Almost Stage 3

A Troublesome Wound

As if having this diagnosis isn't enough--things DO go wrong--well it's ALL wrong--but once you have had your surgery like I did--you go home with drains installed and it's a hoot to take care of--needs emptying and you need to log those times, how much is pumping out etc. Beyond pleasant!!  And lovely to try to hide in your clothes--the instruction sheet tells you what to do and that this will be out in 7-10 days! Another lie!  At least 2 weeks and even 3 weeks with the drain is common.  Even after mine was removed lymphatic fluid kept rushing to the site--either this fluid or something else kept opening my main wound where the lump was removed. It's 3 months later and it is just now closing so I can move forward with chemo. Beware after 3 months post surgery chemo becomes less effective. I had to threaten a court order to release me for chemo--the surgeon won't clear you til you are healed--yet I also had to fight for Visiting Nurse Corp. who are experts at wound care!  Not so your surgeon!!  So if you have complications like the horrid one I had--insist on a wound care specialist so your chemo is NOT held up. This is LIFE AND DEATH--you have to be the coordinator of this whole process since so many medical professionals are involved...and by the way, almost none of them agree on anything!  See wound here.

New info on breast cancer: http://publications.mcgill.ca/headway/2009/10/28/breast-cancer-breakthrough/

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/122610/Breast-cancer-breakthrough

Complications

Once I was over the shock and the anger (although every day I get a fresh dose of that) I was referred to a well known surgeon in the Chicago area. I waited 3 hours in his office until he gave me the hideous biopsies--don't let people tell you those are nothing either!  Big long needles in breast and one in armpit to see if it's already in lymph nodes--which puts you in a whole other stage and danger and leaves you with profound affects after surgery and the danger that it has spread through your entire body.  That's why it's CRUCIAL to catch this in Stage 1--because the pain and suffering move to such a different level by Stage 2a and by Stage 2b even more so.    

It took me chasing everyone around the next week to find out the results and how bad they were.  In the doctor's defense--I accidentally caught a glimpse of his schedule the day of my biopsy--his assistant had it up on the screen-there had to be over 20 women seeing him that day!  The finest surgeons cannot possibly fit everyone in due to the epidemic status of this horrid disease. He was good enough to squeeze me in within 2 weeks to do the partial mastectomy before I became a Stage 3!  A good man with wonderful people working for him who I relied on so much in the following 3 months of complications that forced me to put off chemo until next Tuesday when I begin.  Very important to not wait longer than 3 months for chemo and that's where I am --so do or die--literally...I am starting Nov. 3rd.  

GMA segment this AM about 5 sisters dealing with this: 

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerindex?id=8916101

After the Shock

Ok, it's important to realize that you go through (or I did) similar stages of grief that you always hear about concerning a death. So, in my case, fear, anger, denial, sadness and then acceptance. Fear because the radiologist I had been using since 2002 pointed to the screen and said "there's your cancer"! And a pit in my stomach developed-then anger because he had just missed this in a mammogram about 60 days before this with the comment "I don't write the orders" (because a mere screening mammogram would not catch this with my dense breasts) Denial because he then said "don't worry, it's Stage 1 and we got it very early". I asked "how do you know that?' His answer was "I don't see it anywhere else"--sadness because I soon found out he was wrong about that too and I was a hair from Stage 3 and finally where I am today-total acceptance and in "let's get going and get rid of this once and for all" mode.

Finding Out

After a May 8th mammogram came back all clear I was doubly startled to feel a lump at the end of June on the left side of my left breast.  The funny thing was, even though I got that clear mammogram, I immediately knew this was cancer when I felt it. And that's the key to this blog.  You know yourself and your own body way more than you may think.

This all occurred last June late in the month--I got to my ob-gyn a few days thereafter--and oddly even though my mother had died of this in 1987 and even though I have all the risk factors involved with breast cancer, nothing appeared on his records as he sat at his computer and asked me "has anyone in your family died of this?" "Yes", I said appalled. "My mother 22 years ago--and I have been your patient for nearly 30 years!"

Cut to the chase--he clearly had just been writing orders for screening mammograms for me all these years and those DO NOT WORK on women like me and probably on women like many of you.  As I write this blog in the coming months I will take you on my journey of how this all happened to a person who thought she was "on top of it"--how I ended up a hair away from Stage 3 breast cancer, and my upcoming treatments and battle--both to fight this ubiquitous disease and the injustice of the medical system that misses so many crucial things. I am doing this for my 25 year old daughter seen here with me above.