Shifting Gears, New Game Plan

After the whirlwind and week of being reunited with family, it was back to reality. My doctors were back in town. On Monday, it was time to see the oncologist. In two of the five areas of grading breast cancer, I had happy faces. One area was still unknown as the lymph nodes had not been biopsied. In talking with the oncologist, he was optimistic, however it was obvious he had not been properly briefed. He apparently did not know that the goal was to get us back to the field quickly. He was certain that chemotherapy would be part of the game plan. I was not certain. I knew it would lengthen our time here in the states. I asked the oncologist what he would do if it was his wife. He said he would do the chemotherapy first. That was not my plan.

My family was getting together for a while that afternoon. I could not make it. I had to take time to shift gears. This was not going to be as quick or easy as I would like it to be. However, the course of treatment set out was going to eradicate the cancer from my body and prevent me from having to leave the field again in a few years to go through it all again. It was going to be a marathon rather than a sprint. A battle or even a war rather than a skirmish. My brain shifted gears but still reserved hope that my surgeon would say that we could skip the chemotherapy.

On Wednesday, I saw my specialist who is my surgeon. She had talked with the oncologist and they had gone through every scenario. She had said we could do the surgery first, however the chemotherapy would give us a chance to get results back as to where else the cancer could be in my body. She said it would be better to do chemotherapy before the surgery, while my body was still strong. I trusted her to have worked through every possibility to get me back to the field more quickly because she had been properly briefed. I knew this was the right way to go, even if it was not what I initially wanted.

On Friday, I went for a PETscan to see if indeed the cancer had spread anywhere else. I also went for an echocardiogram to be sure that my heart was strong enough to handle the chemotherapy drugs. I met that afternoon with the oncologist. He said that my heart was good. He also said that a lymph node was enlarged, which could mean the cancer was there or not. The biopsy the next week would tell us for sure.

I braced myself for this new game plan. I would do eight treatments of chemotherapy every other week. After that, I would have a month off before surgery to remove the cancer cells. Depending on the results of the lymph node biopsy, we would look at radiation after recovery from the surgery.  This was going to take longer than I wanted it to take.

It would be longer before I would see my beloved Africa again. It would be longer than I wanted before I could do again what I was meant to do.  But maybe this is part of what I am meant to do. Maybe it is not about Senegal or America. Maybe it is about praising Him wherever I am, whatever my circumstance. "Bless The Lord, O my soul, worship His Holy name, sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship His holy name."