Waiting . . .

Well, this has always been a very busy time of year for our family. Many things to celebrate. Somehow it always seems to take me by surprise. Thanksgiving, 2 birthdays and then Christmas and New Year. There is so much anticipation and planning (generally poor planning) as a mother that it is easy to leap from event to event. I am going to put myself out there to say that I perhaps prefer many aspects of the scaled down version of the holidays that have been these past few years. There was a certain amount of stress involved in all the programs, services and parties. It is nice to have lower expectations. For example, last Friday I would have generally asked off work for the day to attend Ellie’s junior school carol service and then gone out with other Mums (yep, here I am a Mum, not a Mom) and children for a bit to eat or just hot chocolate/coffee. Many things made it different this year. Although she is in year 7, Ellie is technically no longer a part of the Junior school so she and Ezra were both in the senior school carol service on Wednesday. No one was allowed to attend so we watched it remotely. Definitely more convenient, but not nearly as festive. Also, as I am awaiting my surgery and trying to avoid unnecessary contacts, I couldn’t have gone anyway, so the fact that no one else could attend either made me feel less of a cancer patient. Funny thing – I almost couldn’t type the last two words of that sentence. I guess even though I obviously have cancer, I don’t look at myself as a patient – weird. Anywhoo – moving on –

After celebrating our Thanksgiving, we marked Ezra becoming 15! That guy just keeps growing. Biggest of my children and has the smallest room. Generally defers his choices, letting others choose first, but is a bull on the rugby pitch. Then was the much awaited return of our Emma. She had been in the US for 6 months! That is a looooonnnnnnnggggg time. It is so nice to have our 7 all back together again. What a blessing it is. Yesterday we had Elijah’s 17th birthday with the crew (minus Elspeth and I) racing one another in go karts and watching Spiderman – No Way Home (3D no less), followed by Pizza at home and birthday cake. He is up before me most days delivering the paper – not an easy feat in the dark and often wet Scottish morning weather. So now we wait for Christmas and what else 🤔? Oh, yes – my surgery.

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On the 16th day of Christmas my surgeon gave to me . . .

I am not sure if that is how it works – is the 12th day of Christmas the 25th? If so then this title works, if not, chalk it up to chemo brain and move on. Just to bring everyone up to date – I truly have a hard time remembering who I have told what and even where I have left my glasses, so I will just tell it all again.

MRI/Mammogram/Ultrasound all showed my cancer responded very well to chemotherapy – as good as they could have hoped for. This meant all that can now be seen are the clips placed at the initial biopsies. Again a massive thank you to you all for your thoughts, prayers, gifts, lifts, meals, and encouragement. The next step is to remove the tissue (lumpectomy) including and surrounding the clips, any concerning lymph nodes on the right, and not to be too graphic, then even up the other side. This will eventually be followed by radiotherapy, but that will be a month or more down the road. My surgery is scheduled for the 29th of December. The protocol is to keep out of close public contact for the 2 weeks prior (so basically now) and then isolate – even from immediate family as much as possible – the 72 hours prior to surgery. Yes, I see those hands out there, you have some questions? I will pause at this point and transition into doctor mode to answer them.

Q&A time –

1. If they don’t see any cancer on the MRI/Mammogram/Ultrasound, why do you still need surgery? Well, the cancer cells are quite small and are only able to be seen with our eye or imaging when they are multiplying and growing or have already done so. The chemotherapy has done it’s job in hitting them back, but we don’t know that there may still be dangerous changes in the cellular level that we cannot see. This can only be seen under magnification and – you see where I am going with this? This is only possible if the tissue is cut out. Cue the next question –
2. How do they know what to cut out if you can’t see it? That was the reason for placing the clips at the time of biopsy, so it can be found if the cancer ‘disappears’ with chemo. But, the clips are very small and cannot even be clearly seen on ultrasound so I have had another visit to the Breast center to have magnetic beads injected at the site of the clips to help them with removing all the appropriate tissue during surgery. These are placed guided by mammogrophy. Is it hard to imagine a mammogram being any more awkward? Well, it definitely can be, let’s just leave it there shall we?
3. Why not just have ALL the breast tissue removed (mastectomy)? Wouldn’t this be safer in protecting against a recurrence? It may seem like that is the case and some would argue for a complete mastectomy to perhaps avoid radiation and its complications. Well, the type of cancer that I have – triple negative (I think I explained this in an earlier post) can just as easily recur outside of the breast and studies show no better recurrence rates with mastectomy compared with lumpectomy and radiation. Since the biopsied lymph node showed cancer cells, I was going to be getting radiotherapy regardless of my surgery. A lumpectomy has much lower complications and recovery compared to mastectomy and doesn’t (in my case) require further reconstruction at a later time. Since it would only leave me looking a bit unequal, that will be sorted at the same time and if all goes well post operatively and with the pathology results, I will not require any further surgery.

Back to waiting –

So, we are just here waiting. We have a few simple Christmas plans and hope to spend some time meeting people out of doors, but otherwise keeping it very low key. For some reason, I feel the need to apologize for this, but actually I am enjoying the lower stress level and think it helps to focus more on why we celebrate . I know that all reading this blog will not necessarily hold the same beliefs as I do, but there are traditions and beliefs around Christmas that are central to the Christian faith. One of these is that Christmas is the celebration of the long awaited Saviour, Jesus Christ. His birth was promised long before it happened and many of our stories, songs, and traditions include people who were waiting – Mary and Joseph, shepherds, wisemen/kings, and angels. They were waiting for a baby to be born in expecting that he would free Israel from Roman rule, not realizing that this baby who was in fact ‘God with us’ would free them and all humankind from so much more. He would live a sinless life, grow to a man, perform miracles, and although possessing the power to prevent it, allow himself to be killed, paying the debt that none of us are able to pay. Once I am stitched back up after surgery, there is no guarantee that I will be free of cancer, but I do have the confidence that through Jesus’ gift, I am free from the debt of my sin. Regardless of what happens with my cancer, that is reason to CELEBRATE!

So, from the sometimes sunny Scotland, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and pray for God’s richest blessings in your life in the coming year.