Most of you do not know what is going on, so hopefully this will help keep you in the loop.
The week before Christmas, we found out I have Breast Cancer. It has been a complete whirlwind since. On Friday, January 31st I am getting the first of several surgeries. This will be a bilateral (double) Mastectomy. As you can imagine, we were shocked and are still are. I am not big on social media posts, so we felt this was the best way to keep our friends and family updated with the surgery, results from the surgery, treatment updates and then the 2nd surgery in a few months.
Where do I even begin?! Almost exactly a year before I was diagnosed with cancer, we had a big surprise! We found out that we were expecting! It was very exciting but also quite unplanned and scary, considering that we had to go through a lot of fertility treatments before we were blessed with our two sweet kiddos. Unfortunately January 5th, 2019 we lost our sweet baby at about 12 weeks. It hit me really hard. It affected most of my 2019, but one thing that came from it was my amazing OB.
She new about some leaking I had in my right breast and pushed me to get it looked at. On my follow up from the miscarriage, she pushed again. I never gave it much thought until I started getting a little better, which took most of the year. As the year started to come to an end, I decided to take her advice and get it checked out. The breast surgeon agreed with what I thought, it was a clogged/infected milk duct. She offered some home remedies that she thought would get rid of it over the next 6 months. I asked what else can we do. I didn’t want a 6 month fix as I have been dealing with this for over a year already. (A leaky boob with no baby wasn’t the best reminder) The other option was surgery to remove the duct. I opted to do the surgery. Before the surgery, I had to get a mammogram as well as some sonograms. Those showed everything was clear and that there was no area of concern.
On December 16th, I had the milk duct removed. After the quick surgery, my breast surgeon came in and told my husband, Cole that it was very routine and it looked like any other infected duct she had seen. She was going to send off some samples for testing but she wasn’t worried and she would see me after Christmas for a follow up. Well, the office called two days after surgery and wanted to move up my follow up appointment fast. I knew this wasn’t good. I went in for that follow up three days after surgery and she told me the four words no one wants to hear, “You. have. breast cancer.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. I immediately called Cole. He left work, cancelled all his meetings and raced to me. We left with so many questions, we just couldn’t think straight enough to ask them.
They said that I had stage 0 ductile carcinoma in situ that was contained inside the milk duct (DCIS). Best case scenario for something like this. On Christmas Eve, I had an MRI with and without contrast. The MRI showed that there could be more cancer than we thought. There were many more areas for concern on the right side, and even some on the left side. My options now are lumpectomy and radiation for the right side and then 5 or more biopsies on the right and left with MRI’s every 6 months for FOREVER. Then biopsies every time the MRI shows anything new. Option 2 is a bilateral mastectomy. We decided to be aggressive and go that route. Many other things played into our decision, but just know that we looked at all options and are confident in this decision.
So now here we are. Friday is the big day. It’s time to get this out of me. For me, for my husband and kids, for all the reasons. This will be the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But the other side looks bright, and I am ready to make it through these surgeries and through this year. I stand firm in knowing that our God has big plans for me and this is just a stepping stone.
Friday they will take everything out and insert tissue expanders. Then we wait, heal and see what the results are. In about a week after the surgery, we will find out if we need chemo, radiation or a combination, or no more treatment. Hopefully we caught this early enough and the surgery will be all that is needed! But one day at a time! Once all treatment is done (if needed) and I am healed, they will go in for the breast reconstruction surgery. Through out all of this, we have heard many times from our medical team that it is a miracle we caught this the way we did. This is not typically how breast cancer is found. I have seen, witnessed and been a part of many God moments through out this. I will also be sharing some of those stories as well in the months to come.
Whew. That about does it for now. Our church has graciously set up a meal train and the link to that is below. Thank you for your support, prayers and words of encouragement!
https://mealtrain.com/e9o4olJoy, peace & love,
Lindsay
