- Adventures and More Adventures

Well, they aren't kidding when they say having cancer is a full-time job! Today I clocked in at the hospital at 10:30 am and finally clocked out around 4:30 pm. Where's my paycheck?!?

First stop was a CT Scan of my chest area. My friend texted me while I was waiting for the scan to ask how I was. "Good!" I texted back. "Just getting a CT Scan to see if there are any other tumors."

I know I shouldn't have been texting in an area filled with high-tech hospital machinery, but, well, sometimes a girl just has to do what a girl has to do. One guy looked a little electrocuted when he came out of his test, but I acted innocent, like I had nothing to do with it. I'm good at acting innocent.

They inserted a needle thingy in my hand so they could run some way-cool iodine through my body while they were taking the scan. 

Then they gave me this yummy stuff to drink. Now that I think of it, maybe they actually did see me texting and gave me this drink kind of as a punishment. Hmm.

Then, after three of those drinks, they called my name and slid me into this big MRI-type machine. A Very Nice Automated Male Voice tells you what to do. "Take a deep breath and hold it" and "Breathe!" are his two basic commands. He sounds very kind and doesn't sound like he would get mad if you disobeyed him in any way, but I played it safe and did what he said.

Anyways, guess what? I passed the test! I must've, because they let me go when it was finished. I find out next week if they saw anything other than the regular stuff. You guys must all be praying super hard (um, except for those of you who are atheists - in your case, you must be sending out some mega-heavy good thoughts) because I'm not in the least worried about any of this....just very peaceful.

So then, it was on to my Radiation Consultation with Dr. Muanza, a sweetie-pie African doctor who studies the best candidates for radiation therapy.

And guess what? Again I hit the jackpot - yay! He decided I qualify for 5 weeks of radiation, every day, Monday to Friday, for one hour per day! So cool. I get to have my right incision radiated and yes, just a wee bit sunburned, to make sure those yukky cancer cells get nuked to a crisp.

But I don't have to tackle that one for now - the radiation comes after a month-long hiatus at the end of the chemo part of my therapy, which puts it at August 2010.

From there, it was up to X-Ray to get my lungs looked at (also looking for trouble spots). That took three minutes, so X-Ray wins the prize today for being the quickest test on the block.

And finally, we made a pit stop at Oncology. They needed a blood sample to see how I'm doing, and Genetics wanted some vials cuz they're giving me a $4,000 blood test to screen for the BRCA 1 & BRCA 2 gene - basically, they're checking to see if I have the genetic marker for breast cancer or whatever.

So my way-cool Oncology Nurse Kathy did the deed and took three vials of blood. (By the way, that $4,000 bill goes to the Quebec government, not me - phew!)

There are certain ethnicities at high risk for breast cancer / the BRCA gene, and Quebecois women with the French connection are in that category. My mother was half-French, and she had breast cancer twice, and so did her sister (twice). Polish women are also at risk, as are Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish women.

So if any of you are in these categories (or even if you're not!), LADIES, GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS NOW!!! My cancer was very aggressive and had started to SPREAD into the lymph nodes, which is why I have to get all this chemo & radiation done. If I had caught it just a bit earlier, I could have avoided some of this preventative treatment, which is so incredibly time-consuming and inconvenient.

SO DON'T PUT IT OFF, LADIES!!! TAKE IT FROM ME!!! GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS!!!

In Oncology, I bumped into Brahms (cool name, eh? That's his first name!), who is one of the many Social Worker at the Jewish General. Now, I don't tend to like cliffhangers, but you are going to have to come back to this blog again and hear me tell Brahms' story about what specific kind of Social Worker he is. It is just too funny and we crack each other up every time we see each other. But more about that another day. Ha! Got your interest, eh?

Well, the fatigue in week two of my first chemo cycle is lots better than it was last week, but it's now 11 pm and I must yield to my pillow.

May you be blessed, and stay tuned for more Adventures With Wendy!