Chances are.

So yesterday was the big day. I met my oncologist, Dr. V, and got a chemo plan. She began our meeting by entering all my cancer specifics into some computer program. Age: 38....General Health: Good....Estrogen Receptor: Positive...Tumor Grade: 2....Tumor Size: 2.1-3.0cm...Nodes Involved: 1-3. <Insert fake computer sound here.> From this program, out popped my odds. If I do nothing, I have a 41% chance of being alive and cancer-free in 10 years. If I do this chemo and take these crappy hormonal drugs, I have a 79% chance of being alive and cancer-free in 10 years. Okay, I think, I teach statistics. This is easy. I pick treatment.

Despite knowing statistics and weighing these odds, there were a couple of moments yesterday that bothered me. For one, 10 years. Hello? I'd like to live past 48. For another, when you get cancer, you have to fill out a questionnaire a day on your family history. Dr. V saw from my questionnaire yesterday that I had a deceased sibling. She naturally asked how did he die. Car accident, I say. Her reply was "Your poor parents." I'll translate this seemingly cold statement. (I speak fluent doctor now.) What she meant was the probability of having a child die in a car accident at 30 AND having a child diagnosed with cancer at 38 is crazy low. How unfortunate for them. Which shows you looking at numbers means nothing when the house wins. I mean there was a 1 in 10 chance I'd get breast cancer in the first place and well, I lost that hand. (You're welcome, other 9 women. I took one for the team.) Is there such a thing as I have had my fair share of bad luck?

Here is another thing that bothered me. They don't phrase your odds by speaking in probabilities or percentages. Instead, the report says 79 out of 100 women are alive and without cancer in 10 years after combined therapy. So do I celebrate the likelihood that I'll be alive after all this? No, I don't. I think about the 21 other ladies that won't... because when you sit in an oncology waiting room, 100 people translates into a lot of real human faces. Get busy, genius science children, and cure this problem now.

So what will my chemotherapy entail? Well, months of crap. Specifically, I will get 4 treatments of the "bad" stuff (adriamycin and cytoxan). Side effects include nausea, mouth sores, hair loss, weight GAIN (seriously, universe!?) and fatigue. These treatments occur every two weeks, then I get 12 treatments every week of taxel. I don't know how bad that round is. At this time in the meeting, I was still thinking about the weight gain part. So that's 20 weeks. 5 months. March, April, May, June, July. That's my summer...the summer of my discontent. I could be in a clinical trial that would extend my chemo potentially six more months. Still thinking on that.

My treatment is scheduled to begin March 7th, but there are a lot of variables. My plastic surgeon has to give me a green light for anesthesia so a chemo port can be put into my chest. The chemo port surgery has to be scheduled with my favorite breast doc, Dr. D, and she's a popular gal. I need a MUGA scan (no idea...heart thing?). I need an x-ray. I need blood work done. Meanwhile, my boobs are in holding. I'll have to just keep these expanders until all this is over. Three weeks after chemo is done, I can schedule my implants. I want those foobs super bad. All in all, it will be a crap time, but I'll be okay. I shook the Magic 8-Ball and "It is decidedly so."