Updates on the Breast-icles

So... in the last 3 weeks since I've been diagnosed with breast cancer, I've been going through a ton of tests to find out more. So far we know that it's triple positive, high grade, aggressive, fast growing. We now also know with some degree of certainty that it is confined to two masses, one very small, in my right breast. It's interductal, and the larger mass is invasive (spread a bit, but still in the breast, and around that mass).

I had CTs of my chest and abdomen, and a nuclear bone scan, and MRI's of both breasts, and we're waiting on news of those. Those entailed getting three kinds of dyes, so goodness knows what my kidneys are thinking! I've had ultrasounds and mamograms, and 3 biopsies: in the two masses and a lymph node, and one of the best pieces of news is that it doesn't appear to be in the lymph nodes. Also great news is that the MRI didn't show any more cancers in either breast. We'll have news about the larger body scans later, but I believe those are just to be sure, and they don't expect to find anything more.

Yesterday, I had surgery in which they installed a port catheter high on my left chest, so that the chemo can go there in the main veins of my chest, rather than blowing out the peripheral arteries in my arms. Sort of really super creepy to me, to have something like that in me, but I understand how good it is to have, and how lucky I am that Loma Linda does these routinely, when some people have to fight to get them.

So, starting Nov 8th, I'll have chemo every 3 weeks, two days in a row, for 3 hours and 10 minutes to give me 3 different chemos. After 18 weeks, I'll have a breast sparing surgery (lumpectomy), followed by radiation treatments, and finishing the year of chemo. I'll be bald, bloated, and sick, they tell me -- but I will do everything supplemental to treatment to stay healthy and positive. I'm very optimistic to come through this well, and Loma Linda's breast cancer center is an incredibly wonderful place for me to receive my care, so I am incredibly fortunate to be there.

Most of the folks at Loma Linda are warm, brilliant, and wonderful with care. Many I've met have offered me deeply personal words of wisdom, shared experiences, faith, and support that have moved me and given me such strength and lifting. They are kind and understanding, an (d just super people. I should really write down some of these stories.

Every now and then someone makes us laugh, though, like the "breast coordinator," a story in herself. Most recently, I was getting an IV put in for the surgery, and I was laughing and making dark humor jokes about how much I've been stuck and mis-stuck (missing veins) lately, and helping her to get a good stick in a good vein. Craig and I were cutting up and laughing about what we could do to help a vein come out of hiding, and especially when (sorry) my blood started spurting out of the vein she (phew) did stick.

"Whoa, looks like you found a good one! Oh, no, well, maybe too good! Thar she blows!" OK, guess you had to be there... Hahaha! But the thing that really cracked us up were this young woman's words, as she gazed earnestly up at me, and offered to me in my moment of duress, "Wow, you're so brave and positive, and it's a really good thing you have such a great sense of humor, you're really going to need it to help you handle all the terrible, awful times you have ahead of you, the horrible things you're going to have to go through." She didn't seem to understand why Craig and I about died laughing at that. But I am glad she got me on the first stick.