A Diet to Die For! Breast Cancer in Canada.

Honestly, I really think my immune system has left for a vacation, and forgot to take me with it. I also would have liked someone to spread some fairy dust on me so I could nap from age 45 to 55, but that’s another rant for another time … I suspect most women will understand that sentiment whether they have cancer or not.

Within 24 hours of being discharged from having a radical mastectomy, I got a really bad cold that lasted almost until a few days ago — close to 2 weeks.

There were times I thought the hospital intentionally gave me the cold so I could continually cough as they asked us to in the pre-surgery video.

The drugs prescribed also gave me unsettling symptoms:

• The percocet for pain made me both itchy and nauseous — some of the itchiness may have also been from the morphine drip in the hospital — I’m sure there was residue of it pumping through my veins for a few days after being discharged.
• The antibiotics I had to take 4 times a day caused extremely loose stool and very frequent bowel movements.To say the least, I didn’t need the stool softener prescribed.  This problem is quite normal with antibiotics and I lived 50 years thinking I was allergic to them. It wasn’t until Dr. Ciara explained that antibiotics kill good bacteria, along with the bad … it was a moment of clarity that I can’t believe I didn’t have before.

Thank goodness I still had some cough syrup with codeine in it for the bad cold I had in October, and also had Symbicort for the wheezing this cold caused.

In the early hours this morning, I was shivering … and shivering … and shivering.

Oh no, I now may have the Flu! What next? Locusts?

I didn’t get a Flu shot this year because of all this other stuff going on.

Man, do I need some time off after this is all over … just to recover again!

Update: March 1, 2009.

Since going to the doctor on Thursday afternoon, it’s likely I had flu-like symptoms due to the leaking incision — see post entitled White Women Wear Weaves for information on what’s going on with my wound. I’m back on antibiotics and no longer feel like I’m coming down with the Flu.

I still haven’t quite figured out how to organize this blog and what everything means, but at least I’m more organized than Canada’s Health Care System.

Throughout all the testing I was going through and  in all the months it took to complete the tests, my breast cancer tumour was doubling in size every few weeks.

I’m not an intellectual giant by any standard, but didn’t it occur to anyone that spending months on testing might be a bad thing for the cancer growing in me? Apparently not. By the time I was diagnosed in November, it still took 3 months to get a date for surgery.

In no particular order, these are some of the tests and/or doctors I had seen:

• September, 2008: Annual physical which included a mammogram.
• October, 2008: Received letter saying my mammogram was clear.
• October, 2008: I also had a very bad cold at this time and Dr. Ciara (family doctor = fictitious name) sent me for a chest x-ray.
• Dr. Ciara: she initially thought I had a blocked duct or cyst because the Mammogram in September came back clear — I found the painful lump in October: just a few short weeks after the Mammogram. Did you know that by the time you have found a lump in your breast, it has likely been growing for up to 10 years? This is a typical scenario for women who have already gone through menopause (I’m only peri-menopausal which means I still menstruate).
• After the anti-inflammatory drugs Dr. Ciara prescribed which didn’t do anything obviously, she got me an appointment for an ultrasound the same day — this is now about 4 or 5 weeks after discovering the lump.

Dr. Ciara, before I go any further, is fabulous! She really made sure I was seen by specialists within days!

• November, 2008: Ultasound — the Lab Doctor indicated that he didn’t see any fluid that would have indicated a cyst or blocked duct, and wanted me to have a biopsy.
• December, 2008 (4 days after Ultrasound): I met with Dr. Indiscreet, a surgical oncologist.
• December, 2008 (1 week later): needle biopsy in hospital.
• December, 2008 (next day): I kept the original surgical oncologist’s appointment with Dr. Ewan (thankfully!)
• December, 2008: meeting with Dr. Chemo
• January, 2009: various follow-ups with all the Doctors involved.

From here, there are tons of other appointments done at the hospital:

• CT Scan (3-4 hours)
• MRI (1-2 hours)
• Bone Scan (5-6 hours)
• Echocardiogram (1-2 hours)
• Chest X-Ray — this would have been my 3rd chest x-ray! In June, I saw a dermatologist for another issue and she thought I might have had asthma as a child (I didn’t). The 2nd chest x-ray was just a month or 2 from this one. Would you believe that because the previous chest x-rays were not completed at the hospital, they wanted me to have another one? Couldn’t they have just asked me to pick up the film at the lab, which is across the street from the hospital? Talk about a waste of time (mine) and money (the government’s)
• Pre-Surgery (up to 6-8 hours).  First you stand in line to register at the pre-surgery clinic and they give your file to carry around. Next stop is another waiting area to meet with a nurse. Next stop is chest x-ray.  Next is blood work (Lots of blood work — up to 30 vials of blood). I don’t have any heart problems so didn’t need to see the anesthesiologist.

The list goes on … the majority of the time spent is waiting … and waiting … and waiting. Bring bottled water and a good thick book to read.

When my mother had cancer in the 1990s (see blog page That was Then. This is Now …), all the testing was completed within a matter of days in the hospital.

It seems that all costs and responsibilities of our health care is passed on to  individuals.

Not only do I have to deal with the fact I now have breast cancer, I have to figure out how to earn a living while going to all these appointments … could they make it any more stressful?