Testing..and scans.. 1/11

7:45 am Wednesday morning my mom and I went to Riverview Medical Center for my Genetic Testing- I met with the genetic counselor Jayne Murphy. We went went over our whole family tree to try to see if the breast cancer gene may be somewhere down the line. Thank god my mom was there to help answer some of these questions. After we finished Jayne took me down to get my blood drawn to see if I have the BRCA gene.

While I was there I had to drink 2 containers of contrast for my CAT scan at 9:45am... yum! 🤮

9:30am I went down for my CAT scan. We got there a little early but the were able to get me in. We waited in the room until til I was called.

The nurse came in and asked "Anne?"

"Yeah its Annie"

She gave me an odd look and said to come with her when I was ready.

We went into a room to get my IV put in for the IV contrast. She asked my date of birth, left and came back and said "I'm sorry I'm all thrown off. I thought you were a different a patient, Anne who is 81. And I thought wow you have great wrinkle cream!" We laughed and She tried to put the needle into the same vein as I had just gotten blood drawn from but she seemed all frazzled. So after stabbing me 4 times she went to get a different nurse to help.

The new nurse came in wearing a shirt with a skeleton hand holding up the devil horns signs over her left breast. She got the IV in right away and we went back to the CAT scan room. As she was setting me up she said " You are really lucky to have Dr. Camal. She is the best."

I said "yes I really like her and I only met her once."

The nurse said "she is an amazing surgeon and she did my mastectomy. She has the kindest eyes. When you go in for surgery and you see her eyes , you know you are in good hands. The worst part of surgery is the drains and they stay about 10 days. But Dr. Camal is very cautious and makes sure there is now fluid inside. "

I asked " when did you have surgery?"

And she said just this past April. She has only had a single mastectomy and wished she had done the double. But her cancer was on the same side as mine. So the skeleton hand on her shirt over her left breast made a lot more sense...

She wished me luck and I was off to wait for my Bone scan. Now this scan I also needed anothe IV to pump me up with gamma rays that would attach to my bones for these pictures. The tech informed me that sadly I wouldn't have any superpowers with them. Oh Man- my son would be very disappointed!

After I got the IV I was told to come back in 3 hours! Apparently it take that long for this to be absorbed by the bones...Which is not what I had planned on! So my mom and I had to scramble to get someone to pick up my kids from the bus stop. Thank you to our neighbors and friends Marien and Mandy for saving the day!

My mom and I ended up grabbing lunch while we waited. We waited the rest of the time in a lounge area at the hospital the faced the Navesink River..

Finally went in for my bone scan. If you have never had one before, you lay on a table and have to stay perfectly still while the machine takes a very long 3 min picture of your bones. Kinda like a family photo in there 1800s.. The whole procedure took about 45mins to scan my whole body.

But after that we were done and on my way home.

I got the results that night. Dr Camal's office called to say that they were clear and nothing had metastasized. Then about an hour later my oncologist Dr. Horkheimer called to say the same thing. Nothing looked abnormal and the cancer hasn't spread.

Finally some good news!

One more test tomorrow!