2 years, by the numbers

George Bellows - Stag at Sharkey's

Today marks the 2 year anniversary from my first (stage III) cancer diagnosis--go me!  In honor of this occasion, besides patting myself on the back just for being here, I've decided to do a "by the numbers" of the past 2 years of medical things.

In the past 2 years there have been:

• 420 days between ending active treatment for stage III and being officially diagnosed with stage IV
• 394 days wearing my lymphedema glove and sleeve (I usually don't have trouble as long as I wear them, so it looks like my hand and arm have problems but it's not really so bad at all)
• 393 days on Tamoxifen 
• 220 days of full or partial baldness
• 116 days between first appointment about the hip pain to stage IV diagnosis (time included multiple types of scans, several appointments and a biopsy)
• 46 days of radiation therapy (28 to the mastectomy site in 2012, 18 of 20 to the hip this time around)
• 8 doses of chemo (given over 16 weeks)
• 8 tasty pastries because my husband bought them for us during each and every chemo
• 8 injections of Neulasta (to increase white blood cells the day after chemo, and a huge thank you to my in-laws who picked me up and drove me to 7 of the 8, only missing the one that coincided with their grandson's out of town wedding.  Zero is the number of in-law jokes you'll ever hear from me because mine are the good kind of in-laws)
• 7 days in the hospital
• 5 surgical procedures (bilateral mastectomy with immediate reconstruction, port in, unrelated to cancer kidney stone that they blasted and took out through a hole in my back--some girls have all the luck!, port out, reconstruction revision)
• 5 kinds of pain killers (strangely enough, some work better for different kinds of pain than others, who knew?)
• 4 CT scans (not including the radiation oncology planning or the CT guided biopsy, because enough is enough, and besides, if you aren't drinking barium smoothies, it probably doesn't count)
• 4 cancer pathology reports (1 for each biopsy, 1 from the surgical sample, 1 from Dana Farber)
• 4 Faslodex injections (but given 2 at each appointment)
• 3 MRIs (breast, brain, spine)
• 3 flu shots (much less time consuming than those MRIs)
• 2 genes not found to be mutated (those BRCA1 and 2 genes you sometimes read about)
• 2 PET-CT scans
• 2 cancer diagnoses (stage III and stage IV, same cancer, though)
• 2 clinical trials (actually enrolled, 2 more that didn't pan out) 
• 2 Xgeva injections
• 2 X-Ray studies (I think one or both of those studies was more than one view, but I'm not going to quibble)
• 1 biopsy (this is the bone biopsy for the IV diagnosis, the core needle ones for the stage III were, of course, before that diagnosis)
• 1 echocardiogram
• 1 wig
• 1 ER visit
• 1 bone scan
• 1 Lupron injection
• and definitely more appointments than I care to count

But, on the other hand, worth noting that over the same 2 years there have been:

• 1 school play
• 1 first house for my stepson and daugher-in-law
• 1 well deserved promotion for my stepdaughter
• 1 new grill for my husband and the will to use it often
• 2 birthdays for me
• 2 birthdays for my husband
• 2 birthdays each for my daughter, stepkids, daughter-in-law
• 2 wedding anniversaries
• 2 summer gardens
• 2 Christmases
• 2 Easters
• 2 of every other holiday big and small
• 2.5 youth sports seasons
• 3 visits from my out of town stepson, including 2 surprise visits because these kids are awesome that way
• 731 days of being alive 

Because I am still here and that is 2 years (and counting) where cancer doesn't get to win.

Take that, stupid cancer, take that.