One last update and the future

I think I need this sticker.

Increasingly, I find that I have nothing to report that is of interest (vanity check lol -- was this ever of interest?). As I have reached the end of acute treatment and the immediate unknowns, it probably makes sense to say goodbye to these increasingly infrequent posts. Since I don't expect to have a ton more to say, I'll do a final update and go out with a bit of a PSA. I remain open to answering questions, and have a bit more bandwidth now to do so. Drop me a line if you have a question about any of this stuff because frankly, my goal with this was to make it easier to talk about.

The side effects of the tamoxifen are more manageable now. Insomnia is still a thing but it was before cancer, so I can't tell how much it's increased from baseline. Headaches are way less frequent, and my temperature control is better most days. Pain is highly variable day-to-day but it's not as constant, which is a great improvement, though some days still seriously suck ass for no apparent reason.

From the same page as that sticker. I might NOT be.

Body wise, I have almost full range-of-motion back in my upper body. I'm still reluctant to do a lot of highway driving but I think that's just me being overly cautious, mostly because driving is still really tiring.

Not that I was big on IGing my boobs...but
can confirm.

Telehealth PT typically means a lot of self-direction, infrequent zoom meetings, and the provider sending along documentation of the assigned exercises. Self-direction I have in spades, but I changed physical therapists recently because I think mine was just a bad fit: it would take weeks to get a reply to a request for a follow up appointment and up to a week (with no communication) to get info on exercises. It felt like my progress was being really slowed. I asked for referrals from some friends and found someone I think is a good fit. She asked what restrictions I had and when told the surgeon said after 6 weeks, I had none (but maybe should slowly ease back into things like circus, not get on a trapeze that day), and new PT said great, let's get you in the air. We schedule appointments, I get information in a timely manner, and things are moving forward. When I reach up to the pullup bar these days, I feel good and I can do a lot of quasi-loadbearing stuff (shoulder shrugs with toes on the ground, the tiniest hangs, for the circus folks reading). But I'm still not pushing it, and working within the limits of what my PT says I should be doing...and now with better technique!

I'm catching up on work now and working reasonably long hours (and accomplishing some frigging awesome things) but am frigging exhausted at night. I still wake up at weird times but when I fall asleep, I fall asleep hard. And anything social knocks me out (Nathaniel visited for a little bit this weekend and I had to nap afterward). Naps remain my friend, but I'm nowhere near as tired as I was a few weeks ago. I'll probably take my out-of-office response off my email this week.

Source

My hip, the injury that started all of this, remains horrible, though. So now I embark on a journey to get that figured out, with an MRI slated for next week, an orthopedics appointment a few weeks after that, and still more physical therapy. Sitting, standing, you name it, it hurts. Still, without the hip, who knows WHEN we would have caught the cancer, so...assuming this is not a horrific thing of its own, I'm going with a tentative grateful for this injury.

This is all to say that I am on the mend, and unless something goes seriously tits up (ahem), then I think this post brings my journey to a close. Further posts just  wouldn't say anything of import...And I guess if something does go tits up (notples up?), then you'll know where to find the updates.

Thank you all for following along and supporting me in this bizarre time. I can't tell you how thankful I am for all of you, and for how comparatively simple my path was (thank you medical team who will never see this!). With this, I close this out with a little PSA. I was extremely cavalier about cancer before this happened. I had no real familial history to speak of, no symptoms, and I was active and seemed healthy. I had no reason to think I had to worry. I was overdue on my mammogram; the pandemic gave me a convenient excuse to delay a dreaded procedure. But the joke was on me: in the end, they found invasive ductile carcinoma in one breast, and invasive lobular carcinoma in the other. A twofer! So people without breasts who are reading this, follow up on whatever routine care your doctors tell you to do. People with breasts do the same and also: