Shades of Cancer - Breast Cancer

The nurse at my oncologist's office told me what they call the feeling between the day of the scan and the day we meet with the doctor to get the results - scanxiety. Unfortunately, we cancer patients live with scans and tests of all kinds. Ever since my cancer diagnosis, I've been getting either PET-CT or CAT scans either every 3 months or 6 months depending on the treatment and how the lab numbers look. Lab tests are used to keep an eye on what the red and white blood cells are doing and how the liver and kidneys are holding up. EKG's watch out for my heart. Blood tests also check for tumor markers - in my case CA 27-29. I had my latest PET-CT scan last Friday, the second week of January of the new year, and I hit my personal deductible for the year by a good margin! Yes, scans are expensive but, in the case of cancer, they're about the best way to look at where the cancer is and whether it has grown bigger or moved somewhere else. Between that Friday and Tuesda...

Once upon a time, there was a woman who did everything she was supposed to. She ate right (in fact she was a vegetarian), she maintained a healthy weight, she did not smoke or drink, she did a LOT of exercise, and she got her checkups and shots on time. Yet, she still ended up with with cancer. =================== I had my first brush with breast cancer in March of 2004. After a mammogram, I was told I had multiple calcifications in my left breast. I was 43 years old with no family history of breast cancer. My diagnosis was Stage 0 ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).  Once I recovered from a lumpectomy, I had standard radiation therapy. I continued diagnostic mammograms every 6 months for 5 years after treatment ended and continued annual screening mammograms after that As scary as the cancer diagnosis was, this episode eventually receded into the past. My second brush with. breast cancer came in July, 2018. This cancer is much more serious than 14 years ago and has chang...