Thursday, February 2, 2017

Week 4.5: Wrapping Up

I had intended to reintroduce the weekly Monday update format to my blog as I began my journey leading up to the Tran-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race in late May. I have to say that my first month of preparatory training has actually gone pretty darn well under the circumstances, so I haven’t really needed the Monday posts to keep me honest as much I thought I might.

As I’ve mentioned in my last few posts, the beginning of 2017 has really been a lot more focused on getting ready for my Certified Business Analysis Professional exam and wrapping up tests and treatment decisions regarding my DCIS diagnosis from back in December. Because of that, Monday provided very little material to post nor time to in which to post it, as I was in final CBAP cramming mode, but today I can report happy(ish) conclusions to all matters, save the TSE.

On Tuesday I completed my CBAP exam. Because they overhauled the exam in September based on a new version of the BABOK, they are doing a six-month evaluation period when they look at examinees’ actual performance on the new exam before determining what the passing score will be. Basically, they're grading on a curve. So I found the actual exam to be pretty challenging, but based on as much as I studied and felt like I had a good overall grasp of the material, I’m guessing that everyone else found it just as hard. I won’t find out for sure until the end of March, but I think that when it’s all said and done, that I will most likely pass. Until then, I have an embossed piece of paper saying that I *took the test* as solace.



Today also marked the end of my DCIS journey, or at least this phase of it. My Oncotype DX score came back and said that I was at low risk for recurrence, specifically 14% overall recurrence and 6% for invasive cancer over the next 10 years. I met with a radiation oncologist today who confirmed that, per standard guidelines, I was officially “supposed to” get radiation based on my age alone, but given all of my other factors and test results, that forgoing radiation and sticking with regular monitoring was as also a reasonable approach if I felt like that was the best choice for myself. So I will have one more visit with my surgeon in March and then mostly likely find a doctor to oversee my long-term monitoring, which will consist of annual mammograms and/or MRIs to hopefully catch any future recurrence early.

It’s honestly a little weird having my two biggest stressors of the last two months suddenly lifted. Since I’ve been doing a great job at keeping my training up during all of this, as well as pretty much not drinking and limiting myself to one non-home cooked meal per week during the month of January, being back down to just having a job and training for bikes sounds pretty easy. Apparently this morning the groundhog said that there would be six more weeks of winter, but this winters’s been okay so far, so right now I’m feeling like February’s got nothing on me.

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