A normal day

Yesterday was my first normal day since the surgery on February 20. I rode the van back and forth to work. Put in a full 8 hours. Had no medical appointments. There were no snowstorms to deal with and no training to attend. It felt great to get back into the comfortable routine.
I'm playing phone tag with the 'patient navigator' at a cancer clinic that has been highly recommended to me. I hope to connect with her today.
Yesterday evening, I spoke with a friend from Baldwin who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. It was encouraging to hear how well she is doing. After being told initially that she should have a double mastectomy, she sought out several second opinions and followed a course of radiation treatments instead.
I thought it was just me being crabby, but her same assessment of the clinic I visited last Friday was the same as mine: it's not a well run, cohesive place. I'm thankful I have other options.
She had reservations about hormone treatments but was taking them as prescribed until she began experiencing excruciating joint pain - a known side effect. She stopped taking the medication but the pain didn't subside completely for 8 weeks. She said she never felt like herself while on the hormone.
It would be a mistake for me to jump to any kind of conclusion based on this - especially since she wasn't on tamoxifen but on a similar drug that is prescribed to post-menopausal women. But hearing her story confirmed my caution about hormone treatments.