16 years ago
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Tuesday Sept 5th
Today we went in to meet with my surgeon, Dr. Chiavetta. He is very nice and I feel very comfortable choosing him as my surgeon. He gave us the results of the MRI and said that there were 2 other "small" areas of concern. One behind the large mass and one below the mass that are both about a millimeter in diameter. (not much compared to the 4cm by 3cm of the large mass) As far as they could tell my lymph nodes look okay. They a little on the big side but still in the "normal" range and not enlarged. Dr. Chiavetta said that since this is an aggressive cancer that he definitely agreed to start Chemo Therapy first before we do surgery. I am going in to have an PETscan in the morning, then doing a "Chemo Education" class at 10:45 and then going into surgery around 1pm to have the port placed in my chest. BUSY DAY!! I am sick of beeing busy. Chemo Education sounds so funny to me, but I suppose it is a good way to introduce patients to the process and be able to get a lot of questions answered. With the port they will put me out (yeah). The doc said it would take about 20 min to do the procedure but to get ready and recover we are looking at the whole afternoon. If you want to see more of what the device is click here. Very interesting I thought but will apparently make my life easier, and I am all for anything doing that at this point. We also had a gal (Emmy Anderson) come to the house tonight from the American Cancer Society. Jon and I have recently gotten to know her brother Matt and his wife Amanda. Matt had cancer a few years ago and inspired her to start working for the ACS. She gave me all sorts of great information to read and told me about some really neat programs that are available to cancer patients. It is amazing to me all of the wonderful people that have crossed my path along this journey so far. She is such a sweetie and I know that I will be calling her with all sorts of my questions along the way.
Friday, September 01, 2006
D Day
After spending much of the week on the phone giving everyone updates I decided to start this blog. This way when you're wondering what is going on with me and my healing process you can just log into this page and read my journal entries here! :-)
For those of you that didn’t know I had found a lump in my breast at the beginning of the month of August and went to see about it right away. At that time I was told that it was nothing to be concerned about and they thought it was fibrocystic breast disease. They said to come back if it wasn’t gone in a few weeks. I promptly went back at 3 weeks and was scheduled for an ultra sound and mammogram on Friday August 25th. After looking over these results the radiologist recommended that I come back in for a biopsy on Tuesday August 29th. I went in to do a biopsy this past Tuesday (which was a nightmare). It was an ultra sound guided needle biopsy. The radiologist was using a new core needle instrument that was supposed to take multiple samples at a time. After giving me shots to numb the area they make a small incision in the side of my breast and guide the needle to the right area via ultra sound. When the needle is in place it mechanically goes in and out 5 times to take the samples. When the doc had taken the instrument out it had only obtained one sample. So they tried it again. After the 2nd time they took it out and it hadn't taken any samples. They decided to do it the "old way" which was one needle at a time, one sample at a time. Finally the tried and true method worked and I spent the rest of the day with ice on my chest and vicadin every 4 hours.
I got my test results back Wednesday August 30th, the twin’s birthday, and it is official. I was diagnosed with infiltrating breast cancer. At that time I had an appointment with a surgeon on Friday. It was a new surgeon to a group of doctors in Fort Collins. I had thought about that a lot on Wednesday night and decided that I would prefer to see a surgeon that was recommended to me since I couldn't find out anything about the surgeon that I had an appointment with. I call my nurse and she said she would try to get back to me sometime that day.
In the meantime I was still unsure who I was going to see for an oncologist. My girlfriend Courtnee graduated high school with a girl who is a nurse at the Front Range Cancer Center. Courtnee had called her on Wednesday to see who she would recommend seeing. Lisa said that if she were to ever get cancer she would see a doctor that she works for, Dr. Medgyese. On Thursday morning Courtnee called and said that Lisa had talked to Dr. Medgyese and she agreed to see me that day if I was interested. We went in to see her and her suggestion was to start doing chemo right away instead of surgery since my tumor is so close to my chest wall. They want to see it shrink before going in to remove it. Before we left her office her nurse had been able to schedule me with the surgeon I wanted to see in 2 business days. I guess it pays to know the right people. It was such a blessing to be able to get in right away to see the oncologist and I feel very confident in her abilities. I feel like Heavenly Father really guided me to her.
The current plans are to get a port placed in my chest next Wednesday which will require surgery, and then start my chemo treatments on Thursday. Things have just moved so fast, but I suppose that is a good thing. My first round of chemo will be once a week every Thursday for 12 weeks. Dr. Medgyese said that I will loose my hair within 3 to 4 weeks. This is defiantly the part that I am having the hardest time with at the moment. I just want everyone to know that it has meant so much to us to see the outpouring of love and concern for our family. All of your well wishes, offers to help, notes and cards just mean the world to me and it is truly awesome to know that so many people are thinking about you and praying for you! I won't ever be able to thank everyone enough. I will try to post something every few days or when new things are happening.
For those of you that didn’t know I had found a lump in my breast at the beginning of the month of August and went to see about it right away. At that time I was told that it was nothing to be concerned about and they thought it was fibrocystic breast disease. They said to come back if it wasn’t gone in a few weeks. I promptly went back at 3 weeks and was scheduled for an ultra sound and mammogram on Friday August 25th. After looking over these results the radiologist recommended that I come back in for a biopsy on Tuesday August 29th. I went in to do a biopsy this past Tuesday (which was a nightmare). It was an ultra sound guided needle biopsy. The radiologist was using a new core needle instrument that was supposed to take multiple samples at a time. After giving me shots to numb the area they make a small incision in the side of my breast and guide the needle to the right area via ultra sound. When the needle is in place it mechanically goes in and out 5 times to take the samples. When the doc had taken the instrument out it had only obtained one sample. So they tried it again. After the 2nd time they took it out and it hadn't taken any samples. They decided to do it the "old way" which was one needle at a time, one sample at a time. Finally the tried and true method worked and I spent the rest of the day with ice on my chest and vicadin every 4 hours.
I got my test results back Wednesday August 30th, the twin’s birthday, and it is official. I was diagnosed with infiltrating breast cancer. At that time I had an appointment with a surgeon on Friday. It was a new surgeon to a group of doctors in Fort Collins. I had thought about that a lot on Wednesday night and decided that I would prefer to see a surgeon that was recommended to me since I couldn't find out anything about the surgeon that I had an appointment with. I call my nurse and she said she would try to get back to me sometime that day.
In the meantime I was still unsure who I was going to see for an oncologist. My girlfriend Courtnee graduated high school with a girl who is a nurse at the Front Range Cancer Center. Courtnee had called her on Wednesday to see who she would recommend seeing. Lisa said that if she were to ever get cancer she would see a doctor that she works for, Dr. Medgyese. On Thursday morning Courtnee called and said that Lisa had talked to Dr. Medgyese and she agreed to see me that day if I was interested. We went in to see her and her suggestion was to start doing chemo right away instead of surgery since my tumor is so close to my chest wall. They want to see it shrink before going in to remove it. Before we left her office her nurse had been able to schedule me with the surgeon I wanted to see in 2 business days. I guess it pays to know the right people. It was such a blessing to be able to get in right away to see the oncologist and I feel very confident in her abilities. I feel like Heavenly Father really guided me to her.
The current plans are to get a port placed in my chest next Wednesday which will require surgery, and then start my chemo treatments on Thursday. Things have just moved so fast, but I suppose that is a good thing. My first round of chemo will be once a week every Thursday for 12 weeks. Dr. Medgyese said that I will loose my hair within 3 to 4 weeks. This is defiantly the part that I am having the hardest time with at the moment. I just want everyone to know that it has meant so much to us to see the outpouring of love and concern for our family. All of your well wishes, offers to help, notes and cards just mean the world to me and it is truly awesome to know that so many people are thinking about you and praying for you! I won't ever be able to thank everyone enough. I will try to post something every few days or when new things are happening.
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