A year in the life
October 31 marks 1 year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
It's been quite the month. As I've told a few co-workers, easing back into work has gone pretty well, and the rest of the month has been crazy.
My manager and team has been very supportive and it's been nice to connect with my co-workers. I have a few clear tasks that don't have looming deadline pressure, and I'm not on full-time hours until December. And as I dip my toes into things, I'm gradually remembering some of the small details about how the tools work that I had forgotten.
The rest of October included:
- The TTC cancelling my CNIB-issued (CNIB=Canadian National Institute for the Blind) transit pass at the start of October with no warning or explanation for the cancellation. There's a 3-week lead time on getting a new pass, so I just picked it up this week.
- Starting back at work at 30% hours. This triggered a generic process to cancel my benefits since part-time workers below 50% don't get benefits - but that was an erroneous cancellation that should not happen for a return from long-term disability. It took over a week and some back and forth with both the internal Benefits team and the insurance company to get my benefits restored.
- And while I had no benefits, my spouse tested positive for COVID and I was symptomatic (but tested negative multiple times over the next week). I was able to get a prescription for Paxlovid since I did have low white blood cell count while on abemaciclib in September. But since I had no benefits and my spouse's crappy health plan refused to cover the cost, I opted to not spend $1500 out of pocket for the drug.
I felt better after a few days, but lymph nodes behind my armpit and all the way down my arm have been achy since then. The pain has lessened with time, so I'm hoping it's all resolved in another week or so. I haven't felt lymph node pain like this since I had my lumpectomy + removal of a bunch of lymph nodes.
- I got my benefits back last week, but we've discovered this week that benefits coverage for my spouse and our kid has not been reactivated. So it'll probably be another week before that's fixed.
- My spouse found carpet beetles around our living room sofa. It looks like it wasn't a huge infestation, so we're hoping her very thorough cleaning has taken care of things.
- Our upstairs shower started leaking a lot. It's the one part of our 2018 house renos that was not done well, and we didn't realize how bad it was until long after the job was completed. Fortunately we have a bathroom in the basement, so we can get by while we organize getting the shower fixed properly.
I had completely forgotten that there was another possible drug in my future. The letrozole drug that I'm currently taking to block estrogen production has the unfortunate side effect of increasing risk of osteoporosis. Taking a biphosphonate helps to slow down bone loss, so it's typically prescribed if you're taking an aromatase inhibitor like letrozole. I don't know which bone agent my oncologist has in mind, so there will be more to learn in early December. In the meantime, I'm supposed to get clearance from my dentist to use a bone agent, probably because one of the risk of osteonecrosis (rare, more likely to occur if you've had dental surgery).
That is way more excitement than I want in my life over 3 months, let alone one. I am hoping November will be largely uneventful before I start work full-time and start discussing bone agents with my doctor.
Happy Halloween to all who celebrate the day. I'll be handing out candy in the costume my kid wore last year - Link from Tears of the Kingdom wearing a bokoblin mask. The epic costume was custom made by my spouse.
