Results from Surgery

Hi friends and family – thank you so much for all of your support. The cards, e-mails, phone calls, meals, baking, are all wonderful.

It’s been 2 ½ weeks since surgery. My right arm is still very sore, but I have some new pain medication so that may help. I met with the surgeon today, she is happy with the results which show all 12 lymph nodes that she removed are clear, and she got the clean margins around the tumor. For those that like details, it was a grade 3 (aggressive) cancer, triple negative, but it was caught early so my cancer is considered Stage 1c.

Next steps are to meet with my oncologist and determine a plan for chemo and radiation. Until that starts, I focus on healing. Hopefully this snow and ice will disappear so I can get out and walk more!

Take care and thanks for staying in touch!
Beth

Telling my friends

How do you tell your friends? I'm 43, I eat healthy, I run, I don't smoke (other than a couple of years in my early 20's), I drink red wine ;), I live in Winnipeg (come on, there is no pollution in the prairies!!). I have a successful career and a great boss. This might have been the hardest thing - blurting out to people that 'I have breast cancer' - no one expects to hear it, you catch them totally off guard.

My lake friends - the ones we party with - snowmobile, ATV, fishing, boating...

My Nancy that I run with...

My sister...

My Vancouver friends Jan and Denise (and yes, Duane too) ...

My dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, my mother-in-law...

My high school friends (yes, a group of us still get together, its only been 26 yrs since we graduated) were getting together Friday night so I blurted it out in the planning e-mail. Shocked them, but at least we could get together and have a drink Friday night...

My work friends - another tough one - I'm in a local office of 50 people, some of whom I've known for the whole 20+ years I've worked there. Plus lots of close friends in our Vancouver and California offices...

Okay, I'm feeling blessed for having all these friends to tell...

Telling the boys

How to tell the boys (Zach is 14, Carter is 11)... The day after I got the diagnosis, Zach was going away snowboarding for 3 days. We decided to wait until he got back to tell them. Saturday afternoon - we are sitting around chatting, so I say 'I need to tell you guys something'. Zach immediately said 'I don't think I want to hear this' and tried to walk away. I told him to sit down and then I told them. Carter asked lots of questions, Zach got up and walked away half way through my answers. I had to let them deal with it in their own ways, that would be okay. We hadn't told any of our friends and family yet, we wanted to tell the boys first.

Diagnosis

Doctor called today - 2 days before my appointment - "Can you come in today to see me". So I called Brad at work and he came to pick me up... By now we had no idea what to expect. If you google 'lump in armpit' you find worse things than Breast Cancer, so when she said those words, it was like - well not good news, but not the worst it could be. She drew us a picture and explained it all (who knew there was breast tissue in your underarm - apparently its the 'tail' of your breast). Anyway, next step is surgery - normally there is a decision here of lumpectomy (take out the tumour) vs mastectomy (lose the whole thing) - but in my case since it was so far to the side the lumpectomy was the logical choice. First available surgery was March 2 - we had planned to be in Mexico then... what to do... Quick decision - Mexico won -we will do the trip and then surgery March 9th.

Still waiting...

Went for the ultrasound (again) on Feb. 4th. The doctor said 'did they tell you that depending what we see, we may do a biopsy'? I'm thinking they better do a biopsy after all this waiting!!

Sure enough, he didn't like whatever he saw on the ultrasound, so he did the core needle biopsy, took 4 samples (yes there was local freezing), and back to waiting. Follow up with the doctor was scheduled for a week later. No hints...

Still worrying...

Had the mammogram Jan 6th - they couldn't see anything on the mammogram since its so far to the side. Booked me to come back for an ultrasound and possible biopsy 2 weeks later...

Brad and I went for the ultrasound... sat and waited for a few minutes... the power went out. Sat and waited 3 more hours and were finally told that the power was out in the whole block and they had no idea when it would come back. Phone back tomorrow to re-book.

Phoned back the next day and got an appointment for 2 weeks later... still waiting and worrying...

Worrying

Found a lump in November - in my armpit, noticed it while applying deodorant. Ignored it. Couple weeks went by, still there. Knew I had to tell my husband, and the first thing he would say is 'phone your doctor and get it checked'. So I was smart enough to first call the doctor and make the appointment before telling him...

Doctor said probably nothing, could be a swollen gland if I have an infection, sent me for bloodwork, but also sent me to the Breast Health Centre for a mammogram.

Bloodwork came back clean (I feel very healthy, no symptoms at all)... Waiting for the mammogram...