Finally....some positives...

Finally, some positive news today.  I spent the morning worrying and waiting for my 2pm meeting with my surgeon, but this meeting turned out to be far better than I had hoped, despite the circumstances.  She shared a few new bits of positive information with me:

• My labs all came back fine.  No liver problems, blood count problems, or anything else that would give any indication that the cancer has spread beyond the breast and possibly 2 nodes. Phew!!
• The MRI showed  no sign of cancer in my other breast whatsoever.
• I am HER2 positive.  Basically, HER2 is a specific type of receptor on the cancer cells and it is the area of breast cancer research where they have made the most advances in treatment options over the past several years. HER2 positive status can be treated with a drug called herceptin, which, when combined with chemo, dramatically decreases reoccurance rates and increases survival rates.  Cancers that are HER2 positive generally grow in a faster, less controlled manner which can also possibly explain what seems like a very fast onset of this tumor (to me, at least). Someone whose HER2 instruction is above 2 times the normal rate is considered HER2 positive.  My cancer is more than 17 times the normal rate (yes, I guess I tend to do things in extremes when I do them!).  But that also means that I am probably that much more likely to respond positively to the herceptin.  So this is overall good news.

The results of my biopsy from yesterday are not back yet, but we are assuming that the two suspicious lymph nodes are cancerous based on how they looked on the ultrasound.  However, this knowledge really doesn't change anything for me, treatment-wise.  My surgeon recommended that I do go ahead with a PET scan, more for my own mental state than for any other reason (a PET would find any cancers greater than 5mm growing elsewhere in me, and if nothing is detected, will allow me to put my mind at ease that the tumor has not metastasized).  The MRI showed that the tumor in my breast may be larger than originally thought - possibly as big as 10cm.  But there's no way of knowing right now whether it is all cancerous or only portions are, and the size doesn't really make a difference in my prognosis at this point. And with any luck, it will shrink dramatically once I begin chemo and herceptin treatments. In terms of staging, my surgeon's guess is that I'm either a stage 2b or 3a (depending upon the true size of the tumor, which we don't really know).  These stages are both treated in the same way, however, so it's fairly irrelevant.

So it sounds like my next steps are what I was tentatively planning for already.  I will still start my new job on Monday.  I meet with the oncologist on Tuesday and will have a chemo port inserted next Friday.  Chemo should begin for me during the week of Nov 7.  While we don't know for sure, my surgeon thinks they might do 2 week cycles for me to get it done faster, but this will be up to the oncologist. Depending upon how the tumor responds to the drugs (and also how my genetic testing comes back), I will either have a mastectomy or a lumpectomy after I finish chemo.  This can all obviously change again, but this is what the plan sounds like for now and I feel comfortable with it.

The "funny" of the day is that my mom, Ed, and I went for a drink and snacks right after my appointment to celebrate my positives.  Just as our mini-pizzas and wine arrived, my doctor's office called to tell me that they managed to schedule my PET for tomorrow and that I couldn't eat any carbs from now until the scan.  Oops! So I slammed my glass of wine, ate the toppings off the pizza and ordered a cheese and meat appetizer since I'm off carbs until noon tomorrow.

All in all, a much better day today than I was anticipating.  It's very hard to stay positive when dealing with so many unknowns, but every small bit of good news is a victory that I am celebrating.  And being one step closer to a plan helps so much.

Again, a huge thanks to all of you for all of your love and support.  It has been such a huge help to me in so many ways.  It's still going to be a very long, difficult year fighting this cancer, but knowing that the prognosis is hopefully positive is really helping to keep me going right now.