Imaginarte's Journey with Breast Cancer

After living cancer-free for twenty five years, finishing college, creating for myself a professional career and a photographic career, I was living large and very happy. My children had left the nest to create their own giving me 12 grandchildren to love. Yes, life was beautiful. Sometimes, my arm would get sore and I brushed that off. Then as time went on, it became worse, I had to wear a sling and found myself one-armed. It was so hard to do my job of Marketing. My doctor tried for a year to find a cause, then it suddenly dawned on him that I needed to see the cancer group. After undergoing a very painful biopsy of the bone, they found the original breast cancer had metastasized to the bones where it is having fun traveling all over my body even to my brain. We are playing so hard trying to outwit each other. I have just begun to fight.

Gamma-Knife to the brain to remove tumor. This was frightening because my head was resting on air and they drilled into the side of my skull to attach the holding mechanism that circled the face around to the back somewhat like what a football player uses but without the helmet. When the doctor went to a certain spot, he'd ask me a question and my answer would guide his travels through the brain. If he went to a wrong place that would permanently damage what I could do. So it was a long procedure that, thankfully I couldn't feel, finally ended with his removing all of the tumor. Wow, did I feel great!

The Backbone was filled with cancer and it was pressing heavily on my spinal nerve, so the doctors decided to operate. They went into the small of my back, cut the backbone above the spasm point and cut the backbone below that point. This space provided breathing room for the spinal nerve. Then, they attached rods on the sides of the bone to attach each piece to the other. I now need to be very careful when bending and doing tasks. I guess that's one way to slow me down, darn it.