Breast Cancer Follow up & I.V. Antibiotics

It took a few weeks but my body finally recovered from the lumpectomy. There was scar tissue in my armpit where the incision was made, but my body healed there. So at least in all of this illness my body can still heal itself. That was a small ray of light. I saw the geneticist and again, I am lucky in that I do not have a gene mutation and the cancer I had rated low. I do however have estrogen positive cancer, so have been advised to go off of my estrogen cream. I haven't done that yet, because I am using such a miniscule amount, and because I was feeling so sick across the board. I know that the estrogen and progesterone creams have helped my mood and general state of well being. I was also advised to start taking Tamoxifen. There have been so many decisions to make health wise in the past few years with the lyme that this cancer diagnosis still feels surreal.  My body is telling me that it was a bump in the road and there isn't going to be any more cancer so I can move on.  Maybe stupid and naive, but intuitively I feel that it was a fluke because of the condition of my body. I have to make a decision about the Tamoxifen soon, but I am exhausted by these decisions.

In the meantime, I have been on three rounds of i.v. rocephin for the lyme. We were trying to do it only on the days I was flaring, but each time I went off of it I got very sick. So, now it's i.v. rocephin every day, probably for the next two months. I am feeling really good. Symptoms that have gone away are; pounding stomach, brain fog, itchy eyes, muscle aches, nerve pain in my jaw and head, swollen glands, racing thoughts, anxiety and that deep, soul sucking fatigue. Unfortunately, I think lyme heals in layers and now that those symptoms have disappeared new ones have shown up. Most significantly my knee and elbow joints are killing me. I never had joint pain in all of this time, which many lyme patients do. Perhaps the bacteria were always lurking there, but compared to all of the other horrific symptoms that was the least of my problems. Now that the body has been freed up of those others pains, the bacteria are wreaking havoc in the joints.  And after only three weeks on the rocephin I am once again dealing with yeast, despite taking high doses of pro-biotics and anti-fungals. It feels like it never ends.  But right now I am hopeful, more hopeful than I have been in a long time.