Onward

And we have progress.

My appointment with the most amazing BRCA-specialist oncological gynecologist ever could not have gone better. I know I'm doing the right thing and am in the best of hands. Dr. Pearlman is literally one of the pioneers in BRCA detection and treatment. He was the doctor of the first family in which the BRCA1 mutation was discovered. He literally writes the national recommendations on what to do for this gene mutation treatment. He used to work side by side with Dr. Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project and current head of the NIH. Good hands, people, miracle hands.

So my BSO is scheduled for August 4. Recovery *should* only be a week. I got to pick the date. I have it scheduled at a time that still allowed us to take our summer vacation, still pick my daughter up from camp and watch her orchestra perform at camp, and heal in time to go to the fundraiser walk to Joana's scholarship and not miss any of Josh's football games or the games Meghan will be cheering at. I know things could go awry, but they likely won't and this schedule works great for my family :)

It's still surgery, so I'm still nervous, but I don't have even an ounce of doubt that it's the right thing to do and I know that I couldn't be in better hands.

Soon, likely early next week, I'll call both my breast surgeon and plastic surgeon again to talk about scheduling my PBMX and (likely) DIEP flap reconstruction. I'll have those procedures after the BSO. If the schedule works out to my preference, I'll have the PBMX yet this year so I don't have to pay another year of my (stupid high) deductible. But I may decide to wait until spring so I get paid for my time off of work. Decisions I'll make later (but soon).

Now on to my personal mission to lose as much weight as safely possible before August 4.

Today's the day

My appointment with the oncological gynecologist is this afternoon. And my anxiety is pretty high about it.

I want to go. I've heard great things about this doctor (two of my husband's cousins have gone to him and had him do their oophorectomies, both being BRCA1+). He specializes in BRCA mutations.

And I'm scared too. I finally know, thanks to my MRI, that I don't have breast cancer (yet). But I don't know that about ovarian cancer. And ovarian cancer is harder to "monitor for" and harder to treat if you do have it.

So today, I'm praying that I don't have ovarian cancer and that the doc has a recommendation (oophorectomy or hysterectomy) and that we can get it scheduled.

My sister is going to my appointment with me today. I have very mixed feelings about this. It's a gyn visit, which is always best attended alone in my mind, BUT... I may get bad news today. And my sister is a busy person who I don't get to see often. So I feel like the fact that she is available to go and asked me if she can go with me means that maybe she's meant to be there today. Maybe there's a reason it's working out that way.

So yeah. Back to anxiety and fear. And hope and planning.

This journey is no fun at all.