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We want to know the plan!

Happy Memorial Day everyone (ou joyeux fêtes des mères si vous etes en France!) I had a great day out at the Basile's on Long Island. Hung out with lovely people and ate Nicole and Marilu's delicious rice and beans and Jorge's always excellent steak:


The menu fit in well with following doctor's orders to eat tons of protein in advance of tomorrow, which is E-day: embryo extraction! It will be a very quick procedure- Grisha will drive us into the city, and we should be in and out of the doctor's office within an hour. So once that's wrapped, what happens next? Well, as promised, here's the plan: 

On Thursday, I go into the hospital for my first chemotherapy treatment. I keep joking that it feels like the first day of school, but much shittier. From what I can understand, basically I go get my blood drawn, see my oncologist, then sit in a chair for 1.5 hours and get the cancer-killing meds via an IV. MSK only has private chemo rooms, which is super nice– G plans to bring the projector so we can watch a movie or something. I've already torn through all of Fleabag, but want to rewatch it with him because it's so gdamn good.* I should be all done by lunchtime. 

After Thursday, I'll continue with treatment every other week for 8 weeks. From there, they'll see how I respond, and then either continue the same pattern for another 8 weeks, or switch to chemo once a week for 12 weeks. So if you're bad at math, I'll be doing this whole chemo thing periodically for the next 4-5 months, at least every other week. 

The goal of chemo is to reduce the size of my cancer as much as possible before surgery. Then, depending on how chemo goes, plus a few other things, my doctor decides how much they'll actually need to cut into me (options include: full mastectomy, double mastectomy, just a lumpectomy... time will tell!) After that, they will likely do some sessions of radiotherapy. At this point, I actually have zero idea what that means– I know this sounds ridiculous and is definitely not true, but I keep picturing a tanning bed just over my chest. 

So that is the plan for now. Each step depends on the last one, so it may change, which I will try to take in stride. And yes, I am a little scared/nervous to start chemo. I just think it's going to be really hard for me to reckon with feeling sick from the treatment for so long. I mean, I get down on myself when I have a cold for a few days. But all of these feelings are also superseded by an absolute eagerness to start killing these stupid cancer cells. And apparently everyone responds differently to chemo, so we'll just have to wait and see how I feel. You'll get sick of hearing me say/write/type this mantra, but for now... one day at a time. 

*Footnote: I want to drop things like this in these posts so when I look back on them in several years, they feel dated in an endearing way (now's a good time to thank Siobhan and Jason for sharing Jason's cancer blog from 2008 that is a partial inspiration for this whole affair, and has so many great late aught Brooklyn references!)

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