Tricia2
New member
I alluded to this in another thread but thought I'd fill in the blanks on my cancer diagnosis.
Just before Christmas (crazy busy grooming season) I found a kidney bean sized lump on my left forearm just below my elbow. I thought, "Geez, I must have bumped it. It will go away." By New Years day it had tripled in size, was fibrous and non-painful...bad signs that I know from my former life as an RN. Long story short, I had a biopsy and removal of what looked to be a nerve sheath cyst. Tissue was sent to Mass General Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute when my local hospital couldn't identify what it was but thought it looked suspicious.
After a 2 week wait, I got a call that it is a malignant high-grade soft tissue pleomorphic undifferentiated sarcoma -PUS (nice acronym!) that is wrapped around the muscles of my forearm. I elected to have the most aggressive treatment available in order to save my arm and decrease the chances of metastisis (it has an affinity to travel to the lungs and liver.)
I'm having the last of 25 proton beam radiation treatments tomorrow. This has to be done in Boston @MGH because there are very few proton beam centers in the country and Boston has 2 of them. So every day/5 days a week, I schlep the 85 miles to Boston have 30 seconds of radiation in a machine that looks like the deck of the Starship Enterprise and then schlep the 85 miles home. I get weekends off.
Then I percolate (radiation continues to work for a week or two after it's administered) for 4-5 weeks. This will be followed by radical wide-excision. My hope is that the pre-op treatments will have shrunk the remaining tumor enough that I can avoid having a skin/muscle graft from my thigh. It they can get clean margins, I'm done and will be followed monthly for a couple of years. If they can't get clean edges, I get a ticket for an additional 25 radiation treatments.
You never think you'll get cancer until you get cancer, and although I'm tired from the commute and the treatments themselves (it causes skin burning and blistering...ouch) I'm hopeful that this will be just an inconvenience and a bump in the road of life.
My dogs definitely KNOW what's up, you can't fool the canine nose and Juno's previous owner passed just about 18 months ago from cancer. THEY KNOW!
I've spoken about this openly on my FB page but I know some here don't use FB and I'm "Out" about it, joking about it and trying to stay on track.
Other than THAT Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? :icon_cof:
Just before Christmas (crazy busy grooming season) I found a kidney bean sized lump on my left forearm just below my elbow. I thought, "Geez, I must have bumped it. It will go away." By New Years day it had tripled in size, was fibrous and non-painful...bad signs that I know from my former life as an RN. Long story short, I had a biopsy and removal of what looked to be a nerve sheath cyst. Tissue was sent to Mass General Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute when my local hospital couldn't identify what it was but thought it looked suspicious.
After a 2 week wait, I got a call that it is a malignant high-grade soft tissue pleomorphic undifferentiated sarcoma -PUS (nice acronym!) that is wrapped around the muscles of my forearm. I elected to have the most aggressive treatment available in order to save my arm and decrease the chances of metastisis (it has an affinity to travel to the lungs and liver.)
I'm having the last of 25 proton beam radiation treatments tomorrow. This has to be done in Boston @MGH because there are very few proton beam centers in the country and Boston has 2 of them. So every day/5 days a week, I schlep the 85 miles to Boston have 30 seconds of radiation in a machine that looks like the deck of the Starship Enterprise and then schlep the 85 miles home. I get weekends off.
Then I percolate (radiation continues to work for a week or two after it's administered) for 4-5 weeks. This will be followed by radical wide-excision. My hope is that the pre-op treatments will have shrunk the remaining tumor enough that I can avoid having a skin/muscle graft from my thigh. It they can get clean margins, I'm done and will be followed monthly for a couple of years. If they can't get clean edges, I get a ticket for an additional 25 radiation treatments.
You never think you'll get cancer until you get cancer, and although I'm tired from the commute and the treatments themselves (it causes skin burning and blistering...ouch) I'm hopeful that this will be just an inconvenience and a bump in the road of life.
My dogs definitely KNOW what's up, you can't fool the canine nose and Juno's previous owner passed just about 18 months ago from cancer. THEY KNOW!
I've spoken about this openly on my FB page but I know some here don't use FB and I'm "Out" about it, joking about it and trying to stay on track.
Other than THAT Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? :icon_cof:
