After oncologist meeting

We met with Dr. Birhiray, the oncologist, this morning.  He really impressed us.  Answered questions, took time with us, explained things, etc.  We are very happy with our doctor selections so far.

he agrees with the course of action being - chemo, surgery, radiation and for the same reasons Dr. Schmidt.

Jill will have her first chemo session next wednesday.  The overall plan at this time is 16 weeks of treatment, every two weeks.  First 8 weeks (4 treatment) is the A treatment and the second is the T treatment.  I am not 100% sure on those letters being accurate or what they mean.  Will know more soon.  But the first 4 treatments will be around 3 hours each.  The last 4 will be about 6 hours each.  Ugh.

Jill will lose her hair.  We know that.  It will be hard, but she will get through it.

We have a big stack of RX meds to fill.  Anti nausea (like 3 varieties) and an anti anxiety med.  maybe something else I am missing.  I am sure Jill's pharmacist sister and brother in law will get a lot of questions.

They are going to put a port in her, which is like a valve into her vanes that can be used to draw blood and provide medicine.  If this were me going through this, I might see what would happen if I poured beer directly in . . . but Jill is a hell of a lot smarter than me.  We are not sure when that port will be installed.  it will be done by a surgeon.

Monday Jill is getting a breast MRI to know for sure if this is anywhere else in her breasts or lymph nodes.

Tuesday will is getting a CT and full body scan to look for cancer in other parts of her body.  On that note, the chest xray came back clean, which covers the lungs.  Yeah.  Tuesday she might go to the genetic testing place to find out if she has the breast cancer gene.  If so, that will impact her treatment down the road and will probably mean a double mastectomy as well as the removal of her ovaries.

As a side note - Jill and I made a decision that we are not going to have any more kids, so we are not going to go down the road of collecting her eggs.  Even if her ovaries are in tact, her age and this treatment would probably shut the door on that anyway. We thought about it, prayed about it and came to the decision together.  I am posting this just to put people's minds at ease . . . many cancer patients never think about this and then are sad they did not get an egg before they started - because they were never told.

On Wednesday, Jill will meet with the oncologist and then start chemo.  Her first treatment will be at 86th street at the main hospital due to scheduling.  After that, she will likely do them on Tuesday's at the breast center where all the patients will be breast cancer patients (as opposed to all kinds of cancer patients).  We have been told that 4 or 5 days after is the worst day as far as how she will feel.   The tentative plan is to do tuesdays so that the weekends will be when she will feel worst and can rest.  This will hopefully allow her to continue working, which is her desire.

In addition, we met St.V's nurse navigator today.  She is our go to for anything.  We have one with Riverview too, but now I am not sure Jill will get chemo at Riverview.  But things might change, you never know.