worked with us going through all kinds of possible alternatives to the standard treatment..... Adriamycin, one of the first chemo drugs I'm going to be on, has an effect on the heart I don't like..... In the end I am going to take it, because there is no other drug that has proven as effective, and if I don't get the cancer cured I won't have to worry about not recovering as well from a heart attack in later years.... and it won't be for the reason I want! I will be able to change the taxol for abraxane, though, i think -- they are basically the same drug in different solutions -- but the difference will make the steroid unneccessary which is usually administered with taxol .

Steroids raise intra-ocular pressure, and the only other serious condition I have is glaucoma. I've had it half my life, and it's very well controlled, but before it was discovered I had already lost most of my overlapping vision.... my buffer, if you will. (There's a lot that you can see with both eyes at the same time -- try looking at a fixed point with one eye closed and then the other. The upper range of what you can see with both eyes is what I've lost. I can still see almost everything, as long as I keep both my eyes open.....There is a gap in the mid-upper section, so that I might walk into a skinny tree branch that had no leaves if I was looking down.... ) Anyway there is really no wiggle room now -- I am very careful about my eye pressure. I'm lucky there is an alternative that doesn't need steroids.

I have been told my blogs are long.... so I will stop here. I have some fun news though -- see next blog!