Day 160: Surgeryland Recovery: Tortoise-shell Dinosaur design

Phew! The end of another nail-biting day here in Cancerworld for Robbie and me, and for once one with a good outcome. Back in December when the nodal 'invasion' was been detected, some small cysts in my liver were also evident on the CT scan. It's quite normal to have such things in our liver, but for someone with breast cancer, the doctors are extra cautious as this is one of the key sites for metastases. All my specialists wanted me to wait til the end of my chemo treatment to have another scan to see what changes, if any, the treatment had had on the cysts. For once, we wanted to still see them there, unchanged -  which would indicate they are ordinary old liver spots, and not cancerous lesions. The great news today was that they still look exactly as they did in December. So now I'm breathing again. Dr Rachel will keep a close eye on the cysts, with regular scans, but it means I can forget about them for now...but in the mean time won't to punish my liver with too much alcohol, although I am looking forward to a celebratory glass of wine once this is all over!

The other great news is that Dr Rachel is certain that I don't need any more chemo. Studies have indicated that there's no additional benefit in having 'mop up' chemo for someone in my situation. Double Phew!!!! More important is to get on to the radiotherapy, and more important again is to start the endocrine hormone therapy, starting with tamoxifen, immediately after the radiotherapy. This will be a long term prospect - at least 5 possibly 10 years of treatment. Let's hope and pray the side-effects aren't too awful - but it's proving to be very effective, improving the chances of non-recurrence by up to 50 per cent or more, which is excellent news. Surely in that time, there will be a miracle cure too!

Right on cue, Dr Rowena called this afternoon to book me in for the start of the radiotherapy, which will now commence on 24 July and run through until the second last week of August.

One more visit to Dr Elizabeth tomorrow to have additional fluid inserted in the expander and a bone density test on Friday (osteoporosis is a potential side-effect of the hormone therapy so we need a baseline test) and I hope that's me done with the specialists for a few weeks. I can wait for some time just concentrate on 'rest and repair'!

As ever, Robbie was my rock today. He was steady and patient, and his calm reassurances helped keep me from catastrophising too much. I have only survived every step of this experience
because of him.

Rob and the boys, including nephew Ollie, are off tomorrow for a camping adventure on the other side of the Blue Mountains... in the freezing cold...rather them than me! Instead, I'll look forward to having Dad come to visit for a couple of nights, while he's in town having his own regular medical check ups.

I wore my good luck earrings today, along with another bangle from the DD collection - a favourite tortoise-shell bangle with a lovely organic shape.