Phone appointment with my oncologist this morning. It went well – now I have a good idea of what to look forward to in terms of treatment.

The “oncotype” score was low, which means no chemotherapy. That’s definitely good in terms of how strenuous my treatment will be. I was already prepared to shave my head and learn to tie headscarves, and was checking new short hairstyles to adopt when my hair started growing back. But no need for that now, at least not for this iteration.

So the plan is to do radiation first, and then when that is done, start hormone therapy.

I go back to have my tissue expander filled on the 17th by the plastic surgeon. The oncologist thought i would need a couple of weeks to recover from that. It shouldn’t be a huge deal, but it would be good for the surrounding tissue to get used to the new size, especially since radiation causes tissue damage.

I don’t know how long the radiation will be yet – I remember from my earlier talk with the radiation onocologist that it’s usually 4 to 6 weeks of appointments every weekday. I hope it’s more like 4. Six weeks of daily radiation sounds like a long time. So that’s likely most of July, if we start 2 weeks after the tissue expansion is done. Then hormone therapy starts after that. My understanding is that hormone therapy goes on for 5 years and the main effects will be the same as menopause.

So that’s the deal.