Chemo 3

I just woke up from my first post-chemo nap (3 hours this time). Three down, five to go. I am feeling more wiped out by this round already, though Dr. B assures me this is normal. The chemo treatments build up in difficulty through round four, then get easier when I switch to taxol in rounds 5-8.

Turns out I have a mutation in the BRCA2 gene which I inherited from my mom's side of the family. It is hard knowing that because I have it, it means my mom definitely has it, and my sister and brother each have a 50-50 chance of having it, too. The odds of having breast cancer go up astronomically (which, in my case, seems a 'no sh*t, Sherlock' conclusion). Unfortunately, so do the odds of breast cancer recurring as do the odds of having ovarian cancer. Now Zack and I make the tough decisions. Do we do a mastectomy? A bi-lateral mastectomy? An oophorectomy? We are thinking we will wait to take out the ovaries until I am at least 40, just on the slim chance I have retained some fertility from the chemo. We won't do any more fertility treatments, but...I can't give up the tiny maybe I have left. The mastectomy decision is also a hard one. We clearly had a bad experience with surgery, and are NOT looking forward to a major one. So, we need to balance the 'do it once and get it over with' impulse with 'this is (for now) healthy tissue we'd be hacking off' idea.

OK, back to the couch for me. Another nap is calling...