austin_tycho | Crancer diaries: Baron Harkonnen for one more week

I'm cancer-free, as far as we know, but there's a one in ten chance that there was a bit of cancer that broke off and is floating around in my body and could attach itself to a bone or my liver or brain. That would sure suck! Since we know from the biopsy that this particular cancer eats estrogen, I will be staring on a drug that basically makes sure there is no estrogen in my body. The stuff I took for a bit after my last cancer (Tamoxifen) worked by making sure there was none in my breast, but since I'm post-menopausal (verified through labwork) we can take this other class of drugs that won't give me a blood clot like the Tamoxifen did. Having all the estrogen shown the door means I can have hot flashes, hair loss, bone and joint aches, and osteoporosis, but it could also mean that none of that happens. Either way, it'll drop my chances of having this cancer show up somewhere else to about two percent.

Which is... I mean, it's pretty good, but ugh.

The incisions are healing. I split the one on the left side near my armpit somehow but the surgeon cleaned that up and it's getting better. I'm on the long end of how long it takes for the drains to get removed; I'm still making too much sangria, but past a certain point the risk of infection from leaving them in outweighs the benefit. I bought a compression vest (also recommended as a binder for trans guys!) that will smush down the area so that after they get pulled out, if I'm still making sangria it'll just get smushed back into my body rather than forming an unpleasant sangria boob, because WHO WANTS THAT SHIT? Not me. So we're giving it one more week, and the drains are coming out one way or another. I was surprised to learn that there is like a few feet of tubing in my body; I don't know why I thought it was like a few inches. That's going to be a riot when it gets pulled out.