I am officially done with all of my treatment.......WOW!!!!!

It has been two years almost to the date.  I was diagnosed October 22, 2011.  I am now officially done with all of my treatment.  So excited I can hardly stand it.  This week I was finally able to get my MRI. I had to wait four months after my implant surgery.  I saw Dr Isik today (my plastic surgeon) for a post op visit from my surgery that I had two weeks ago. I am healing well.  My breast are now even and he also made me a nipple.  I had no idea they were going to make me a nipple.  I thought I was getting a tattoo.  My nipple is so cool.  It is the icing on the cake as far as now I look so normal.  It is so cool.    Love my new breast!!  I also saw Dr. Buchanan today (my breast surgeon) we went over my MRI.  It was totally clear and all findings were benign.  It was a perfect day!!

Now I will continue to have a mammogram once a year and an MRI once a year for the next four years.  I will see my oncologist (Dr Kaplan) every three months for two more years.  Then I will see him every six months for a couple of years.  I will see Dr. Buchanan yearly for several more years.

I hope that this cancer story is forever behind me......

Thank you to all of my faithful blog followers.  I will stay in touch.  

Hi All!!!  Just thought it was about time to update all of my super fantastic friends and family.  First off...I am doing really good! Since my last post I have been all rebuilt. My expander was removed on June 18th and my final implant was placed. It was so nice to be back to normal this summer with two boobies in my swim suit. haha
Now I continue to see Dr. Kaplan every 3 months for blood work. Just saw him this last friday. I go in a few days ahead and give my blood then when I go see doctor he looks over the numbers and tells me everything looks great. Its always a bit of a stressful week because you always just wonder...is everything still okay.  So far so good! And its going to stay that way. My numbers have been super good. Which means there is no cancer in my blood. Yippee!!

I actually go in to see Dr Isik this Tuesday to get my nipple tattooed :) sounds funny. I also am a little uneven so he is going to even me up. Should be a very simple procedure. Then.....I am totally done with all surgeries :) I am really sick and tired of surgery and dr appointments. Ugh!
I will continue to have mammograms and or an MRI every six months.  I am behind on my MRI because I have to wait 4 months or more after my last surgery before I can have an MRI. I  have an appointment October 15th for an MRI. I will feel really good once I have this and all is clear. I will see Dr. buchanan the day after to go over the results. I am expecting all to be good :)

Last weekend I did the 3-Day breast cancer walk. It was really fun and exhausting. Jody Nelson and Kristen Nelson did it with me. "Kimberly's Breast Friends" rocked the walk big time. Thank you Jody and Kristen for all the fundraising you did and for walking with me. What a great time we had. Its pretty brutal by the end of each day, so its great to be with people you love.  At times everything on your body is aching. We all were so positive and rooted each other on whenever it was needed. It's just a cool time :)  Also thank all of you that donated money to us to allow us to do the walk. Lets put an end to this nasty cancer.

No news is good news haha......

Hello everyone. I apologize for being a bad blogger lately. I can say though that no news about Kimberly's Journey is good news :). I am doing well. Praise God!! 

I have just had my lift and implant done on my left side. Pretty exciting! I have two perky boobs now. I cannot believe how simple and pain free this surgery was. I took pain pills for one night and that was it. I am still restricted for a week with lifting over 10lbs with my left arm, but I am doing so well. My right side with the expander is now big and perky. Both sides are like a size C so I feel they look pretty normal. In a few more months I will have the expander removed and the implant put in. My tissue will continue to expand allowing for a normal look once the implant is placed. Its not as pretty looking as the new left side, but it will be eventually.

I am a little bummed because I am do right now for an MRI and I can't have one until my expander is removed. I'm suppose to have a mammogram then six months later and MRI and so on. So I will have my MRI as soon as my expander is removed.

I did just see Dr. Kaplan for my 3 month check up and all my blood work looked good :) I always get a little nervous before I see him because you always fear this dang cancer is going to come back. I'm told that fear gets less and less the more time that goes by.

So I will continue to see Dr Kaplan every 3 months for years. I also will see Dr. Buchanan every six months for years. I see her after I have a mammogram or a MRI.

Dan and I are doing good! Our life is pretty much back to normal other than the more frequent doctor visits. Which I am fine with. I like to see the doctors and the hear that all is good.

Thank you to all of my precious friends and family that have followed this journey. I will keep you up to date when things are going on. It will just be fewer and farther between. Which is good huh!?

Surgery update......

It's been two weeks since my reconstruction surgery. I am doing really well. It was very tough for the first 3-4 days. A lot of pain. The pain pills were making me sick. It was just no fun. Dan went and picked up some new prescriptions for me on Wednesday and that seemed to be my turnaround day. My mom also came and stayed with us for a few days and that was so nice. I wasn't able to get my self up or lay myself down. It is amazing all of the things you use your chest muscle for. Just yesterday I was able to put my shoes on by myself. Now I just need to continue healing. It seems that most everyday I feel better. Some mornings I am sorer than others. My stupid shoulder continues to give me a hard time. Some nights my shoulder aches more than my surgery site. My surgery site looks pretty good. The flap they placed looks like a football. It is a big diamond shape piece of tissue. The radiated tissue around the flap is real firm, leather like. The new tissue from my back is like baby skin. So soft. This tissue is the tissue that will stretch to allow my implant to be placed in 4-6 months. I had my surgery check up last week and Dr. Isik felt everything looked great! Yay! I see him again next Wednesday for my first expansion appointment. They will add fluid to the breast and we will do this every other week allowing the tissue to stretch. Once the tissue has stretched to the size of breast I want we will then do a lift and an implant on my left side :). Then a couple months later we will remove the expander on my right side and put the implant in that side. Then I hope I am done with this darn cancer surgery stuff :). Of coarse I will continue to see my oncologist for several years every three months and I will have my mammograms and MRI'S every six months.

UPDATE ON KIMBERLY.....

HI EVERYONE!!!  
I am doing really good.....woohoo!!!  So I have a lot to catch all of you up on. Lets just get right to it. In mid November I started having some lymphadema in my right arm :( it's not to bad, but it has came. Lymphadema is fluid collection in the arm that the lymph nodes were removed in. It is very normal for this to accure at any time after you have surgery. Of coarse, I was hoping that I wouldn't get it. I have to wear a sleeve and a glove on my right hand. You can actually get some pretty cool sleeves if you choose. I just got a skin color one and a black one. I don't wear it all the time, but I have noticed I am needing to wear it more and more. It is more of a nuisance than anything.

Remember the clinical study that I told you all about? Well....the people that are suppose to get you on the study at certain times of your treatment missed the critical timing for me to start the study. Needless to say, I was very upset when I found this out. I had called several times asking when do I start and they just kept telling me they would let me know. That was real disappointing to me. But oh well it is what it is.

I just saw Dr. Kaplan, my oncologist, on the 28th of December. I love it when I get to go see him. It feels good to know that everything is looking okay. He checks my blood. Looking for tumor markers, checks to see that my estrogen is good and checking to see that the medication (arimidex) is doing its job. He also does a physical exam to check for any lumps or bumps. I check for those regularly :) I hope you all do too.

Tomorrow is a pretty big day for me. I have my reconstruction surgery. I am having a "Latissimus dorsi Flap Breast Reconstruction" by Dr. Frank Isik. I have learned that this is a much bigger surgery than my mastectomy :( I will have surgery on my back (latissimus dorsi muscle) also on the front. They will put the dorsi muscle from my back to my breast area and also they will place an expander to start the expansion process of my breast. I will just be in the hospital over night as long as everything goes as planned. I will be pretty sore for several weeks. I will be off work for six weeks. I am really excited to get this surgery over. This should be my last big surgery. Next I will have an implant and a lift on my left side, then several months later my expander removed and an implant placed on my right side. We just have to hope and pray that my radiated tissue expands okay. My tissue really looks good. You just don't know for sure how well radiated tissue will respond.

Dan and I are doing very well. We pray for continued health, strength and healing. 

It's been a whole year...... WOW!!!

It's hard to believe that one year ago at this time we were dealing with a cancer diagnosis. It's really amazing when I think about everything that we have been through. I have been truly blessed with how well my body has tolerated all of the treatment. I am doing well :)
 Things are continuing for Dan and I like we are normal people :) I am working my normal schedule. I feel like normal. What ever that is haha.
 I have had a little hick-up this week, dang it! I have had this continuous shoulder ache that comes and goes. It is the weirdest thing ever. Some days and mostly nights my right shoulder aches horribly. It keeps me awake at night and really drives me nuts. Then I will wake up and it is totally fine. Well, this week I woke up one day and I felt this real heavy feeling in my right arm. It clicked in my head that shut....this might be lymph edema. I made an appointment today to go see the physical therapist that my doctor recommended I see. She said that my achy shoulder is probably what has caused this lymph edema. Lymph edema is something that can happen when you have had your lymph nodes removed like I had when I had my mastectomy. She said that from my shoulder having a problem the extra fluid that normal lymph nodes would take care of is going into my arm because my lymph nodes have been removed/altered in this arm. So the long and short of it is that today I had to go get a sleeve to wear on my arm.  The sleeve is really tight, but not to bad at all to wear. I also have to wear a glove :( I don't like the glove. People can see it. Boo hoo......  I need to wear the sleeve during the day and the glove when I can. I will not be able to wear the glove at work. Just wont work. I put gloves on a 100 times a day and another glove, especially this thick one, wont work. The fluid is pretty minimal, but is present, so I need to get the fluid gone an do some manual lymph massage and then when the fluid is gone I wont have to wear the sleeve. So....as long as I manage the swelling and keep on top of it, I don't think I will have to wear the sleeve and glove to much. That is my hope anyway.

My reconstruction is scheduled for January 7th. I am excited to just get that done and get done with all of these surgeries.

I was very upset to learn that I will not be able to do the clinical study that Dr. Kaplan wanted me to do. For some reason I missed the window to start the study. I was pretty pissed about this. They have me fill out all of the paper work get me totally ready for the study, then they didn't call me to have me come
 in when it was time to start.  I was told that I had to start it within 60 days of my last radiation. I am like why didn't you guys ever tell me that and why didn't you call me to get me started on it. They really had no answers for me. But what ever. I guess it wasn't meant for me to be in on the study.

Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL.

Doctor appointments and first mammogram

Well, it's been a crazy week for Dan and I. I saw Dr. Kaplan last week. Just love him. Everything seemed to be fine. He examined me and ask me how things are going with my arimidex. No crazy lumps or anything yeah! I seem to be handling the arimidex fine. I maybe experiencing some minor fatigue, but not even sure of that. There is a list of symptoms one might experience and I don't seem to be experiencing them.

Then I had my mammogram this last Tuesday and my world was rocked...again!! The radiologist told me he wanted a couple more views. So they take me back and take a few more shots of my left breast. He brought me back into his office (you can imagine the crap that is racing through my mind) he told me that everything was okay, but he wanted to see me again in six months to check some small calcium spots he sees. I am like, you are freaking me out. He says I don't want to freak you out we just need to check things in 6 months. I then leave there office and walk straight over to my appointment with Dr. Buchanan. I bawled the whole way over to her office. I am like really? How can this be? I wanted a double mastectomy and they didn't want to take them both. This is one of the many things that was racing through my mind. I am thinking that i will get over to Dr. Buchanan and she will reassure me that it is okay and we will just continue to move forward. I have my reconstruction surgery scheduled, so I am thinking I can't go ahead with reconstruction if there might be something in my left breast. So I walk in to see Dr. Buchanan, she has already received my scans and report. I could tell by the look on her face that it wasn't good. Now I am crying and totally freaking out. She suggested that we do a "stereotactic needle core biopsy" right a way. They scheduled it for the next day at 3:00pm. She said that 80% of these come back benign so there was a great chance this would be nothing. I left her office and started my trek back to Harborview to go to work. I called Dan and of coarse he is pissed and scared and wondering what the heck. I got to my clinic and walked straight into my bosses office shut the door and started hysterically crying. My boss was crying with me. It was horrible. Thanks Jo for the hugs, love and support. Dr. Kaplan called me and told me his toes were crossed and he just wanted me to know he was thinking about me and hoping for the best. His call was great, but it also kind of scared me because it made me realize shit this could come back bad. As you can imagine that night, the next day, the procedure...it was all awful. Poor Dan. Poor me. Poor Nancy. Thank you Nancy for coming and picking me up from the procedure and bringing me home. I didn't even tell Nancy what was going on, I just ask her if she could pick me up from a procedure that I needed to have. So she was freaking out too.  After the biopsy the doctor told me it looked like all of the tissue and the calcium deposit looked benign. That made us all feel better, but you don't really know until you get the true biopsy report. So Dan and I had another night of wonderment, fear, worry, ugh!!

They didn't think I would get the results until today, but I got the best call ever from Dr. Buchanan last night just after five. She called and said all the tissue was benign and that everything is A OK!!

Praise the Lord and hallelujah!!! We are so happy and relieved.  

I have my reconstruction surgery scheduled for the first week of January. I will have about 6 weeks of recovery after that. Then I will have implants place in late spring. Kimmy's rack will be back :)

Lets just stay on this schedule with no more scares PLEASE!!