Late Appointment = Late Update

Mom had a pretty long day of appointments today, but answers helped ease some wandering minds.

The day started off with the aspiration of a lymph node under Mom's arm. This occurred because it became an area of concern on the MRI. The doctor let her know that while it was possible that the node lit up because it is cancerous, the possibility also exists that it lit up because it was inflamed due to all of the invasive procedures the week before. Results should come in the next couple of days. The procedure was noted as "much less painful."

At 4:00PM she had an appointment with Dr. Lynne Jalovec. Dr. Jalovec was tied up with a surgery that went much longer than expected. Her staff told us to come back around 5:15 and that the doctor would meet with us shortly thereafter. 5:15 turned into a little before 7:00PM, but we all understand that things happen, and it was awfully nice of her to meet with us that late in the evening. We met with her from a little before 7:00PM until a little past 9:00PM. We never once felt rushed, and she took plenty of time to answer all of our questions.

She described the cancer as "locally advanced breast cancer." She explained that it was "invasive ductile carcinoma." As a breast specialist she says that she only sees a cancer like this 2-3 times a month. This is no way related to the severity or survivability, merely a statement as to it's relative rarity. She rated it as a stage 2B or stage 3A cancer. Her guess was that it probably had been growing, unable to be detected, for about 5 years. The stage of classification is dependent upon whether the lymph node has been affected. At this stage Dr. Jalovec is assuming that it has been affected.

The part that most surprised all of us, mostly based on everything we had heard from other survivors and other doctors about the standard course of action, was that the doctor did not want to proceed with surgery first. Instead she would like to proceed as though the cancer has potentially spread to other areas of the body. As she said, "It's not the cancer in the breast that will kill you at this point, it's the potential that if we don't attack it proactively with chemotherapy it will end up in other parts of your body." The chemo will serve two purposes. The first purpose will be to treat the cancer, proactively, as though it may have potentially spread to other places in the body. The second purpose is it to shrink the tumor. A smaller tumor makes the surgery easier, and decreases the amount of affected breast tissue that needs to be removed.

Next week quite a few standard tests will occur including an EKG, PET Scan, and blood work. It will be a very busy week for Mom. If all goes as planned with scheduling, chemotherapy will begin as early as the end of next week. After about sixteen weeks of chemotherapy (2 drugs, every two weeks for 4 weeks, then 1 drug every two weeks for 4 weeks), Dr. Jalovec will proceed with surgery (modified radical mastectomy), followed by radiation. The potential also exists for some hormone therapy, a sort of anti-estrogen, at some point in the process, to reduce the potential of the cancer spreading to the other breast. At this point the potential is a slim 7%, but if she is a candidate for the hormone therapy the chances drop to 3%.

Lots of info to digest today, but knowing more has really helped us wrap our minds around this, and we feel like we have a plan of attack. Once again thank you to everyone for all of your support.