April Fool!

It's been a good day for the psyche of myself and my entourage. Here within is a cut-and-dry post about the cancer agenda. I love lists, so let's make it a list:

#1. My surgery date is April 1st. Yay! Something to look forward to. I really hope they don't play any sick pranks on me. ("We had to take your arm during surgery... Hahaha, April Fool!" Maybe I've seen one too many episodes of Scrubs...

#2. Pre-op work tomorrow. Blood tests, x-rays, ekg. Fun times.

#3. MRI on Thursday. Hoping for some good news here.

#4. Cheeseburger, fries, and a small coke. (Yes, I am this corny.)

#5. We went to my oncologist today for the first time. I love her! (Just to note, the previous oncologist visit was for a second opinion.) She gave us a pretty detailed explanation of the treatment post-op. It is well within reality that I won't need chemo OR radiation at all after surgery! Of course, there are missing variables and they won't know more until after the MRI and surgery but here's the current evidence and prerequisites for chemo.

- I have extensive DCIS in my right breast. This is all within the mammary ducts, and is not technically considered cancer (it is more like a precursor and a great cause for concern). It is cancer, but it's not. Hard to describe. Anyway, once the DCIS jumps outside of the ducts, it is invasive cancer.

- One of my four biopsies showed a microscopic malignancy of invasive cancer. It showed 1mm of invasive DCIS out of a 1.6cm sample. The other biopsy in the right breast was benign - a fibroadenoma (not even DCIS). The other two biopsies were in the left breast, which do not show any DCIS.

- In order to go forward with chemo treatment, she will need to see at least a 1cm piece of invasive DCIS. She said they typically do not add up the pieces and generally will look at the largest piece they find. For example, if they find ten 1mm pieces of invasive DCIS, they probably won't do chemo. However, it is still subjective based on what they find.

So, technically speaking... they have only proven 1mm of invasive cancer... all this craziness over 1mm! Mind-blowing.

- For radiation, the prereqs are either (a) a 5cm chunk of DCIS, or (b) DCIS in the lymph nodes.

- According to my mammograms and ultrasounds, it's not looking like the DCIS has spread to the lymph nodes, but she won't know until surgery. Same with the DCIS (though it is definitely extensive, so I guess this is more likely than the chemo).

I'm too pooped to write more, but that's the gist of the medical mumbo-jumbo...

Hasta pronto!

(This "hasta" means until in Spanish, not sick in Turkish!)