Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy - Lifetime movie

I watched the movie, "Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy" last night. It was very touching.

There was a part that really captured me and reminded me of how chance meetings are not always chance.

The woman was in a cab. She had a cab driver that had had one tetisticle removed due to testcular cancer. It seemed like he was there just to be her turning point.

It reminded me of a "chance" meeting I had not thought about in awhile.

We were at a point where T had to make a decision whether to take the usual chemo regimen or get involved in a study.
In this chemo study, she would have been randomly assigned to one of 3 (or 4) groups.

1. The usual 12 week regimen (Cytoxan/Adriomyacin) every 3 weeks for 4 cycles.
2. An 8 week regimen of Taxol, every week for 8 weeks.
3. A 12 week regimen of Taxol, every week for 12 weeks.
4. I can't remember the 4th. Maybe the C/A with an extra 2 cycles.

Anyway, it was said that the Taxol would possibly be less nausiating. T felt like she should automatically go with the study, so she could do "her part" for the greater good. (I mean, so many before her had done the same to get where we are today.) It was really hard to feel out what the best option would be for HER.

I did some reasearch on Taxol, the drug they were studying. I noticed that a lot of the side effects revolved around joint pain (that did or did not go away after the cycle was over.) With T's pre-cancer chronic joint pain, I was skeptical. I read and read and told her that I did not think Taxol was the right drug for her. She did not know what to do. She felt like she SHOULD go with the study. She felt that this was her part to play in finding the best treatments. I felt that taking a chance of getting a drug that caused her more joint pain than she already experienced would be the wrong option. But it was not my body and it was HER decision. Butterfly and I would be flying to New Orleans and she would be going through the first of her treatments without us. (The trip had been planned and she did not want it changed. She wanted to go through the unknown without little Butterfly watching. At least when Butterfly came back, T would have an idea what it would be like.)

Butterfly and I were on the plane to New Orleans and we met the man in the seat next to us. (It's funny, but he was a "big ol' queen" and the conversation started around the fact that Butterfly's build-a-bear, Jewely, who was dressed in a fairy outfit was NOT a girl. Jewely was a boy!) Anyway, it came out that T was home a few weeks post lumpectomy and we were trying to figure out whether to join the Taxol study or get the usual chemo.

Lo and behold, this man had taken Taxol and almost died from it. (He had taken it for an AIDS related cancer.) He and I discussed the fact that all the research I saw pointed to joint pain and T had chronic pain already and I didn't want her to take it. But she felt she SHOULD be in the study. We were at a point of just needing a sign. Then, here I am, in an airplane, sitting next to who else, but someone who almost died from Taxol.

I got off the plane and went straight (no pun intended) to the phone and called T and told her about this "chance meeting." We decided this was the sign we needed. Right then and there, she called the hospital and said NO to the Taxol study.

So, like the woman (about to have one breast) in the movie, who by "chance" got in a cab driven by a man with one testicle, a woman who did not want to be away from her partner about to have chemo got on an airplane and by "chance" sat next to a man who almost died from a drug she thought her partner should not be taking. Amazing!

And co-incidentally, about this drug and joint pain, I later (after chemo was over) read somewhere that singer, Melissa Etheridge, started out taking Taxol, but stopped due to the joint issues in her hand that were keeping her from playing her guitar. (Even though I take whatever I read with a grain of salt,) this just confirms to me that Taxol would have been the wrong answer for T and her joints.

I'm glad to love one of the brave lesbian moms that fought breast cancer.