It's Official...

Diagnoses: Invasive ductal carcinoma of right and left breast.

• Stage 2 Breast Cancer-possibly/probably Stage 3 after todays exam and further MRI and surgery. He found an enlarged lymph node under my right arm possibly another tumor. 

• MRI to be scheduled sometime this week as well as Doctor appt. with Hematology/Oncology and Genetics testing.

• Double Mastectomy with nuclear med injection and mediport insertion on Thursday, February 26th. Will spend atleast one night maybe two in the hospital with drains from each breast. Drains stay in usually 5-7 days, until the drainage stops.

• Depending on what lymph nodes look like after surgery, possible chance of needing radiation.

• Post-Op Appt. March 10th.

• Chemo to start 2-3 weeks after surgery, lasting 3-6 months. Not sure how long or dosage amounts of this yet, as not all my medical testing has returned.

The bullets above, list what we can remember from today. We asked him to email us an explanation we could send to the family on this blog, but haven't yet received it. Hence the reason this is arriving so late this evening. I knew everyone was waiting to read this so I'm sending what we can remember now.

We asked him many questions today. He was with us for almost 2 hours. We asked him if he was a man of faith and believed in miracles. He replied, "Yes, I'm a devout Catholic." We told him we were LDS and that many people were praying for him as well as our family. That this would be a team effort and that Heavenly Father's hand would be a part of this. His wife is 39 years old and he has four kids but plans on having six, through adopting kids from Ethiopia. I asked him if I could make a wig from my own hair? He said he didn't know, he's never been asked that before. He trained at UofW and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance where I'm currently a patient at both of those. So I asked him, "If this was your wife, where would you send her?" He said, I would send her to Seattle because I'm not allowed to operate on her. If I could operate on her, she'd stay here. No one operates like I do here. I'm not being arrogant but thats the truth. Do I have to be on a special diet during Chemo? He said he wasn't aware of any special diet, but I guess he's the surgeon not the oncologist. Those are some of the questionswe asked that I remember.

I was fine until we got in the elevator to go upstairs. I got a little teary eyed and just had to breathe. I really don't want to do this again! But felt at peace after our visit today with him. Hey, atleast it's not Stage 4:) This is a picture of the gift bag they gave me today. Ironic? The doctor said, I realize this sounds horrible... You have Breast Cancer, here's a gift bag. This bag was put together by Breast Cancer survivors with things that they found useful after surgery. It's a big bag.