PET scan

Wednesday, March 20, Kevin and I drove up to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake.
Such a big scary building!

So we check in, and wait a minute and then they come out to get me. They tell Kevin he can't come back with me.  Neither of us was happy about that. We knew not in the scan room, but we thought he could be with me until the scan. Nope

So we go back and they put an i.v. in my arm and pump some radioactive stuff through my veins. So this is why Kevin couldn't come with me. I was radioactive.  After that, they have you sit in this very dim room and do absolutely nothing. No playing on your phone, no music no talking for 75 minutes! You can't really sleep cause they give you this giant nasty thing to drink while you wait.

So I'd been fasting and then this drink, and boy did I have to go to the bathroom! Finally they let me go and then we go into the scan room. They pump some contrast through my veins and move me in and out of the tunnel. It was only about 20 minutes and then they sent me home. And then the wait begins,

Honestly, I felt quite peaceful and felt like everything was going to come back clear and free (except for what we already knew)

Thursday morning March 21, Dr. Tittensor calls me.  "Do you have a minute to talk?"  yeah let me pull the car over.
Kristi unfortunately we found cancer in many places. It has spread to your liver and to some lymph nodes near the liver. and it has spread to many places in your bones.
Your ribs, your chest, your scapula, your arm your leg, several on your spine, etc.

Because you are now officially in stage 4, your cancer is not curable. You will have to fight this the rest of your life. You will not do Chemo or port surgery. You are no longer in a race, you are in a marathon. Slow and steady instead of fast and furious.

I thought I was devastated with just a breast cancer diagnosis, but now my world is turned upside down. I am not going to live as long as I thought. Possibly 5 years
My sweet girls may be raised without their mother. Kevin and I haven't had long enough together.

The next day we were able to talk to our Oncologist Dr. Esplin. He explained it a bit more and for now the plan is to put me on hormone blockers.  My cancer is ER+, PR+ and HER2- for those that know what that means.
I will take the hormone blocker and also another pill that is supposed to stop the tumor cells from dividing. I will also do weekly blood tests Then in a couple months I will do another PET scan to see if the cells are responding favorably to the pills.

If they're not, we'll try different ones....and so on.  Surgery is still a possibility down the line as well as Chemo.

For now I will keep my hair (I just chopped it off) I won't get chemo "sick"
I guess it's good. It kind of feels like pills aren't enough to fight this. But I guess they do.
The pills will put me in menopause so I will be having those symptoms. Fun huh?

My prognosis:  Only 22% live 5 years.  That scares me.
There are some that have been on these for up to 20 years. It's possible. Is it likely? No
Possible, yes.
I don't know how to even express all that I am feeling. I haven't accepted it yet and I don't really know how to accept it. I don't know how to talk to my kids about the realities of it. For now, they know that it has spread, but they don't know what that means. They are happy because I'm not going to get "sick" right now.
Maybe that's what we need. My girls need as much of me as they can while they have me. If I'm sick in bed, then they don't have me. ?????  I don't know.  I don't understand. I'm angry, I'm heart broken, I'm scared, I'm sad. I even feel guilty for doing this to my family. I know I know, but it's a natural feeling.