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Karen and I met the oncologist today, Dr. Diaz at Gulf Coast Oncology. He is very personable and took a lot of time to answer our questions. His is an evidence-based approach (as is all oncology, I think).
Mostly we found out things we already knew. He went over the pathology reports in depth. Chemotherapy is a definite followed by radiation. The oncologist was going to contact the surgeon to have her install a port for chemotherapy on Monday so Karen doesn't have to go through a separate procedure. He also is going to order a bone scan and a PET/CT scan to check for other malignancies. That all gets done after the surgery Monday but before chemo.
The schedule shapes up to be chemotherapy in undecided length starting in March (about 4 weeks after surgery) followed by four weeks off then 6 to 8 weeks of radiation. The chemotherapy will be dose dense, which means a dosage every 2 weeks instead of every 3, partly because of the aggressive nature of one of the tumors triggers. Some of this gets adjusted based on the pathology from Monday and the results of the other two scans. With luck, that might mean we're done before Dragon*Con in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend which she really wants to go to.
The oncologist was cautiously optimistic for the long term. He was glad she had a support network and had reached out to other patients on the breast cancer chat room.
Karen is planning to donate her hair to Locks of Love tomorrow or Sunday. She'll probably leave it at about 2 inches to start to ease taking care of it while she recovers from the surgery. The chemo will probably claim whatever is left. She's deciding whether to go with a blonde wig (for those "blonde" moments while she's on chemo) or just go with the Sinead O'Conner/Grace Jones look and let everyone decide how to react.
Today, everything became much more real.
Picture notes: Tim Fritz took this picture while we were having coffee one day after Karen had donated her hair and before her next surgery. Like any true photographer, Tim always has a camera in hand and captures great images just by raising it up and snapping off a picture without seeming to think. An amazing ability.
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