time again to check yourself or someone you love for signs of breast cancer
this week i had an echocardiagram to see how much my heart has recovered + a bone density scan to see how much bone i've lost or gained. did you know that breast cancer chemotherapy causes 8.8% bone loss in the 1st year + a few % more every year after that than you'd normally lose? that's an important reason to keep doing weight bearing exercises during chemotherapy + as part of your lifestyle. i do a cardio weight training class 3 times a week, plus a cancer survivor dance class 2 times a week.
next week, i have a mammogram, ultrasound, + lymphedema therapist consultation/evaluation. i'm excited to meet the lymphedema therapist + get my treatment started to reduce the lymph fluid that swells my right arm, underarm, side, back + front. the lymph fluid from that whole area is supposed to drain to my right underarm lymph nodes, but they were removed along with my mastectomy, so the fluid collects + it's painful.
the treatment will involve daily massage for a week to drain the area + redirect the lymph to other lymph nodes, then compression bandaging for another week, changing the bandages every day. then i'll wear an arm sleeve from the time i wake up til i go to sleep for the rest of my life.
i'm grateful for my arm + excited to get the swelling + pain under control, so i'm not limited in what i can do, including computer time. i'm also really excited to be planning my daughter's birthday party + figuring out her school plans for this fall. i registered her at a nearby public school, but her papers were returned + we were told we had to go to a different town for public school, which turned out to be in an epa top 20 superfund cleanup site for asbestos, so we applied to the school district lottery for the allowed 2 other schools, but we didn't win, so i'm in a hopeful panic for kindergarten opportunites for her to begin in the fall. i think all the private schools are probably booked by now + homeschooling sounds really rough, but so far i've found a web based math class for gifted children through a university, + i'll build her schoolwork around that + keep trying for a private school.
the moral is, catch breast cancer early, so you can concentrate on living :)
illustration: alexander girard
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