Walking With Brenda

Brenda’s surgery happened on August 4, 2023, and it went off without a hitch. Brenda and I went to the New Westminster Surgical Centre (near Royal Columbian Hospital that specializes in certain types of surgeries, I guess) at 7am for her procedure. The most concerning thing at the time was that the elevator was out… Continue reading

Hello, friends! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve done a blog post. There’s considerable news to report. About the L1 lesion. As you might remember, Brenda has two lesions: L1 and L2. You also might remember that L1 was slightly larger and suspected to be the main cause of all the problems. Well,… Continue reading

Hi friends! Lots to catch you up on in this installment. New port installed. It turns out that Brenda has somewhat iffy veins (which we sorta knew) so they elected to install an “implanted port” (often called a “mediport” or “port-a-cath”). It’s basically a port implanted in the left side of her chest wall, directly… Continue reading

On Monday, April 3, Brenda begins her first chemotherapy session at Burnaby General Hospital. We expect her to lose her hair, so we booked an appointment for a buzz cut on Saturday, April 1. It’s hard to watch your wife get shorn like a sheep, but she took it like a champ. She also acquired… Continue reading

Yesterday, Brenda and I met with the oncologist for the third time. He’s a really nice guy and he works out of Burnaby General Hospital. We now have a little more information about the proposed treatment plan. The chemotherapy protocol is called “BRLATWAC” — named for BReast, Locally Advanced, Paclitaxel (TAXOL) Weekly followed by Doxorubicin (ADRIAMYCIN) and Cyclophosphamide.  BRLATWAC. Get it? Apparently… Continue reading

Brenda had a bunch of scans recently with some good news and some interesting news. A recent CT scan verified that there is no sign that the cancer, first detected in her lymph node on February 1, has spread or landed on other organs. That would have been bad. A recent mammogram did not find anything abnormal, unusual, or suspicious.… Continue reading

From the beginning, we were a bit concerned that the cancer first detected in Brenda’s lymph node may also be in other parts of her body — and that can be really terrible and frightening news. Breast cancer can often spread to bones, liver, lungs, and brain. Yeesh! But in Brenda’s case, a bunch of… Continue reading

Hello friends and family. The interesting stuff began Tuesday February 7, when Brenda at an appointment with a general surgeon. I thought her appointment was with someone else, but no. Anyway, this general surgeon had performed a biopsy of one of Brenda’s lymph nodes that had formed a little bump. This kind of thing is… Continue reading