Friday Cat Blogging

Here's Kali, showing her technique for attacking cat toys. It's unorthodox, but Kali has a licker license and likes to take advantage of it. (Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week!)







Now that the cuteness is out of the way, it's time for not-so-cute explanation of what's been going on the past two days. The pocket of fluid was aspirated yesterday, but things didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. The pocket of fluid wasn't a tidy pocket that could be drained with one poke of a needle. Instead, the radiologist had to take several stabs (pun intended) at getting to the fluid, and said "Hmmm" when pulling back on the syringe resulted in no fluid drawing out. We're not sure how much fluid was drawn; FrogRev can only create a cylinder shape with her fingers and hands and say "this much." We're hoping that's enough to speed up the reduction in swelling and make FrogRev more comfortable.

We met with the genetics doctor this morning. He was there to assess whether or not FrogRev was at risk for abnormal BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, and therefore needed to be tested for the presence of those abnormal genes. If neither of those two are abnormal, the probability of a woman developing breast cancer over a 90-year lifespan is about 12%. If either of those two abnormal genes are present, it jumps to as high as 85%. So it can be important to know. (There's information about those here.) After some questions about family history and a quick check of the criteria that have to be met for genetic testing to be authorized, we were told that FrogRev doesn't meet the criteria. (One of the criteria I recall is having Eastern European Jewish ancestry.) Given her family history, there's not enough evidence to suggest that she's carrying those abnormal genes. There are some questions about family history FrogRev couldn't answer, but "not knowing family history" isn't reason enough to go forward with genetic testing. Even people who were adopted and know no family history don't qualify; there has to be some positive evidence to suggest that the abnormal genes could be present. We could have authorized the test anyway and paid for it ourselves, but it only tests for the presence of abnormal BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and the probability that FrogRev is carrying those abnormal genes is very, very low. She decided against it.

The good news is that FrogRev only has four treatments to go. Today was the last Friday treatment. The last of the home stretch begins Monday.