The Beginning

Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a little over a month ago. She was vigilent in getting yearly mammograms...and had been in for follow-up s a couple of times for lumps-with no outcome. After explaining a recent excperience with a loss of my friend and a growing lump in her breast, she figured she should get it checked out. It came back positive. She has had many blood tests, surgeon visits,nurse visits, doctor visits and tutorials. She owns a HUGE notebook on cancer and its options.She is majoring in cancer. She then had multiple biopsies done as well as a full body scan. The cancer seemed to be contained in one breast. BUT with the type of cancer she was told she had, the risk of it going into the other breast was high. She opted for a double mastectomy with beginning reconstructive surgery on September 26.

The surgery took about five hours at which time they found that the cancer had indeed spread to her lymph nodes on the right side of her body, where the cancer was in the breast. However, they felt as if the tumor was smaller then the original size they had thought from testing. They placed the right implant under her muscle so she could receive radiation treatments that would probably come with the discovery of lymphnode cancer (as her lymphnode biopsy's had come back negative-as well as a full body scan that was negative).

Mom received a phone call on Friday September 30th early evening from the surgeon telling her that her lab reports had returned early. She has a combination of 2 cancers called ductal carcinoma and lobular carcinoma-typically undetectale on mammograms. The cancer was found in BOTH breasts and was found in 14 of the 19 lymphnodes. The tumor was actually 11cm and allot larger then the original scans had indicated. She is classified as stage 3 or 4. She has not gone to the oncologists yet, so she is unsure what this all means. HOWEVER she has to heal from this original surgery before pursuing chemo, radiation and removal of her other side (left) lymphnodes. There is a great chance of metastasizing of the cancer in her body. Her treatments are going to be aggressive and inlcude IV chemotherapy as well as pill chemo (she orginally qualified for pill chemo only), Radiation and a myraid of other things. We will know more as she has appointments with the oncologists and recovers from her mastectomy's.

She is unable to use her arms at this point, and that is integral in her movements and mobility as she has very bad knees and leg joint problems. She was kept a day longer in the hospital because she could not eat much and her diabetes needed a vigilent watch of its levels.