A Look into My Breast Cancer Journey

By mid-August I met my oncologist. Dr. Chirag Amin, MD with TN Oncology in Lawrenceburg. He explained that I had a large stage 2B tumor. I finally had my full diagnosis and we got to see the MRI of my breast. Thankful for him & his entire staff. They loved me like they knew me through my darkest times and they laughed at my jokes. On the early morning of 9/2/22 I was put to sleep & woke up a cyborg. I’m only kidding but that little port that caused me tremendous pain for months helped save my life. 10 days later I started my 16 round, 2 part regime of chemo.

I’m going to bore you with the words & names & doses… I had 8 rounds of immunotherapy. There were 12 rounds of taxol, 4 rounds of carboplatin along with high doses of Benadryl, steroids & anti-nausea meds starting 9/12/22. This was the first of two parts of the regime. I went weekly for the taxol & every 3rd week got the Keytruda & carboplatin. I went Mondays & was alone for each infusion at the small Lawrenceburg office. The idea of being alone at first was scary, I have to be there all alone with no one I know while I have chemicals pumped into me? Cool. I look back now with gratitude to be with myself and process what I was experiencing without having to watch someone I love watch me suffer.

At week 13 I had lost all my hair, and couldn't feel Diane anymore and was losing my eyebrows & lashes. I had lost roughly 10 lbs. The heartburn made eating impossible, so I chose to intentionally fast for the majority of my treatment, and only eating when I felt it necessary.

I had a mid-treatment check-in with my surgeon to find that the tumor had clinically shrunk to being unfindable. She also informed me she was leaving her practice & moving home. GREAT, now I had to start my surgeon search. It was rocky, however, the universe & her timing saved my life & future with my surgical team! I was able to be treated out of Williamson Medical center in Franklin.

I met the incredible Dr. Rebecca Baskin, MD, who is also a survivor as well & knew I had met the other human that would save my life. I came in hot knowing radiation was not the route for me. I knew I wanted a Bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction with implants. We discussed the best course of action & set the date 4/19. Plans were a nipple and skin sparing bilateral mastectomy with expanders placed for a follow up exchange & fat grafting in the future.

I continued on to my second part of the regime, continued the additional 4 doses of Keytruda, & we changed from taxol & carbo to, DRUM ROLL PLEASE, The Red Devil, Angel, the SECRET Sauce. Jk. & cyclophosphamide. I needed 4 of them bad boys. My first dose was on 12/5, I had had my final taxol dose the week before. I handled the drugs like a champ until the 3rd day I couldn’t get out of bed. I felt like I had the flu without a fever. That was Friday. I had my follow-up after my first dose that coming Monday, thankfully.

My blood work showed my white blood cells were in the pits, I was given a BOOSTER pack of Neulasta to help keep the WBC up so I didn’t get an infection or worse. After that it was pretty smooth sailing. I’d get my injections, and once the steroids would wear off, I’d sleep a few days & then be back to “normal,” hehe normal.

I had my final chemo on February 13, 2023. I hit the GONG, donated by my sorority sister in honor of her mother who passed away from breast cancer!  My family was there and it was sweet. 16/16 & I was ready to rest & recuperate until mid April for surgery.

Preparing for an amputation is interesting. I did a lot of journaling & meditating; the psychological journey that is breast cancer is not commented on enough. I was bald from head to toe, I lost years of muscle mass, I was yellow from WBC issues & had lost 15 lbs by the end of chemo. Now I was going to lose the things that kept my kids alive the first year they existed?? Cancer should come with an automatic side of therapy, substitutions can be discussed.

The day had arrived. We had met Dr. Natasha Luckey, MD months prior & she and her staff always made me feel supported, beautiful & heard. We met with both surgeons, they drew lines on me, told me what they were doing & gave me nothing but positive vibes. This was HAPPENING!!

I woke up 6/7 hours later. My parents and partner were there, besties came by & brought food & shoes. The nurses were incredible. On 4/27/23 Dr Baskin called and notified me that I had a Pathological Complete response to chemo and there was no evidence of disease.

I spent the next several weeks in a chair. If I could sleep, it was in that chair. The pain was managed well and I took it easy. Roughly 6 weeks post surgery I got bit by a bug in the upper area of my left breast. It got red and inflamed, and then within a day or two my breast became red, but never warm to the touch, and I never had ANY other symptom. This lasted until July, when I was scheduled for my exchange surgery to silicone implants, fat grafting and port removal.

I was on bactrim antibiotic for weeks. I was unable to go outside because of the drugs and was experiencing some intense depression after spending time inside for the last year and the obvious loss and started looking into therapy.

The second recon surgery did not go well at all. I’ll spare the details, just know that only one of the three things that were mentioned above happened on 7/26/23, I only got my implants. A miscommunication occurred and I had to be told this by her as I was coming out of anesthesia. I was then quickly moved to my side room to be discharged. I immediately became nauseous and threw up, multiple times, for the remainder of the day. This to me was pretty traumatizing and it continued the next day. I was so upset, this added to the intrusive thoughts and awful emotions I had conquered in chemo like a boss but the surgeries were different.

“I think you should wait until January for your next surgery,” Dr Luckey told me. This was after telling me that the mesh bra in my left breast had not taken as it should have and that she had to put a new one in and she thought that that might have been the cause of the red breast, still unconfirmed.  I went home and healed, this recovery was easier, no drains or vacuum packs. No having someone clean your drains and help you count the amount to track for removal. I could shower sooner than a week the second time which was nice but I still had to blow dry the tape on my scars.

By the end of August I was removed from the register of cyborgs and had my port removed in the office, awake, it was intense but worth it. That purple and white heart shaped mechanism saved my life. The scar was worth it.