What is Going On?

I never really thought I would start a blog to keep people updated on any health issues going on with me, but I have had so many loving, caring people ask me how I am doing and what happened and how can they help, that I have decided to go ahead and write a blog. This will prevent me putting a lot of stuff on FB that some people just may not be interested in or ready to see when they open up FB!  A blog allows people to "check in" when it is convenient for them.

So much has happened since June 12th that I am trying to figure out how to be succinct. I guess I will just start from the beginning. I started my yearly mammograms when I was 41, in March of 2012. In October 2012 I had a biopsy on some calcifications on my right breast. All was clear. In March of 2013 I felt a lump near the surface of my right breast. After it did not go away, I made an appointment to have it checked on June 12, 2013.  The doctor ordered an ultrasound biopsy, and the result came back positive for breast cancer.

At that point I did not know what stage it was at. All I knew is it needed to be removed via a surgery. I quickly gathered my thoughts and contacted someone I knew who had a masectomy in January. She recommended a surgeon at St. Francis Hospital in Greenwood, Dr. Erika Rager, and I made an appointment for a consultation right away.  She was wonderful and we scheduled a surgery for July 22, 2013- a lumpectomy. When the pathology report came back, it did not show clear margins. She had removed a Stage 2 lump identified as papillary carcinoma, the rarest type of breast cancer that accounts for 1% of all breast cancers.  Surrounding the lump was DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) stage 0, which is pre-cancerous cells that could turn into cancer, but most oncologists agree that this is a type of cancer in the breast that must be monitored or removed. Since it was surrounding my stage 2 cancer, it needed to come out.

A second surgery was scheduled for August 26. Again, the pathology report came back and the margins were not clear. As my surgeon said, there is a lot in there! It is stuff you can't see with the naked eye. Only a pathology investigation can reveal this. My surgeon set me up with appointments to consult with a radiologist oncologist and a medical oncologist, both of whom I met with this past Friday, September 6. We discussed my choices: radiation therapy with chemo therapy, or masectomy with possible chemotherapy. When I weighed my chances of reoccurance, I decided that it might be best to plan a single masectomy. I am currently trying to schedule a surgery for the week of October 9- right before Fall Break, so I will have 2 weeks to recover at home. Once the mass goes to pathology, a decision will be made about chemotherapy.

Future updates will probably not be so lengthy, but I wanted to be sure that everyone sort of knew how I got to where I am right now.