Grandparent's Day

-
Today was Grandparent's Day at school, and our friend Chad (who also happens to be our pastor, almost-neighbor, and carpool driver) volunteered to go with Camden and Rory as soon as he realized they didn't have any grandparents in the area. They were SUPER excited, as you can see.

Untitled

Untitled

Uncle Michael and Aunt Liz also visited their rooms. It doesn't get much better than to have people loving on your kids.

While the kids were performing for the grandparents, I left "at the crack of dawn" (to quote Rory) to visit Vanderbilt's breast center. I think I mentioned before that my new oncologist really wanted me to get checked out and recommended that they treat me as if I tested positive for BRCA1 (otherwise known as the breast cancer gene). I loved the breast center, although I left feeling a little sick to my stomach as they told me their estimate was that I have a 50/50 chance of developing breast cancer. After I had a chance to digest it, I felt a little better since this is not really "new" news to me, just a little more direct . . . which seems to be Vanderbilt's style. For now, I am seeing a genetic counselor, having an MRI next week, and will see them every 6 months. I'm been repeating to myself something to the effect of "There's no need to borrow trouble; I'm fine today!"

Doctors have danced around our family's strange medical history for the last several years, but the nurse practitioner and doctor that I saw today were very forthright with the admission that my case is very interesting. She actually used the word "intriguing" although I feel like something a bit less positive would be a better descriptive. Instead of letting the front desk schedule my appointment with the genetic counselor, they were going to talk to her directly because I'm so interesting.

Today was only the beginning of multiple doctor's appointments over the next 10 days. I'm realizing again how good it has been to have some time off and praying for more. 


Comments

VinGirl said…
Sending you good thoughts. It sounds like they want to be totally on top of any potential developments, which is a good thing. :)
3:37 PM
Anonymous said…
We so missed being there for Grandparents Day. Glad Chad could stand in for us.
7:30 PM
Krista said…
Sounds like you have another good set of docs there to help take care of you - as well as a great network of friends and family. hugs!
9:02 PM
Unknown said…
Thanks for reminding me not to borrow trouble from tomorrow.
7:56 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Scoop

-
Our meeting with Dr. W today was fine. Not encouraging, but fine. I don't know why I expected better news, but I think it's hard not to hope that the bad news you hear is somehow wrong; that they've somehow made a mistake. Basically, the cancer is still the same as prior to chemo. Possibly a little larger, but he said it was hard to tell. He was glad that it had not returned to my bowel or colon (because that was a large part of my initial surgery), and my chest and lungs are still clear (apparently, this is the next place the cancer would go). It does not change my stage of cancer (still 3c), and remission is still a possibility, but he said that it would be very tough to get there.  There are several more drugs that we can try, which is good, but unfortunately they each have a success rate of only 25%. It's a little too early to be considering clinical trials because hospitals who hold the trials like for the patients to have tried the more main-stream drugs firs
Read more

Late Night Ramblings

-
Image
1. Thanks to Andrea for driving me to chemo today. I'm always a little anxious on the way in and the very few times I've had to drive myself, it's been a little lonely coming home. But not today. 2. A fellow chemo patient today thought I was in my 20's. Score.  ("score" would be a term I'm borrowing from Becky ) 3. I did not wear a scarf today to chemo, and all the nurses and doctors did a double take since they didn't recognize me. So wierd. I recognize me with hair, bald, and with a little puppy fluff. 4. Dr. W. is adding Avastin , a new drug which will help prevent cancer cells from growing, to my current Gemzar routine. Good news is that it won't make me feel any worse. Bad news is that in a small percentage of patients it causes severe side effects involving blood clots, kidney failure, ulcers, and holes in your bowel. Good times. 5. I've been instructed to head directly to my primary care doctor for blood pressure medic
Read more

Scenes from the Soccer Field

-
Image
So I may not have apologized yesterday about the number of pictures, but I am definitely going to today. Because  coughcough thirty coughcough just might be excessive. And probably my family will be the only ones who look at all of them. But I don't care. :) By the way, we completely lost and did not even score a goal yet again. Rory tried really, really hard. This team was head and shoulders bigger than we are, way more coordinated than 4 year olds should be and their coach kept their A team in the entire game. Even after scoring some 15 goals. Oh, well. Rory still enjoyed herself. Which way is the goal again? Notice her position in this picture. Notice how she passed the girl next to her? No, I am not competitive at all. Not sure where the other team is. Oh, wait. There they are. See how much bigger they are? You'll notice she almost always runs with her mouth open. Either that or her tongue hang
Read more