We schedule a quick meeting with Dr Crippen to discuss "what now" - we know nothing needs to happen for a month, the surgery needs to heal, so we go in feeling up to speed with the problem, in control and good about moving on to step two - chemo.
That feeling lasts, oh, 10 minutes, and we leave an hour later with the schedule of treatment in hand - and more bloody statistics about whether I am likely to die or not. Do you know, I don't want to hear those - every 1% is a person and only The Thing knows whether I am going to be that person or not. I. DON'T. WANT. TO. KNOW. Unless you can tell me there is 100% success rate. I will do the best I can, and be as positive as I can be throughout this - but I just don't need to hear the stats thanks.
We leave with me in tears again, and decide we need a new oncologist.
Onc #2 Superior Sage
We meet SS on the advice of a number of expats. She immediately looks at the treatment schedule suggested by Dr Crippen and says "He knows F all". OK, she didn't use those words, quite, but thats what she meant and also what we heard. She apparently invented the treatment he was suggesting and it simply wasn't aggressive enough for The Thing that I have. She suggested a whole new approach......
Only two things against her: the nurse was playing on her iPhone while taking my blood pressure. I'm sorry, but not acceptable (I have decided to be very demanding about all this) and also, SS didn't acknowledge that J even existed even though he was right there all the time. I know this is all about me, me, me - but actually The Thing has happened to both of us and OUR life, not just to me. Failure to understand that has to be a bad thing.
Also parking was a nightmare.
So now we have two totally different treatment approaches, one apparently from a total fuckwit who wouldn't know his breast from his boiled egg (but who was recommended by Lovely Prof T.....hmmmm.....disturbing). We decide we need a third opinion and go and see...
Onc #3 Consulting Chemo (CC)
Off to see CC on the advice of one of J's partners, who M-I-L is a big honcho at the Singapore BCF. I love her immediately because she says that I am stage 1b, not stage 2 after all - this is because although one lymph node is positive, it is only microscopically positive (ie The Thing there is less than a millimetre big). 5 years ago they would not have seen it and so I would have been classed as stage 1. Also, she checks the details with the lab technicians, and although the lump was 2cm big, The Thing itself was only 1.8cm. This makes a big difference to staging and prognosis, apparently.
I love her more because she agrees that this is a technicality, but that it just feels better and also it feels as though its the first positive news we've had for ever. She talks to us both. A lot. We are going to have to get used to this because this is what CC does. She explains. She gives options and opinions. She makes sure we understand what decisions we need to make, and what the key points of our decision are. Frustratingly at this point, she explains that:
- either of the two regimes are appropriate because I'm a borderline case
- she also invented Dr Crippens suggestion (!) and tends towards it
- she will get further advice from around the world
We've got weeks before we have to make any kind of decision so we go home and think about it.
This is a black period, and hard to explain how it feels.... To have to make a gamble - or choice, call it what you will - between two things, when it is your life which is the stake. It's like being blind and being asked to decide which painting is real and which is fake - in the knowledge that they may kill you if you get it wrong. The thing that we are starting to learn about The Thing is that there are no certainties, you can never be right (or wrong), it's all judgment and the balance of probabilities - hence all the horrible statistics you have to take in.
Anyway, we all come to a decision that I will be taking 3 cycles of FEC (3 weeks each) followed by 3 cycles of Taxotere (also 3 weekly cycles) with a grand finale of 25 days radio. This is, weirdly, the treatment recommended by Dr Crippen, so it all comes full circle - but he still is not forgiven.
All due to start the week before Easter. It feels great to know what we are doing, and to have a plan.
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
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