A week ago today...

It is hard to believe that a week ago today my biopsy was ordered. It feels like a year. And just 5 days ago I got the news.

Anywho....

I will try to make this news an non-technical as possible because it is a bit much.

I met with Dr. Grant this afternoon. He is the surgeon I am going to work with. He is wondeful!! It felt like drinking from a firehose...there is so much information. So basically, as I sit here, I do not know anything else except these features of the cancer:

• Proliferation Index: this tell how rapidly the cancer is growing...and or how fast the cells are dividing. He wanted to see an index of less than 20%. Unfortunately mine are greater than 20% but he cannot tell me anything more than that right now.
• Estrogen & Progesterone receptor: I am negative. Kinda a drag. He said he wanted to see that as a positive.
• HER-2-NEU Oncogene: overexpression of this indicates a more aggressive cancer - present in only 1/3 of cases (yes, I cut and pasted that from my paperwork). Bummer again, I am STRONGLY positive.

So, so far I am batting 100%. lol. None of this means anything to me because they are all short-term issues. I will kick this cancer's ass and it will all be a non-issue.

By the way, they cannot put a "stage" on my cancer until after surgery. They have to look at lymph nodes, morphology, all kinds of things.

Okay, so what happens next?

• MRI - to determine the size/location of the cancer since it still is unknown (not showing on mamograms).
• PET/CT (if insurance will pay for it) or CT (if insurance won't pay for PET) - this scans the rest of my body for cancer since my type is an aggressive form.
• Gene testing - to see if I carry the gene (or The Gene). If so, then the double mastectomy is a given...it will happen.

There are so many scenarios. If there is one contained lession and the DNA testing is negative, LUMPECTOMY...yeah...please pray for this. If the lession is too big or not contained, then mastectomy. If the gene is there, then double mastectomy.

From a timing standpoint, the DNA testing takes several weeks. Aurghhhhh! But that is the biggie...and I will not make any decisions until I know those results.

Thank you for all the calls, messages, texts, e-mails.......I feel all your thoughts and am so very grateful.