First follow-up!

Today we rose before dawn, ate breakfast, and I took off through the early rush-hour traffic to Dana-Farber, where I barely had time to fasten on my radio-tracking button before I was led to an examination room.

Dr. Lin is friendly, fast, and thorough. She tells me that in the next couple of months the left breast, as the radiation-induced swelling declines, may feel lumpy or uneven -- good to know, as otherwise I might be freaking out.

Otherwise, nothing. I can come back in July for a mammogram and a visit with the nurse practitioner. I will be seeing one or the other of them, alternately, every six months for about three years, then just annually, then... not.

In other words, I am as cured as I can be at this point. A trip next Tuesday to let the surgeon admire her handiwork, and I am DONE. Or done-ish. Or something.

It's never really over. I can't call myself a cancer survivor unless I die of something else. Not that this depresses me, mind you! I always wanted something more than "She was a survivor" as my epitaph, and now I have more of a chance to earn something more interesting.

And I will, because as I was checking out, I asked if I could go see the people in the Patient Advocate office. The nice woman at the check-out desk couldn't find their location in her directory. She sent me to the Patient and Family Services office (home of the Volunteer Coordinator), but that wasn't the right place -- and though I did obtain the Patient Advocate phone number there, I was not told where they were located.

I did, however, find out that there is a Patient Advisory council. They like you to be out of treatment for six months to a year before you join it, so that you'll have a sense of objectivity again (instead of being an object). But if they think that's going to make me less persistant about fixing some of these systemic things, they have another think coming. I may not be steaming from both ears and the top of my head any more, but I still have all my notes!