SUE'S ESCAPE FROM CANCERLAND: My mother-in-law turns 90

Saturday, October 4, 2014

My mother-in-law turns 90

Great grand came out for visit last year to meet 4 of her great grands (she had met Oliver before)

With baby Steve

Steve and his brother

On her wedding day

With baby Steve

She is becoming too frail to travel from Seattle. The social director of her assisted living place promised to send us a photo of Steve's mom in a Mariner jacket we sent. She is quite the fan. The Mariners have sent her a jersey and a baseball cap that I put on this blog a month ago.Maybe she is waiting for her party this afternoon.

So cold outside now! At least it should be dry for Josh and my big bike ride tomorrow.

On her big day modeling the jacket

1 comment:

Elephant's Child said...: Happy birthday to your MIL.
Good luck for tomorrow's ride.; October 4, 2014 at 6:28 PM

About me

I am a mother of 3, wife of 1, and grandmother of 6. For years, I had been a medicinal chemist. Not long after I was retired early, I found myself with triple negative breast cancer. My struggles with it are in this blog along with the joys and trials of being a mother and grandmother. I love to be physically active, travel, read, and garden. Although my degrees are in chemistry and cellular biology not medicine, I keep up with the medical literature and report herein watching closely for good news against this deadly disease. As time goes on, my stay in Cancerland has become more a bad memory than a reality. This blog has since morphed into a photo blog in which I try to capture moments of beauty in my life.

TIMELINE

9-10-08: 1.6 cm tumor discovered by routine mammogram confirmed by ultrasound

9-21-08: Biopsy confirming Grade 3, triple negative invasive breast cancer

10-7-08: First surgery and sentinel node biopsy.

10-9-08: Tumor had grown to 3 cm plus an additional tumor was found. Poor margins but the 3 sentinel nodes were negative

10-16-08: Follow-up mammograms: lots of microcalcifications that could be DCIS

10-29-08: Second surgery removing 3x the tissue as the first: Good news: no sign of cancer in any of it.

12-2-08: First dose dense treatment with Adriamycin and Cytoxan followed by Neulasta the next day

12-16-08: Second dose

12-19-08: Hair began falling out. In 2 days I would be completely bald.

12-30-08: Third dose

1-13-09: Fourth dose

1-27-09: First of 4 doses of Taxol

3-10-09: Last dose of Taxol

3-31-09: First of 16 radiation treatments (so-called hypofractionated Canadian study)

4-21-09: Last radiation treatment

Early May: All eyelashes and eyebrows suddenly fall out but see evidence of stubble on head

Mid July: Have an inch of curly salt-pepper hair vs straight blondish-white of before. Officially retire the wig.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

My mother-in-law turns 90

1 comment:

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