"A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Being a Model Chemo Babe...OR Living a Chemo Fear"....And the result is...
On January 23rd, a nice, but unnamed doctor (because I was too tired to hear his name), confirmed that the infection that I have is Cellulitis. No, this is not what movie stars have and is pictured on tabloids. This is a relatively common, but very nasty and non-contagious skin infection that causes swelling, localized pain in the infected area and turns the skin into a funky salmon color -- how appetizing is that? Well it gets better and better.
The doctors can't confirm the actual cause, but it would only have taken a small bug (similar to a Staff or Strep type bug) to enter my system in a small compromised area (say recent surgery, scratching my mouth with a toothbrush, a blister, any of the above or something else). Couple this with a compromised immune system and voila, you have a perfect storm to brew a Cellulitis cocktail. So now I am on the ceiling and completely paranoid about what I might have done to get this. It doesn't help that I seem to have a pattern for various infections from each surgery and now this (which I am currently told is not related to the previous infections--well I am going to ask more questions as I am not totally convinced yet). The scary thing is that one can get this more than once if the circumstances present themselves and can occur at other points in one's body. In reading more about this stuff and meeting two other live breast cancer patients in my new “IV club” (fellow recurring IV patients) that have also contracted Cellulitis (on their breast reconstruction site and both well after chemo and reconstruction - one after one year and one after four years), the possibility of recurrence is giving me the warm and fuzzies.
Enough of the what-if's and the experience of others because the current situation is far from over.
What the doctors (and there are plenty of them that play a part in this excitement) want to see is what the effect is of the base antibiotics that I am currently on. Things should improve, and hopefully drastically, within 48 hours, if not a bunch of next steps come into play.
The critical path (for all my project management buddies) is that we get rid of this infection and/or the tissue expander. If the tissue expander proves to be a weak link and if there is a chance that the tissue expander is contributing to this infection or is slowing down getting rid of it (or has the capability of contributing to recurrences or other complexities later), then operating to remove it will be a possible option and will increase the length of time before I can resume my chemo treatments. The reason the tissue expander was placed at the time of surgery was because I had planned to have breast reconstruction after all the chemo and radiation was completed (yes, I am still vain in my 40’s and getting close to 50’s). By having the tissue expander placed at the time of the mastectomy, the thought was that I would avoid another operation prior to breast reconstruction to expand the chest tissue later – well all good intentions….). My chemo treatments cannot continue until this infection is one hundred percent gone, otherwise, I could go through the same or much, much worse once my immune system is further compromised with each subsequent chemo hit. However, delaying the chemo treatments is problematic on two fronts -- potential impacts to effectiveness and the continued cancer risk.
I would be lying to you if I did not tell you that I am more than a little scared....
Let’s get through then next few steps before we go off the edge shall we…
To be cont’d...or in the works...
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