something to look forward to...

Ok, so I am being sarcastic. We met with the Radiation Oncologist today which seemed weird because I don't get radiation treatment until after chemotherapy and haven't met with the Medical Oncologist yet. Basically her wait times are less so I got an appointment. It was good though because she and the chemo doctor are working as a team and she is arranging for a CT and Bone Scan before I see him on March 10th. The Radiation Oncologist seems very nice and was my friend Paula's favourite doctor when she went through treatment so don't take this the wrong way, but from here on out she is going to be RN - Radiation Nazi. The RN is planning to give me the most aggressive treatment. Most people get between 16-20 blasts but in my case "30 for you". Between rare cancer, young age, the close proximity of the cancer to the chest wall and big boobs, I get the full meal deal. I am not going to get fussed about it though because it is going to be months from now and I am sure that after whatever they have planned for chemo, this will seem like a walk in the park. The greatest tragedy of the day though was the nurse thought the MK on my beloved Michael Kors purse stood for Mary Kay! Yeah, my pink caddie is parked just outside :-).

a little amendment...

I heard back from the nurse with the outcome of the "tumour board" and I still don't require any additional surgery, but it looks like I don't have the very popular type of breast cancer (invasive ductal carcinoma) that they originally thought, and instead have rarer type, glycogen-rich clear cell carcinoma. She indicated that it will likely mean a more aggressive chemotherapy treatment than what would have been given. I see the Medical Oncologist the second week of March so will know more then, but really if you have to have chemo you might as well go big.

here we go

The doctor called with the pathology results and he started with "I have good news and bad news". After talking to the nurse and reviewing the report, I am going to modify it to "super good news, so what news and more news to come." The super good news is that the cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes and the margins look good (no cancer at the edge of the tissue they took from around the tumour). This means no more surgery. Pause for whoop whoop here!! The news that I have decided to say "so what" to is the tumour ended up being larger than they thought and my cancer is stage 2. Regardless of how big it ended up being, it is gone and they were going to treat me like I was stage 2 anyway (i.e. give me chemo) because of my age, so it really doesn't change anything there. The more news to come is for something unique they found. You all knew I was a little different...well now science has proved it. They found some other cancer cells in addition to the breast cancer cells in the tumour. This is apparently unusual and the doctors will be discussing it today as my case is being presented at "Tumour Boards" (can you believe there is a meeting called that?? when I get back to work, I am going to come up with catchier names for my meetings) to figure out what that all means. So that is a stay tuned, but I am expecting to soon file it into the "so what" category.

no news yet

I had my appointment with the surgeon this morning, but unfortunately the pathology report isn't in yet so we have to wait a little longer. He is going to give me a call at home when it arrives, so hopefully just a few more days. On the positive side though, he was admiring his work and is pleased with how things are looking ;-). I just have to mention that he is quite the close talker... Suzanne and I had a laugh about it after when she took me for some retail therapy at Mic Mac Mall. I am going to have to figure out how to three way call her in when he calls!

laughter therapy

Sue Bulmer took me to run a couple errands yesterday and going to Walmart was never so fun. We ended up taking up space at Starbucks for a couple hours just yacking as we love to do. I loved hearing about her "Sue moments" in Oman. She had me laughing so hard I had to hold onto the boob. So worth it!

it's all off

I finally got the courage to take off the steri strips and it went pretty well. The incisions are larger that I thought, but what's another inch I guess. The nerves are starting to wake up so the pain is more from the inside than the incisions now. Boob pain is just weird. I have my appointment this Friday, Feb 6th with the surgeon to get the results of the pathology. We will find out if the margins and lymph nodes are good, hopefully bypassing more surgery, and what the stage and grade of the cancer is. Big day for sure.