Today is Tuesday....

I know I sound like Captain Obvious with this title, but I wanted to remember this day as another momentous one on my breast cancer journey.  Today is the first day that I'm truly free of my chemo regiment - it's a Tuesday that would have been a chemo day in my every-other-week cycle, but because I'm officially finished now, it's just a normal Tuesday.  So that means that as of today, those chemo chemicals are officially leaving my system (after doing an excellent job, I might add) and my body will start returning to its pre-chemo self.  Hooray!!

It's been a really good week, starting with a very positive appointment with my oncologist last Tuesday.  He assessed my tumor and said it felt completely different than it did when I first came to see him and that it has shrunk considerably.  He also said he can't feel my lymph nodes at all.  Very good news! He also switched my Herceptin cycles to every 3 weeks, which means I don't have to go back for any sort of treatment for another 2 weeks. He also decided that I should have another PET scan before surgery so that we can get a true comparison of the tumor post-chemo.  While I know that going through a PET and waiting for the results will be stressful, I agreed that it would be a good idea to really see how things progressed before the tumor is removed by surgery. So that's scheduled for a week from Wednesday. I also worked with the scheduler in his office and in my breast surgeon's office to finalize my surgery date. My mastectomy will be on Tuesday, March 20th at 11am.  It will be a long day, with pre-op stuff starting at 7:30 am  and surgery lasting until about 5. Kind of icky to think about all of this really happening 3 weeks from today, but I'm glad to at least have the date finalized so I can start planning.

Other than the appointment last Tuesday, it's been a very normal week.  I'm happily back to my old self : cooking, exercising, working and trying to keep the boys out of trouble (not an easy task, believe me!).  I also have some exciting projects at work, which have been keeping me busy. And there are some little things I can now do that I never appreciated pre-cancer but fully appreciate now: being able to bite into an unpeeled apple and eat salads when I go to restaurants (I had to be extra careful with raw fruit and veggies), drinking a glass of wine, and not having to constantly worry about germs. I have a couple of pre-op appointments later this week (one with the radiation oncologist and one the plastic surgeon) but otherwise, I'm soaking up post-chemo life for the next three weeks as much as possible.  And this weekend, the Martin crew is going on a two-night family trip to celebrate....we're heading to LEGOLAND in Chicago! Should be lots of fun - the boys are counting down the minutes.  I'll update if anything else comes up, but probably the most exciting news of my week will be non-cancer related (for once), as I'll be anxiously waiting for a call or text from my sister tomorrow after she finds out if Baby Russell is a boy or a girl!!! :)