Diane's Breast Cancer Story - 3

When Diane shared her story with me, I asked if I could post it for others to read. All of us know of someone whose life has been turned upside down by breast cancer. What I found over the years is that a lot of us do not know how to be proactive when it comes to our health. Most of the times, we're too busy to pay attention. Sadly we care for others better than ourselves, and we wait until we're literally crawling into the ER before we acknowledge that there is something wrong. This is our body, God's temple and we need to care for it but in order to do that, we must make the effort to educate ourselves and raise awareness for others.

There will be several posts that represent updates she sent family and friends via email. It allows us a glimpse of heart struggle and her relentless search for answers.

Thanks Diane... xo

Disclaimer: This is a true story. This represents the writer’s opinion only and should not be used as a medical guide. The writer does not claim that medical information contained in this story is completely accurate, current or error free. The writer is not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or any other damages arising out of or in connection with the information provided in this story. Please consult your physician for all medical procedures, advice, plan of actions and tests.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 12:42 PM

Spoke to the Doctor at the CCC today and to move forward we are going to add the lumpectomy to Friday’s (December 2) surgery. This way we can accurately get my Cancer staged and know how to treat THIS Cancer. Prevention is a discussion for another time. After we have the tumor accurately sized and staged, know if there is lymph node invasion and get the genetic test results back we can determine if mastectomies are recommended.

Thursday, December 01, 2005 9:14 AM

Surgery & the radioactive die injection will be moved out to next Wednesday, December 7th. I’m happy about the move, it gives me the weekend to finish up everything for Christmas and really get prepared. My last work day for the year will be Tuesday December 6th.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005 4:15 PM

The surgery will be from 2PM to 4:30PM. Please send prayers and thoughts for me at that time. I will have the die injection in the morning. Dave will send an updated email on Thursday.

Thursday, December 08, 2005 12:34 AM

Diane underwent the lumpectomy and lymph node removals at around 3PM today and all went smoothly. The surgeon removed a golf ball diameter tissue mass, smaller than anticipated, and removed two lymph nodes.
Pathology reports on the actual tumor size and potential lymph node invasion will be discussed with us next Wednesday at the surgeon’s office. Until then, Diane is to rest as much as possible until she feels able to get out for some light walking exercise.

Tonight she was in no pain at bedtime, but still a bit radioactive from the pre-surgical injections. Nothing to worry about – she’s not glowing in the dark.

Thursday, December 15, 2005 10:40 AM

Well, I have fantastic news. My lymph nodes were clear.

The pathology report of the tumor and sentinel node state: there is no evidence of lymph vascular space invasion. The tumor was 1.8 cm and was grade 2-3. Grade 2-3 means moderate to fast growing Cancerous cells. I have stage 1C IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma). Pathology reports shows Hormone receptors + for estrogen and + for progesterone and + for HER2. I start chemo on January 3 and will be most likely participating in a clinical study for chemo drugs so the duration of the chemo will be 8-12 weeks depending on the study group that I am slotted for. I will then have radiation for 5-7 weeks.

Chemo was inevitable due to the tumor size (over 1.5cm warrants chemo) and my young age (Yes 47 is young for Breast Cancer, most Breast Cancers occur in older women) and that my Cancer is aggressive. During the initial biopsy the pathology tests for hormone receptors (a positive outcome is desired here as they know how to treat this and I was +) and they check for HER2 status. This HER 2 status shows how aggressive the Cancer is. A negative outcome is desired here and my FISH test was +3.4, any thing over +2 is aggressive. Chemo is used to ensure that all microscopic Cancer cells are destroyed. I will also have to take a new drug called Herceptin every 3 weeks for a year due to my HER2 status. This drug has no real side effects. It is a little rough on your heart but I’ll have my heart tested to ensure I can handle all this. I will most likely be able to return to work end of June.

I truly want to thank everyone for their prayers, thoughts and cards. I truly believe it was the prayers that resulted in this positive outcome.

Only one more test that I pray comes back negative and that is the genetic testing. If the genetic testing is negative, I’ll need NO further surgery, if the genetic testing is positive then I have the big decisions to make to avoid reoccurrence. So please don’t stop praying yet.

Thursday, January 05, 2006 2:30 PM

It’s been awhile since I have written – hope I don’t bore you all to death. First I want to thank everyone for your prayers, cards, letters concerns and thoughts. I know the prayers are helping. I can feel the love and support I am getting from old and new friends and especially my family. I am truly blessed with an awesome Husband, outstanding children, a wonderful mom & dad, and tremendous sister/sister in laws. I have never felt closer to my family.

I have almost fully recovered from my lumpectomy. I have 95% range of motion in my left arm and the bruising is 99% gone. The only thing I still have is a large build up of fluid and scar tissue where the lump was removed but that is softening up every day. Funny, the blue dye that they injected around the tumor is still a stain on my skin. I was really more scared about the dye injection then the surgery as you have to be awake for the injections. But, it was not so bad. First they numb your skin so they can insert a guide wire to locate the mass for the surgeon. Because the skin is numb the needles for the die don’t really hurt. They injected me three times around the lump. They then did several mammograms to be sent to in to surgery to show the guide wire and the mass. Every time I changed rooms they had to sweep the room with a Geiger counter to ensure I was not leaving radio active residue. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. A good friend of mine loves all the Star Wars movies and the last thing he said to me was that “the force was strong with me”. I could not help but smile when I was walking around radio active feeling like a Star Wars Jedi.

Had a scare over the holidays; The MRI I had gotten in November showed an enlarged lymph node at 6 o’clock in the right breast, so my surgical oncologist wanted to look at that again on a ultrasound. As he wasn’t concerned about it, I scheduled it on the same day I had my MUGA scan (Multiple Gated Acquisition scan).

A MUGA Scan is a noninvasive test that produces a moving image of the heart. From this image, the health of the heart’s major pumping chamber (the left ventricle) can be assessed. (More on MUGA below for those who want more.) Well, the Doctor could not find anything at 6 O’clock so he kept looking and found another tumor in the good breast. We were leaving from the CCC for a long weekend at the beach to end the holidays, so we scheduled my second needle biopsy for the first of this week.

Well, thank God it was a Fibroadema. A Fibroadema is a non Cancerous tumor that will most likely never turn into Cancer so it can be left alone unless it gets painful. But over the weekend, I had to worry, do I have bilateral Cancer?; has my Cancer spread that fast?; why wasn’t this seen before?

Waiting on the results of the biopsy delayed Chemo one day. So I have my first round of Chemo was yesterday and I know it is still early, but I feel really good. I am tired and a little achy but no nausea at all. Dave and I had a good laugh last night, the anti nausea medicine they give you has some really extreme side effects. One is lip smacking and uncontrolled muscle movements and mask like expressions. I asked Dave to please come and check on me after I went to bed as we were laughing at his imitation of me if I really had all those side effects. Fortunately I had a great nights sleep.

The MUGA scan is important as Chemo drugs are very hard on your heart. A MUGA scan is performed by attaching a radioactive substance, Technetium 99, to red blood cells, then injecting the red blood cells into the patient’s bloodstream. (The level of radiation to which a patient is exposed during this test is considered minimal.) The patient is then placed under a special camera (a gamma camera), and with some computer manipulation, a “movie” of the beating heart is made. From this moving image, the MUGA scan gives an accurate and reproducible way to measure the ejection fraction of the left ventricle.

The left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is an excellent measure of overall cardiac function. The ejection fraction is simply the proportion of blood that is expelled from the ventricle with each heart beat. So, for instance, if the left ventricle ejects 60% of its blood volume with each beat, the LVEF is 0.6. (A normal LVEF is 0.5 or greater). Mine was 63%.