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My Breast Cancer Experience – A Month at MD Anderson Cancer Center

POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.
My-breast-cancer-treatment-journal-690x400 My Breast Cancer Experience - A Month at MD Anderson Cancer Center
By Zereshk (Own work) GFDL or CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

One of the scariest experiences you may have as a newly-diagnosed breast cancer patient is entering a cancer center for the first time.  Hopefully, this post of my treatment experience at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston helps make you more comfortable.  Also, check out five steps to take before you start treatment.

Twelve days after diagnosis, I was at MD Anderson Cancer Center at 6:30 in the morning, lugging CDs and printouts of my health records and facing a full day of evaluation, prodding and filling out forms. My cancer center was experimenting with a new patient protocol.  You had the option to have everything done in one incredibly long day, or you could return for multiple days of appointments.  Since I lived closed, I went with the one day plan. 

My time at MD Anderson Cancer Center begins

Before dawn on September 25, I was parking in the near-empty parking garage under the Texas Medical Center, a separate entity within the city of Houston.  Mexico City has the City of the Dead.   Egypt has the Valley of the Kings.  Houston has the City of the Sick, officially called the Texas Medical Center.  MD Anderson Cancer Center is one of TMC’s most visited destinations. [Read more…]

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Breast Cancer. 5 steps to take before treatment

POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.

breast-cancer-5-steps-to-take-now-if-you-have-it-690x400 Breast Cancer. 5 steps to take before treatmentYou just joined the 1 in 8 sisterhood of women who get breast cancer.  Before you head down your treatment road, here are five steps I discovered helped me mentally and financially. 

To make your looming cancer journey a little less threatening now’s the time to compare this trip with something in your past that was initially unfamiliar but you quickly adjusted to.  Maybe a new job or going to college far from home.  For me, it was summer camp.

There are similarities between the way you felt as a kid when you got dropped off at summer camp the first time and the way you’ll feel entering a  cancer center as a patient for that first appointment.  Just like camp, you’ll be out of your comfort zone, make new friends, sometimes cry late at night, be embarrassed, disoriented, be required to do different things and have different things done to you.  As a kid, you probably asked some of the older girls in the hood about what to expect at camp. 

Consider me an older girl in the hood and this post an idea of what to expect at “cancer camp.”   In addition to the five steps to get you started, here’s a link to exactly what I went through day by day in treatment.  I’ve tried to be as complete as possible of the treatment post to help you feel more comfortable about you may be facing.  That makes the entire story a long post.  You can read the journey here when you are ready.   Right now, I suggest looking over this list of things and actions that helped me most. [Read more…]

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