Appointments

So today someone at Front Range Cancer Specialists called to give me my grocery list of appointments for the week. Should be a busy one!

Tuesday: Chemo Education
At "chemo school," as my parents named it, a nurse will talk to us about the side effects of Taxol, my first chemotherapy drug.

Wednesday: Genetic Counseling
Genetic counseling is another educational appointment where the same nurse as the day before will explain a little about what hereditary breast cancer is and what to expect from a genetic test. If I decide to do it, I'll have a blood test afterwards.

Thursday: PET Scan and Port Implantation Surgery
This is going to be a busy day! Because I chose to go with Dr. S., my port placement surgery will be in Denver. So in the morning I need to go get a PET Scan, which is a full body scan, and then race down to Rose Medical in Denver to get this port put in. Whew! The port placement was actually scheduled with a separate doctor's office, which made it a little more difficult to coordinate. But the sooner the port is in, the sooner I can start chemo. So let's go go go!

Friday: EKG
I have to get a baseline EKG to check on my heart. Apparently one of my chemo drugs' side effects is weakening of the heart muscle, so Dr. M. wants to make sure that my heart is in good shape. It will also serve as an image to compare any changes to my heart.

My brother is coming for a visit on Wednesday, which will be really nice. I think he's been really worried because he's all the way out in Buffalo, NY, and doesn't really have a feel for the day-to-day situation or how serious things are. I think he'll be relieved to see that things aren't so different for me. Anyway, it's before his pre-season for soccer, so it makes for a good time to visit anyway I think.