Andyb: Thanks so much for sharing your personal experience. I would so much prefer none of us should go through something like this, but it is good not to be alone, to know someone has gone through it all and come out the other side.
Pat: Thanks for the song link. I forwarded it to Amanda and she did enjoy it.
Darren: Thank you for thinking of us. Amanda has now had an echocardiogram (to make sure her heart is in good shape before starting chemo--and it is), a CT scan (to make sure cancer hasn't spread anywhere else in her body--it hasn't), surgery to implant a port for delivery of chemo drugs (and to use for blood draws), and an MRI (to see if the previous mammo and MRI tests found all the cancer in her breast--they didn't).
Caz: Thank you for the kind words and the moral/psychic support. It's all appreciated.
LATEST UPDATE:
Chemo starts tomorrow. There will be four chemo treatments with two drugs, two weeks apart (assuming her blood count stays where it needs to be throughout). Then another MRI to see the results. Then a new round of chemo with two new drugs. Ultimately, all leading to surgery--original recommendation was a lumpectomy, but now that they've found two more places in the breast with cancer (total of 4 spots), it seems only a mastectomy will do.
AND HOW AM I DOING?
Well, much worse than when I was going through something similar myself. It's much harder on me as a mom. Of course, part of that is because my situation was never life-threatening and--while she's facing good odds--there's still a 5%-20% chance treatment will not be successful.
I have had no energy to do any writing and even less to try to review the work of others. I am managing to spend time doing some "mindless" types of musical tasks (eg, entering songs into my SongBook app), and I also do a little singing and--less often--guitar playing. Never for very long. I'm sure it'll get better as I adapt to my new normal, but it'll take awhile.
Supportive messages from some of you and various others mean a lot to me and I thank you all immensely.
Vicki
