Surgery Schedule Update

All of the final tests have been completed, and Mom's surgery is scheduled for March 3rd. We will be arriving at the hospital at 7:30 AM. She will be the first surgery of the day for Dr. Jalovec. They plan to keep Mom overnight on Monday and Tuesday, and release her Wednesday. As I mentioned in previous posts, the procedure will be a bi-lateral mastectomy with removal of a section of lymph nodes under her left arm. We are anxiously awaiting the surgery as this will be another step of the journey that will be behind us.

For those of you following my Aunt Kathy's fight down in Dallas, her journey took a bit of an unexpected direction this week. She has visited two oncologists since the day of her surgery, and on their recommendation is starting chemotherapy on Monday. She was a borderline candidate for chemotherapy, but after much discussion with peers, her oncologist decided the the positives outweighed the negatives for the chemotherapy. This will increase her odds of not having to deal with this again. Her treatments will be every three weeks for a total of four treatments. She is a very strong woman, and will no doubt handle this speed bump with grace.

I will attempt to keep everyone informed as we go into the surgery. I plan on bringing my laptop to the hospital to post updates, but am unsure at this point if I will have internet access. If at all possible I will make several post during the day. As always, thank you all for your support.

Chemotherapy: Round 8

Mom completed her eighth, and final, round of chemotherapy on Monday. Upon completion she received the "Purple Heart Award" for successfully completing chemotherapy, pictured above. Aside from some back pain, the last round of chemotherapy came and went without any real problems. Sixteen weeks went by fairly fast. Fairly fast, that is, considering how hard it must have been to endure these treatments every two weeks. I can't imagine having a treatment and realizing that you have to turn around and do it again in two weeks.

According to the oncologist, the treatments were so effective that after the final physical exam she noted that she no longer could feel the tumor. It is so hard to fathom that a 3 1/2" X 2" tumor had shrunk that much. For those with limited breast cancer experience that is a HUGE tumor. Most cases are detected when the tumor is between one and two centimeters, and often even smaller. Even with routine mammograms a tumor the size of Mom's is not always detectable. This puts added importance on knowing your family history for cancer and being in touch with your own body in order realize subtle changes. I am not trying to scare anyone with this information, but rather make people aware that mammograms are not always the gold standard that they were once thought to be. In fact there is no silver bullet.

An increasingly common method for detecting breast cancer has been the MRI, but MRI's have their flaws too. Often they are too sensitive and show a lot of false positives. MRI's are not accessible to all either, as many insurance companies do not cover them for preventative breast cancer screenings. As I mentioned before, being in touch with your own body is just as important tool as either of these two tests. If Mom had not realized that something were wrong on her own it could have easily been another year before she was diagnosed. As everyone already knows early detection is the key to surviving.

I apologize if I have come off as though I am preaching; I just would like to wish that no one else would have to go through this. It is by far the hardest thing that we have ever been through as a family. Without the support of our friends and family this would have, no doubt, been much more difficult.

Moving forward, Mom is currently scheduled to have a bi-lateral mastectomy on Monday, March 3rd. We have an appointment with the surgeon, Dr. Jalovec, to confirm the appointment as well as a pre-surgery consultation on Tuesday. I will update everyone when we have confirmed the appointment and as we approach the day of the surgery.

As always, thank you all for your support. Without all of you I know this would be far more difficult. Thank you for keeping our family in your thoughts and prayers.