The beginning

So, as the word began to spread I thought…there’s no way I can keep up with all the people who want updates…what were my options? Email? Group texts? That all pushes info out to people whether they want it or not, plus there is the opportunity for EVERYONE to get every reply known to man…and who has time for that?

Here I am blogging like any millennial, except I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to make this interesting or worth the effort but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

March 3rd. I had my scheduled mammogram as any good-over-40-year-old should (we won’t talk about when my last one was before this). Something, well two somethings showed up and they reached out to have me come back for a follow up spot mammogram and ultrasound.

March 20th. Due to COVID-19, BJ had come with me to the appointment but they would not let him in with me. He had to wait in the car. I went into another mammogram and then over to the ultrasound. They could find the spots on the ultrasound, barely, but since they could, the responsible thing to do is biopsy them to make sure they were nothing and clip them for reference on future mammograms.

April 6th. The biopsy, which involved needles (plural), happened with the same team that did the original ultrasound. One of the last things the ultrasound tech told me as she was closing up the samples was “it’s sinking, that’s good..cancer floats.” 2 days later, April 8th, my doctor calls me, one sample (from the 10 o’clock location) is just tissue but the other, the one from the 7 o’clock location came back as invasive ductile carcinoma. Ugh, well that sucks.

Thus we continue the many appointments…amidst the shelter-in-place the world is under due to the plague floating around and everyone learning how to work remotely.

Conveniently, the shelter-in-place also has worked in my favor as I was able to get in to see the surgeon just 2 days later. We talked about my biopsy results and what they mean and also the sequence of treatment paths.

April 10th. Meeting the surgeon and the biopsy results:

BJ was able to join me for this appointment (we had a phone back up plan if they said he couldn’t stay). I’ve got a diagnosis of Stage 1A breast cancer, which I think is just about the best option you can hear when dealing with it. Grade 2, which is basically middle of the road. And then we get to the positive/negative part of the diagnosis. Estrogen receptor >95% Strong Positive; Progesterone receptor is <1% Negative; HER2/neu (neu=neutropenia) is +3 Positive; Mib-1/Ki-67 = 35-40%, High

What is all means to me is that I’ll need to take medication for the next several years (at least 5) to lower the estrogen levels in my body since this type of cancer feeds on estrogen. This should help minimize the cancer activity. The HER2/neu being positive is an indicator that the cancer is more likely to spread, so future treatments will be to focus on preventing that spread. The first leg of treatment was to get an MRI and then schedule a lumpectomy and removal of some lymph nodes for biopsy.

April 16th. An MRI was requested and I wasn’t getting the follow up to schedule when expected so when my GP called to check in after the appointment with the surgeon she was able to give me the number to call. When I called the office to schedule the MRI, I got a “we’re not really scheduling appointments right now, we’re in the middle of a pandemic ” (to which I thought “Really? Is THAT why I’ve been working from home for the last 4 weeks? I never realized!!!”) My actual reply was “Well, it sounded like she expected to get it scheduled, even with the pandemic, so I’m just following up.” She went looking for the paperwork and came back with a somewhat tentative “Are you newly diagnosed?” With my affirmative answer, her attitude became a bit apologetic and she confirmed where I was diagnosed out of and explained most people coming through newly diagnosed are already in their system. We got me scheduled for the next Tuesday.

April 21st. MRI, with and without contrast…this involves a needle…just as an FYI. It also involves laying face down for about 30 minutes, which sounds more comfortable than it really is. And it’s very loud. Sadly, we had to redo a 4 minute segment which just added more time.

The results came back quickly and I got a call from the surgeon that afternoon that she was looking at them and would add them to my file so I could review for any questions. Basically, they showed the spot we knew about but nothing else of significance. She also let me know that the office was working on scheduling the surgery.

We got the surgery scheduled, it’s Friday May 8th.

May 2nd. Lead up appointments for this week:

May 5th. Pre-Op appointment with the surgeon to discuss the day of surgery, a breast needle localization (which just sounds bad but is similar to the biopsy but instead of pulling samples, they will place material for the surgeon to use for location). UPDATE: this is worse than the biopsy is, FYI. The numbing medicine through 2 needles is worse and frankly after the numbing went away later in the day, it kinda hurts. I’m looking at it as pre-OP recovery testing. Can I still move? Yes. Can I still work? Yes, but it’s not as much fun. Can I still sleep? Yes, until Baya yells in the morning. So…I’m taking it as practice.

May 6th am. A pre-surgery testing for COVID-19 and bloodwork to be done. That’s this afternoon. There’s a whole story around this because they just called to schedule on Tues May 5th and then tried to tell me that my surgery time had changed on Friday. I called my surgeon just to make sure we were both going to be at the hospital at the same time…my original time stands. I got a call back later in the afternoon reiterating the “change” to the earlier time from the guy who told me it was supposed to be later…