Long time coming.
It has been a long long time since I have posted and here is a long awaited update.
In August of 2023, my wife of 22 years was diagnosed with stage 2b breast cancer. Just had a clear mammogram in May of 2023, but felt pain where it shouldn’t be and had it checked out. The initial ultrasound begat a whole slew of tests. The mass looked like cauliflower, so that usually only means one thing, cancer.
After being diagnosed, I googled what was the best cancer hospital and oncologists in Illinois, turns out it the University of Chicago, which also happens to have a cancer center in our neighboring town of New Lenox. The treatment was aggressive, but, spoilers, there is currently no evidence of disease. The treatments were:
Implantation of a port that leads directly to her heart.
Many infusions for chemotherapy, including 4 AC aka the Red Devil, that is so caustic, it can only be infused using a central line and the nurses wear disposable gowns. There were at least 8 infusions of a different chemo. This was all to reduce the size of the cancer, which it did, from about the size of a golf ball to the size of a pea.
Following the chemo, a little rest, then a double mastectomy with goldilocks reconstruction (5 ½ hours).
Some more rest, followed by what seems like endless radiation…daily…5 days a week, I think for 3 weeks. It may be longer, I will have to ask.
Some more rest and a final surgery, a oophorectomy, removal of her remaining ovary. She only had one left, the surgeon thinks it may have been lost with the c-section she had with our son. She had a partial hysterectomy a few years ago, so this just finished the job. She now gets to enjoy menopause at the ripe old age of 41, but this was done because the cancer was estrogen and progesterone positive. Don’t give it hormones to promote growth and it will help prevent it coming back.
Long story short, there is no evidence of disease 🙂
She has a break from treatments until some time next year, hopefully just a routine flush of her port and blood work will be the majority of it, knock on wood.
In other news, out son graduated with honors from high school, and is in community college and just loves it. He was very worried about how it would be, but it is such a change from high school, in a good way.
My retro controller business really took off this year with the introduction of the true analog Atari 5200 controller, so much so, that Cyberphreak Enterprises LLC is a real thing.
I’ll try not to ignore this main site as much in the upcoming year. Hopefully no more major health scares in the near future.
