Well, I knew I probably couldn't escape it forever, especially now with my big surgery looming on the 9th of July. Today my hemoglobin count was 8.0 when I got my labs done and since my doctor's normal range is 11.0 - 16.5, it looks as though I'll be getting a packed red cell infusion (just red cells so not a full transfusion) before my surgery. I don't know when it will be as it actually takes a bit of coordination to get things lined up with the blood typing lab and the hospital but it will probably have taken place by this time next week so that I have ample time for my red cell counts to rise. Great! Just what the cancer patient needs...another medical procedure to coordinate and pay for. Oh well, whatever it takes, right?
And speaking of whatever it takes, this afternoon I sought the counsel of my friend (and former babysitting client), Dr. Marc Siegel, regarding my impending hysterectomy. As many of you know, I haven't been entirely sold on this procedure from the outset and have had increasing doubts about its necessity as I've seen how well I've responded to my treatment. So, I decided to call Marc to discuss things, as I also did in the beginning of all this mess, because he, unlike my doctor, has been willing to get detailed enough with me in the reasoning behind each procedure, drug, etc. that the necessity for various actions (like having a laparotomy verus laparoscopy for my hysterectomy) always seems more acceptable to me after talking with him. Once again, I pestered him with questions this afternoon and now think I am FINALLY prepared emotionally to deal my big-ass hysterectomy, which has almost been like a dirty word to me lately. I think that I finally, finally, FINALLY get why I really need to have it so that I don't end up like poor Farrah someday soon (if you'll recall, she opted NOT to have the colostomy that her UCLA doctors recommended, which most likely would have saved her life).
I will always wonder "what if..." but today I think I really, truly, finally get that I have an estrogen receptive cancer (92% so) that could/would continue to be fed if I left my last ovary in me and that was/is in my uterus, and while we hope it is gone, we won't be able to know for sure until the uterus is out and all of the necessary pathology is done on it. The bottomline is that I got bad parts and that if I really want to be sure that I'll live to see deep wrinkles and feel a bad hip, I've just got kiss it all goodbye because the estrogen that makes it all work, is just plain bad for me. Oh, well. You can't win 'em all, right? And in this series, it's more important to come out with a winning record at the end than to have one pyrrhic victory.
TGIF! I'm off to dinner with my Christina, who is town from NYC.
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