Mayo Clinic

First you notice the amenities that make life pleasant even under un-pleasant circumstances.The parking was close. The elevator was easy to find. The lines to register weren't long. The paperwork was in order. Someone knew my name and why I'd come and that I'd driven a long ways. People smiled at me in the corridors, and from behind the desks and in the lobby.

Artwork lined the walls and documents told the story of the people behind the artwork. (Why don't more displays talk about the artist and tell something about the person behind the art? )...and a guy in silver white hair and a lab coat was playing the grand piano in the foyer for the amusement of those waiting for their appointments (was he a physician? a volunteer? or a lab tech with a special talent for Grand Pianos?) And to top it all off, the Doc arrived on time, un hurried and completely informed about me. How reassuring.

Welcome to Mayo Clinic.

I went down this morning for a second opinion on my status and options for treatment. My first oncologist (a month ago)  spent 15 mintues with me, ummmed and aahd, pulled out a chart and said Geeze, well it seems you are pretty healthy but this chart says I must recommend 6 mos of chemotherapy. Not the answer I wanted....so I decided a second opinion was in order.

Turns out my friend Paula, has a best friend who just completed chemo at the Mayo Clinic with Dr. N and she highly recommended him. I knew I was on the right track when the staff at Mayo requested every bit of records, xrays and slides so they could personally review them - rather than just go over the reports others had written. I like that kind of thoroughness when it comes to my life. So arriving this morning to meet with Dr. N, I was sure that whatever the feedback...it would be informed based on all the evidence at hand. I wasn't wrong.

So the short version is this. BC has been around long enough and there is enough data available to feed my exact stats into the computer: ie size of tumor, age, health history etc and chart the statistics of women with the same thing....and what they did as adjunct therapy (or not) and the survival rate for ten years. Here's what it says about me. 80% of women in my category did NOTHING and were fine. By taking hormone therapy you get an extra 9% bump in your defense against a relapse. And if you go in for chemotherapy you get an additional 2% bump. There is also the percentage in there of women who died (ie were hit by a bus...to which it can't be determined how therapy helped...or didn't. In my case that would have been the angus cow of several weeks ago).

So- 80% is pretty good odds for anyone... and 89% is downright heart warming. So the 2% bump I'd get to put my body through chemo seems hardly a fair trade off. I have decided to increase my odds further by simply watching out for the odd angus cow on the road. Plus, we did talk about evaluating hormone therapy (I'm achy these days in all my joints which I suspect might be the arimidex)...and I'm meeting with a nutritionist in a month when I go back to evaluate hormone therapy.

So I asked Dr. N about the theory which I was operating on with my other oncologist about delaying chemo and just doing follow up work every 3 months (which consists of blood work and pet scans). He explained that THAT question concerned "How do you as my physician predict where/when cancer will show up again" which is a totally dif. question than the one I came in with (although I didn't phrase it that way.) A question which is basically framed as "How do we keep me from a relapse"

And he explained the difference. If breast cancer comes back...it is usually in liver,pancrease etc... places where it is lethal. A relapse is not just BC as usual. It is terminal. Framing the question is everything: in politics and healthcare. Basically Dr. N confirmed that I have very good odds at preventing a relapse. That's the framework we are working with. I like it.

So what did I do to celebrate today?  I went and got my hair done.  Guess I get to keep it. I like that too! 

And Next week? I'm dancing.

Comments

[Mona Kennedy]

Linda--I'm so happy Mayo gave you the right kind of answers. I my book they are the pinnacle of medical knowledge and applications. I was in Rochester to the Clinic there 8-10 years ago for treatment of colo-vaginal fistulas. I had two of them. 3 surgeries in Salina, didn't take care of the problem. 3 more in Rochester did. At least they kept me from a colostomy. Now it is 10 years later and a recent colonoscopy shows no re-occurences. Life is good.
I'm praying for you to have the same kind of good prognosis. BC is an insidious killer of women. My Mother died of BC in 1974 at age 56. She lived 6 months after her initial diagnosis. My sister, Beth,55, died in 1994 of BC after 3 years of treatment. Hers moved into her brain and she suffered. Needless to say I have been religious about mammograms every year since Mothers passing. God's blessings for you. Hope your Mother is holding up thru this. Aunt Mona