Mindy Spencer

I never thought I would be dealing with breast cancer. In fact it was always one of those things that happens to other people. Not me! I have no history of breast cancer in my family that I know of. What a shock when the doctor said "you have invasive Breast cancer." That was  December 7th 2016. First I was told by my surgeon that it was triple negative, stage ll and I would need to decide rather quickly if I was going to have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy . Really?? I have to decide? I felt overwhelmed and definitely did not have enough information to make a decision like that! Fortunately I had been given the name of an oncology nurse navigator- Jeneane.  I called her the next day and was hopeful she could help me make this urgent decision.

I met with Jeneane that afternoon and she said she had some good news. Really? None of this seemed good to me. She found a typo in my path report and my tumor was not triple negative , which is the hardest to treat, but that it was Her2 pos. What that means is there are target drugs that can be given along with chemotherapy drugs to specifically target the cells that are cancer. She immediately called the oncologist and the decision was made to go ahead with chemo first to shrink the tumor then have surgery down the road in 4-5 months, with the goal of shrinking the tumor to almost nothing and following up with a lumpectomy and radiation.

Honestly none of it sounded good to me but I was off the hook, for now, about what kind of surgery I was about to have. I feel it was such a God send that Jeneane found the mistake and acted upon it immediately. I hate to think about what the outcome may have been had she not noticed the contradiction in my path report. She very clearly saved me a lot of grief not to mention who knows what! I don't believe in coincidences. This was proof to me that God is in control here. Not me!

Here's the run down of the next few weeks : Dec. 13th met with surgeon.

 Dec. 19th met with my oncologist Dr. Sam.

 Dec. 20th got port placement for chemotherapy.

 Dec.28 my first round of chemotherapy.

Oh! I forgot to mention Christmas! HaHaHa! Oh I meant HoHoHo! Actually it was wonderful to have my entire family circle around me and give me all the love and comfort of knowing they are there for me through this nightmare. What a blessing ! I am truly thankful for each and every one of them! I AM LOVED!!!

Who could ask for more?