Lindy's Journey with Breast Cancer

Feel like a cow that survived a prime roast dinner, and not as a guest.

Oncologist wanted me on a cancer med that would cost $1,600 a month...why, because it is a pill and not an infusion. I told them I would just have to die faster and harder.

Too much surgery, got infection, delayed chemo, ended up with a super ugly scar given all the tissue that had to be removed with the removal of infected tissue. If I had been dealt with honestly from the beginning I would not have opted for the reconstruction ordeal, a nice comfortable scar is preferable over what I ended up with.

Ouch, what is wrong with you professionals, a human was wearing that breast you plowed into without warning or preemptive information. I have a voodoo doll wishing you what you deliver.

Sick. sick, sick. For months, read all the possible side effects including secondary cancer. Told the oncologist that if he sent me out with a toe tag it would not be good for business. Inhumane. Exacerbating everything was the fact that as a widow I live alone so I rocked and rolled alone. Not one person even brought a plate of food AND I gained 40 pounds to add to the horror. The ONLY nutritional advise the oncologist gave was "No antioxidants".

More horror, great machine awful employees. They treated all of us like chunks of disease, no respect for the ordeal we were enduring. I can guarantee you "professionals", we are not lying on your hard table dreaming about butterflies. We did not flunk the right to be treated like the humans we are because we got cancer. And stop with the "dear", "hon", use our names, they are written on the form we lie on sugar lips.

A + experience through the tumor group at Washington University in Seattle. These professionals deliver gracious care in the XXX storm of cancer. I want to leave Texas ASAP, I want that gracious care at end of life.

All of them!! Surgeon would not allow consult with oncologist before surgery, mastectomy delayed while surgeon had surgery, further delayed while she worked out schedule with the plastic surgeon for simultaneous surgeries. Unexpected lymph node gutting should have nixed reconstruction but I was under anesthesia so I did not get to say NO. Plastic surgeon slow to acknowledge failing reconstruction due to massive infection. Oncologist and plastic surgeon consulting each other and neither talking to me. I asked a Flight Attendant what she thought of my infected oozing chest as she had cared for several relatives with breast cancer. She said OMG, get to a hospital. And so I had myself admitted, ended up on weeks of med infusions further delaying chemo, got the expander and chest tissue removed. Finally chemo. AND it took me six months of searching and learning to understand my breast cancer is fatal. I was home alone in the middle of the night when I finally got the language right and got that answer. The surgeon, plastic surgeon, oncologist all knew this and made care treatments without my informed consent since prognosis is the number on deciding factor.

Suspicious areas, want an mri not another super radiated scan. I have never had an mri and since the oncologist says I will die of brain cancer I think it is time I have that dang mri. He did not answer me so I am home now with two months to go before I see him again and no scan. He sees me as dead woman walking. I found the vaccine trial, applied, got his office involved in supplying information so I could attend. I highly recommend trials, win win. No matter what happens those of us who throw our bodies into the science are part of the evolution toward better management of cancer.

Oh, my husband who I profoundly loved died fifteen years ago of an aggressive brain cancer. Closure smosure, I miss him every day. Do live, laugh, love every day for we never know when what we know as our normal will be lost. I was lucky to have loved him.