Patience, grasshopper.

Yesterday marked 12 weeks/3 months since my spinal surgery to remove the neck tumor that was caused by my breast cancer. Since I hadn't posted in awhile, I thought this would be a good opportunity. Really, I haven't posted because not much is going on. I had my first chemo treatment on Dec 7 and between then and my next due chemo on Dec 28, all the effects of the radiation hit me and I developed a 3rd degree burn on my back that busted open my incision, again - so on Dec 28 my surgeon and my chemo doc decided that chemo wasn't a possibility until the incision healed. Since then, I lost my hair (on xmas eve) and have been waiting for the incision to heal. Well last Friday when I went to the surgeon, he said that the incision wouldn't heal on its own and I needed a wound vac. Apparently, a wound vac is a device that super heals wounds quickly, which frustrates me because I feel like they should have done the damn thing in the first place instead of me wasting weeks on the couch for nothing. The device has a sponge that goes inside the incision, a tube is attached to the sponge and a pump and every 60 sec the pump sucks drainage out of the wound which is supposed to promote healing and keep scar tissue from developing. Depending on how fast I heal, the incision could be closed in 7-10 days - but thats 7-10 days of wearing this device. Wonderful! Its being installed tomorrow by a home nurse so that should be fun, and oh did I mention while I was in the surgeons office, he had a nurse come in and "debrieve" the wound which is just a fancy way of saying "scrape out the dead tissue inside the wound with a scalpel with no numbing allowed while the patient screams". Yeah. Good Times.
The good news is the surgeon said as long as I was using the wound vac I could go through with chemo so I have an appointment next Wed for my second treatment, finally! I wasn't sure I posted this but the chemo seems to be knocking the cancer pretty well. Before chemo, my tumor markers in my blood were 242 units (the normal person without cancer tests under 30 units), after chemo they tested 132 (down almost 50%) and then last Wed, just on Tamoxifen with no chemo, my markers went from 132 to 115. There's some controversy whether the blood markers are a reliable way of testing and that PET scans are really the only reliable way but I'll take what I can get, and if the markers are going down, I'd like to think the cancer is disappearing.
Now, as you can imagine, because the radiation is over, I haven't been on chemo, I've been feeling pretty good which makes me very impatient with my spinal surgery. I was told I could get out of the damn body brace at 12 weeks, and then the surgeon back tracked and said that due to chemo and radiation he thinks I need an additional 4 weeks in the body brace. Well, I'll admit I've been cheating on that. For one thing, when I'm at home on the couch or sleeping, I wear just the neck brace, and since lately thats all I do is hang out at home, I haven't been wearing the body brace at all. Well, the past week, if I'm doing something low key, like going to a movie or something that involves a lot of sitting or light walking, I've been going out in the world without the full body brace. I just can't stand it and feel like I'm strong enough without it. Besides, if you live near me, you know that the brace doesn't fit AT ALL, it was measured while I was laying down in a hospital bed, the indentations for the boobs are literally near my collar bone (so the brace feels GREAT on those newly installed expanders), and with my losing weight being sick, its all sorts of wrong. I spend more time holding the brace up then the brace supporting me. I see the surgeon on Feb 3 so I'm going to beg him to not only release me from my brace and start physical therapy so I can move my neck again, but release me back to work because I CANT STAND BEING HOME any longer - plus I need a damn paycheck! I think I can drive and work in just a neck brace, people do it all the time and I have a desk job. If I can sit on a couch and type this, I can work! I've just been waiting to get out of the full body brace because it doesn't allow me to move at all so I can't drive myself and well, docs don't want me working with a giant wound weeping on my back. Ahhh, I'm trying to practice patience but it so much easier being home when you don't feel good and sleep all day...