Surgeon meeting #1

This is going to be a long haul. I am already getting so exhausted and it's just from information (and mental and emotional) overload, nothing even physical yet. We left Cherry Hill Swedish at 12:00. Swung by Patagonia to pick-up an emergency bridesmaid dress for my friend Sarah's wedding July 25th. I was starting to stress that time would fly by and I'd have nothing for it (we can pick out any dress, just need to wear black -- how fun!) so at least now I have something. We ate at Aqua Verde outside and debriefed Rob and David Yu while still processing info myself. We kept talking about it all as we walked through U Village. Anthropologie was out of the dress I'd seen in their catalog (good thing we went to Patagonia!) and then a-ha! found another great dress at Banana Republic. Somehow finding all these black dresses are suddenly making me feel like I am sooooo on top of everything.

Hmmm. What an illusion! I could hardly drive back home my head was so heavy (literally), fell asleep on the couch and woke up drooling to my mom calling. Unfortunately not the biggest news other than I'd found two possible dresses!

There was actually a lot of good news today, the ultimate being that I have OPTIONS. Which is great but also what is making my head hurt so much. I can go either way, with a lumpetomy and radiation, OR a mastectomy and probably no radiation. Don't know about chemo till I meet the oncologist. Anyway, it's up to me and what I want. What do I want??? Ay yi yi yi yi.

I liked Dr. Buchanan a lot. She's super smart and I liked talking with her. She has nice hands, I checked them out lots since those are her tools. Here's a photo of her.


I asked my friend (Dr.) Sanders what he thought about different doctors I emailed him, how he would read their bios, etc. since he doesn't know them. He said Buchanan had the best credentials of any of the breast cancer surgeons at Swedish. He made an interesting point that younger doctors are probably trained in more current information and practices, but lack the years of experience, and vice versa for older docs. As far as I was concerned, under her Personal Interests, she hit a home run with me, this might be all I need to know about her:

At the end of the long meeting basically we decided that I need to meet with oncologists and a plastic surgeon to help make my decision. And in all my spare time, meet more surgeons for second opinions and to see if I feel more comfortable with someone else and with what they have to say. Which is good that I like Claire a lot right off that bat, it relieves some stress. Exactly like the black dresses.

So, after meeting a social worker and two more RNs, I got a PILE of business cards dumped in my lap of all the people I need to meet and have appointments with:

Previously scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday 6/18, is my MRI at 1:15 at yet another new place I have to go, First Hill Diagnostic Imaging with Dr. Bruce Porter who everyone keeps alluding to as one of the best radiologists in the city. From there I need to shoot over by 3pm to Fremont to meet Dr. Natalie Freedman at Bastyr who will be going over the results from all my blood work, etc. that we did the first two weeks. The oh-so lovely and talented Txell (pronounced "Che") Ampurdanes will be chauferring me around. I'm excited to spend the afternoon with her!

The pile of cards just added:
Monday 6/22 9:15 meeting with a Genetic Counselor to talk about possibly taking a $3k test to see if I carry the BRCA 1 & 2 genes and the implications of doing that -- and to see if insurance will cover it. And the test once taken takes 3-4 weeks to get results back.

Tuesday 6/23 1pm meeting a Medical Oncologist to talk about systemic ("all over") treatment and the pros & cons of the lumpectomy vs. mastecomy from this angle.

Friday 6/26 3pm meeting my hair stylist for haircut and (dry) happy hour with him. He's very integral to this health plan too, you know!

Saturday 6/27 run a Half Marathon. And this going to happen HOW???

Monday 6/29 1:30pm meeting a Radiation Oncologist to talk about the weather I hope. At 2:30 Running to another part of the same building to meet Dr. Beatty (ok, great omen right there, huh Dan & Sarah!!) as a 2nd opinion surgeon.

Tuesday 6/30 39th Birthday! Yey.

Wednesday 7/1 12:15pm Meeting back up with surgeon Dr. Claire Buchanan again to tell her what I'm going to do.

And not scheduled yet somewhere in there is a plastic surgeon whom two people have recommended to me ("He does beautiful work!"). And find more 2nd opinion doctors.

Claire says she would probably do this surgery in no more than 4-6 weeks. I don't understand the math of that and all I have to do before then. I can already tell this is going to be the fastest month of my life...