Okay, well, now we get to introduce another topic into the blog besides food, travel, and an epileptic cat. As I'm sure everyone reading this already knows, I have breast cancer. It is IMPOSSIBLE that I would have breast cancer, by the way. I'm Molly! How can I get breast cancer? But I guess everyone thinks that when this happens to them. I'm going to start updating here with what's going on so you can all know without me having to update on facebook or individually or what have you. I kind of hate cancer blogs because so often the person dies at the end and then it is sad. But I will try not to die.
I have a small lump in my right breast. It is 1.5cm. My doctor didn't notice it at my appointment in January, so it is also relatively new. I think both of those things are good.
It is ER+ and her2+. If you want to google what those things are, you can. I'm not really interested right now in googling for statistics and information but I know people that this isn't happening to directly might want to know more about the details and how this is treated in a general sense. The short story is that there are good drugs to treat tumors with those characteristics, and that is good for me.
I'm having surgery on Thursday, February 19th. That will be 2 weeks and 1 day (really, a 1/2 day) after I found the lump. My oncologist assures me the two week lag time is not medically significant but it has been an extremely unpleasant 2 weeks. I lost 4 pounds in 4 days, which is for me nigh on impossible. But I am doing better now with my surgery reasonably close at hand, and after having spoken with the oncologist today. And also with Xanax.
After I heal up from surgery, I'll start chemo, probably the first week of March. I'll either have chemo treatments weekly for 12 weeks, or every 3 weeks for 18 weeks, depending on what the surgery shows (i.e., the biology of the tumor and if it has spread to lymph nodes). Either way, after that I will have radiation, and then continue infusions of a drug called herceptin every 3 weeks for a year. Herceptin is a newish drug specifically designed to treat her2+ cancers, and it does a very good job. Then finally, I will take anit-estrogen medication (tamoxifen) for five years. And we will hope it doesn't come back.
That's all I know right now. It's kind of fortunate I've been going to 12 step meetings for nine years because if there's one thing I've learned sitting in those rooms it's that "one day at a time" is not just a platitude. It does work, living your life that way. So that's what I'm going to do, and we will see what happens.
2 comments:
Molly, you are one of the strongest women I know. Your attitude is key But also the fact that you are young and healthy and found the lump so early . Praying for you and sending you love and hugs. Love you lots
xxooxx
Sharon
Yeah, great, but where's the turtle I was promised.
You got this, Molly. I'm glad you have an obviously enormo network of support and a good (great) sense of humor. I have a feeling those two things are going to make the biggest difference in this battle. Go, you.
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