I’m going to skip over several weeks of endless diagnostic tests to catch this blog up to where I am now. I can tell you that the weeks of tests and waiting were tremendously stressful, and made me very forgetful. So if you’re a co-worker and you’re reading this blog, please accept my apology for past transgressions and potential continued memory lapses. I promise to regain control of my brain as soon as possible.
I saw the surgical oncologist last week, and liked her very much. There was a lot of laughter, for a first meeting with someone who is planning to cut me open.
To cut to the chase: I have locations in my left breast with cancer in the ducts (this is called DCIS), and I also have invasive cancer. It does not appear to have actually spread – it was caught early, thanks to some symptoms caused by a more benign condition that I also have. I have many non-cancer things going on. I like to present the imaging people with challenges.
The surgeon has no recommendation other than full simple mastectomy, although she’s normally a supporter of less comprehensive surgery. I just have too many different things going on for that, spread throughout the breast.
This was actually what I expected – my health providers give me full access to my own lab results, and a little time with Google had me prepared for this conversation. (Obviously, I had secret hope for something less intrusive, but I was still prepared.)
What surprised me was when she started talking about surgery on my right breast, which had clear pathology reports. No cancer showed up there, just some of the other stuff.
Basically, she had two concerns: I’ve got a complicated topography going on, and they only did a biopsy in one location (unlike the pin cushion they made of my left side.) And she looked at my family history and said, not terribly likely, but possible you have the genetic predisposition for breast cancer. (Made famous by Angelina Jolie, yes? My only moment of comparing myself to her in my whole life, I promise.)
So the current state: I am going to get more diagnostic tests, this time centered on the other breast. I will also get the genetic tests.
This information will help us decide how aggressively to treat the situation. It also means three more weeks of tests and waiting, which will weigh heavily on me. I’d also hoped to get the surgery done before my kids went back to school, but this means we need to wait until early September.
For those of you with experience with all these tests and pathology reports. . . I’m obviously skipping a lot of details, and probably don’t want to talk about them further at this time. If I do want to talk about them, whichever friendly face is nearby is likely to learn about estrogen receptors and nuclear grades. But mostly I feel like I’ve talked and talked and talked about this, and now I just want people to read the blog.
And that’s the current state.