The Panda gets a PET
By Amanda Flaim
Hello Team MandaPanda,
Apologies for the radio silence: as you can imagine, there is a flurry of activity in all aspects of my life since this cancer diagnosis in both my external & internal worlds.
If I had to pick two words to describe the space in this in-between, this uncomfortable and scary space of knowing that my body is hosting a rare and aggressive cancer and still not receiving treatment, it would be both grief & love.
Maybe I’ll write more about the emotional/physical experience in another post so you can bear witness to that aspect of this journey and perhaps it will help me process and move through this.
How am I doing?
When my dear friend Brian and his dog Waylon came and spent a few days with me, I asked him what he would tell people after spending such an intimate time period together and I think he summed up quite nicely:
“the tapestry of her processing is quite rich.” :0)
I’m sitting shotgun in the car with my sister, Ali, as we head to UCSF in San Francisco so I get PET/CT scan. Three weeks ago, Ali, a doctor in Hawaii said to me, “Amanda, I don’t know much about this kind of cancer but I do know where you need to go to get the kind of care you need and that is UCSF. So right now, imagine we are in a car and I’m driving you as fast as I can so I can drop you off at UCSF so they can take care of you”. The driving she refers to is all of the referrals and approvals, etc, to get me bumped to the top of the list as an urgent case.
It’s been 56 days since I discovered the lump in my left breast and called the doctor. It had been less than one year since my last mammogram. I’ll write more about my anger/rage about the broken medical system and agony of trying to check the boxes off in order to get treatment and I still am not. I know I am in fact in a privileged position being white, I have a family of medical professionals and more importantly I have my sister, Ali, acting as my case manager helping tackle and removing the obstacles in the way of me getting care.
Ali played rugby in college so I imagine the night we received the news together it was like I handed her a ball and she has spent the last three weeks running it down the field, spinning, tackling, whatever it is rugby players do and just running this ball down the field.
It’s Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 and last night we got the call, a product of what I view as Ali’s heroic efforts over the past 3 weeks since diagnosis.
She flew in from Hawaii on Saturday evening and is literally driving me to UCSF so I can begin to get the care I need. I am forever grateful to her.
I imagine everything will launch into hyper-speed now.
I need 4 things to begin treatment:
DONE: install port to receive the chemo
TODAY: PET/CT scan - this will tell us if the cancer has spread and they will stage the cancer
TOMORROW: Echocardiogram - they need to make sure my heart is in shape to handle the medicine. Thank goodness I had that heart valve replacement 2 years ago.
UCSF Oncologist make treatment plan/place the order: it will likely be 4-6 months of chemo 2x/week and then surgery
So, please send good thoughts/prayers/vibes/however you send your love today and tomorrow that I can find peace & comfort getting through tests and appointments/results (this is very traumatic for me!), that the tests read what they need to read to help with treatment, and that Ali & I are safe in our travels as we will be buzzing around SF, Manteca and Modesto in the next 36 hours for about 4-5 different appointments.
🙏🏽✨💗
I love you all and appreciate your love and support!