June 13, 2014 Oh no -- Friday the 13th!

June 13, 2014  Oh no! Friday the the 13th, 1st meeting with the cancer surgeon...

It Friday, Chris and I are once again in yet another reception area, waiting to see the a doctor to discuss my cancer.  Wow -- it is really surreal.

We are called in by a nurse.  She points Chris to the exam room, and keeps me to take my vitals.  How can someone with such healthy reading have cancer?  It just doesn't make sense.  Soon we are in the exam room and she is asking me a boatload of question and typing my answers into the computer.  Why the heck did I fill out all of the preliminary paperwork if she is doing over again now.  Finally, I stop and say "here, all the answers you seek are on these papers in the exact same order that you are asking me."  She looks at me, looks at the papers, mutters "thank you, the doctor will be right in."

A few minutes later, Dr. Vargas walks in.  He is tall, handsome, and well dressed (should be, bet he makes load of money).  He has a calming voice with a decidedly Spanish accent.  I learn he is from Peru originally. His body language and gently manners are kind, mindful, and soothing.  He looks me gently in the eye and begins to tell me for findings of the biopsy tests.

Essentially it comes down to this, these are the technical results:

• a moderately differentiated invasive ductal carcinoma
• tumor size - about .6 centimeters or 5 millimeters
• lymph nodes - negative (no cancer cells detected)
• metastases - negative (cancer is contained and has not spread)
• grade presentation - moderate (grade II)  this means that the cancer cells are between grade I, looking like normal cells; and grade III looking very abnormal
• Ki-67 - Favorable <10%   This is a test of rate of growth of the cancer cells. If it is 20% or higher it is a rapid rate.  Mine is very slow, which is favorable and means high rate of cure.
• ER >90% - has to do with my prognosis and recurrence rate of the cancer.  This score means that I have a high rate of no recurrence 90 to 95%
• Her-2-new --- this will be either negative or positive.  Dr. Vargas tells me that it has something to do with a protein.  We won't have the result on this for a few more days, he believes it will be negative
• FISH -- another result that is pending.

So in our terms, I have a cancer tumor in a duct of my left breast, it is a little larger than 1/4 inch. I have a highly favorable rate for cure and very low rate that it will reoccur.

He told me that the surgery is on an outpatient basis, he will do a lumpectomy, and remove attached lymphnodes.  Following which I will only need radiation to the specific area -- five days a week for 6 weeks.  And my hair will not fall out --- not that I care about that at all.  All AMAZING!

He introduced us to his team, who are all professional and gentle.  I left the office with a surgery appointment: Thursday June 26 3:30 pm,  be there two hours early for prep.

One of the nurses, Miranda, whose official title is Breast Cancer Navigator, is an RN.  She spoke with us to educate us about the process and answer any questions.  She gave me a book to use as I go through the whole process.  I have found it very very useful.  It is Breast Cancer Treatment Handbook, by Judy C. Kneece, RN, OCN, published by EduCare, Inc.  You can easily find it online if you'd like a copy for someone who is going through this.

So I leave Dr. Vargas feeling pretty confident with a certainty that all is being done in time to minimize the breast cancer.  In a few weeks it will all be behind us.  Life is good!