Date for Lumpectomy

After a bit of back & forth, I have decided to have the surgery on Friday, December 5th at 12:50 pm at St. Jude Hospital. Unless something different happens than expected, I will be home that evening. It is not at the outpatient center because my surgeon goes to different venues on different days. His Friday venue is the hospital.

If there is no lymph node cancer I should be back to work in a few days. If the surgery has to be more extensive, then I may be home for up to two weeks. That's not gonna happen.

I am good with this. It gives me a little more time to read more stuff about breast cancer. Michelle spent this last weekend walking at the Susan G. Komen walk in San Diego. She brought me a "Cancer Sucks" button and a great, new statistic: Breast Cancer caught early has a 96% survival rate!! What a great number!!

The Waiting Game

The person who schedules surgery was not in today. An assistant checked the schedule and it shows a tentative date of Friday, December 5th for my surgery. The assistant told me that the scheduler will be in on Tuesday, Nov 25 and will call me. It's further away than I had hoped, but it we'll see what happens tomorrow. I'll let you know......

Thanks to everyone for treating me in such a normal manner. It's still just me - Marie

MRI Results

Good News! Dr. Cole just called and said that the MRI shows that the cancer cells are only in the area of the lump, not in any other part of either breast. Cancer may still have moved to the lymph nodes, but we won't know that until the surgery.

We have decided on a lumpectomy. He is setting everything up. The office will call me on Monday with information on the date and time. It will be soon.

The rest of the biopsy results

We have been awaiting the second set of results from the biopsy. I thought these results were to determine if the cancer has spread outside the walls of the lump. I was wrong....they show if the cancer has moved outside of the cell wall. Conclusion - the cancer has spread outside the walls. It is called Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, Grade 1. This is in addition to the Ductal Carcinoma-in-SITU, Low-grade, Cribriform Type. What this tells us is that the cancer may have moved to the lymph nodes. We won't know until he has pathology done during the surgery.

The MRI results were still not available. These results will tell us if there are other spots of cancer on either breast. Dr. Cole is hoping to have this answer in the next 24 hours.

We will probably opt for a lumpectomy followed by radiation, but the course of treatment won't be solidified until more is known. Mastectomy, chemotherapy and hormone treatment are also possibilities. Surgery will either be next week or the following week.

Terry and I spent about 30 minutes drilling Dr. Cole this morning. He was humorous, informative, compassionate and very dedicated to treating the whole patient. He spoke about this being a stage of life that we go through that makes us better people (that's the short version). Terry and I were both very comfortable with him and came away feeling good about being treated by him and his organization.

Thanks, Michelle, for sending me to the Susan G. Komen website. There is great information there.

MRI

I did it! I was able to lay in the tube for 30 minutes without freaking out! I was on my stomach - that helped a lot - I just pretended I was at the beach :)

No Music, no MP3 player.....they DID provide earplugs thank you very much. The noise resembled an automatic weapon.

They gave me an IV so they could add contrast. Any mass that shouldn't be in my breasts will show up. My doctor will have the images when Terry and I see him in the morning. By 10am I hope to know exactly what we are dealing with.

Humbling technology!

Results of Biopsy

I met with Dr. Cole to get the results of the biopsy. His phrase was "the results didn't come back the way we had hoped." Interesting...he never used the "C" word, but carcinoma was all over the report. He gave me a copy of the biopsy report. Here are the words:

"Atypical Epithelial Proliferation, highly suspicious
for infiltrating ductal carcinoma. Associated
ductal carcinoma in situ, cribriform type.
Hormone receptor and HER2 stains pending.
Expert consultation pending."

We are still awaiting the results of the test to determine if the cancer has spread outside the walls of the lump.

He said the next step is to have a Bilateral Breast MRI to see if there are any other lumps that we can't see or feel. This, and the results of the test to see the spread, will help us determine what to do next. He guesses the course will be surgery, radiation and hormone treatment.

Our boys took the news ok. We are reassuring them that although this is cancer, breast cancer is very treatable these days. If I stay upbeat and positive the boys do well.

MRI is scheduled for Wednesday, November 19th. Terry and I will meet with Dr. Cole on Thursday, November 20th to hear the recommended course of action.

Ultrasound guided needle biopsy

I went to the St. Jude Breast Cancer Center for the biopsy. I didn't think it would be that big a deal. I was wrong. It wasn't painful, but it was scary. Each time they took a sample they positioned and then 'shot' a hollow metal tube into the lump. I did not like the noise of this tool! They took about 5 "string-looking" samples, each about an inch long. I was very happy to get home around 6pm.

They measured the lump again. Today it was 2.2 x 1.3 x 1.3 cm.