The beginning of March, 2011, I was just another stay at home mom looking forward to my 33rd birthday and enjoying my life with my family. I didn't think much of the lump I found in my left breast March 2nd other than, "O crap, I hope I don't get mastitis (a very common infection for moms who are breastfeeding)."
Kate, our youngest was just turning 5 months at the time.
I started to feel nauseous just before my birthday, March 9th, and by March 10th I felt I needed to go to Urgent Care because I thought it really was an infection. The urgent care doc was like, uhm no. You have the flu and I have no idea what that lump is, but it is not mastitis.
This is the beginning of our ride. The clink, clink, clink up to the pinnacle of the roller-coaster.
March 11th I had an ultrasound & mammogram that revealed a substantial, vascular, irregularly shaped lump with pre-cancerous calcifications through my entire breast. The radiologist, a man, actually cried as he told us that he was sure that this was cancer.
Clink.
You get the idea that it is serious when a male doctor cries and they don't even bother to wait for the biopsy results to schedule your apt with the surgeon.
Fast forward. We had a left breast mastectomy April 6th, 2011 with sentinel node biopsy and step one of reconstruction of my chest area.
I am writing this May 14, 2011 from my hospital room at Oregon Health Sciences University having undergone more surgery to remove the rest of my lymph nodes and put in a port for Chemo.
The Stats:
Stage II Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) in my breast is ER/PR+
Triple Negative Breast Cancer in Lymph Nodes
(ER/PR/Her2 Neg)
We did dose dense AC-T.
4 rounds AC every 2 weeks, 4 rounds T every 2 weeks
Each treatment followed by injections to kick my bone marrow into producing more white/red blood cells.
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