Let’s see as I’m sure everyone knows we had a sweet baby boy December 13th, he’s seriously perfect same as my Rosie. While nursing him I had noticed a lump a week after he was born. I brought it up to the lactation consultant at South Shore December 22, she figured it was just a clogged duct, put a hot compress on while nursing she said, cool easy enough! Well it wasn’t going away. I brought it up to my ob/gym at my 6 week post-partum appointment, he quickly ruled out clogged duct, mostly because it didn’t hurt. From there I was sent to get my first mammogram and breast ultrasound, everyone at that clinic was sure it was going to be a fibromyoma, quick biopsy to make sure. Welp, February 7th I was officially diagnosed with IDC (apparently the most common of the breast cancers) Stage 2A, and let me tell you, it has been a wild ride ever since.
The following Monday (2/12) I had surgery to remove the tumor, along with two sentinel lymph nodes. Pathology came back with clean margins on the tumor, and both nodes were cancer free. So right now I am technically cancer free! However since I’m young, the tumor was a grade 3 “aggressive” and this is “uncommon” for younger women, I still have to do the whole treatment plan, which includes chemo and radiation.
My treatment plan is still unknown. The HER2 receptor is still in question, apparently when I had my first biopsy it was sent to Henry Ford Detroit counted it as HER2+, however when I had the first surgery it was sent to Beaumont Royal Oak, they counted it as HER2-. My oncologist want to send it to UofM for the tie breaker, fingers crossed for negative. Radiation was more cut and dry, 20 rounds of radiation for breast cancer, 16 to treat the whole breast, 4 concentrated right were the tumor was removed. BUT I only need radiation if my BRCA genetic tests comes back negative, if it’s BRCA+ I’ll be looking at another surgery, for a bilateral mastectomy. So fingers crossed for negative on that as well.
So I think that covers it all for now. Just waiting on test results to get this ball rolling.
CaringBridge is a nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Learn more about CaringBridge.
