The surgeon called this morning at about 8:45am to let me know that, as expected, the test came back positive. Three of the four "suspicious" lumps are cancer. I am thankful it is not 4 of 4. (Looking for the silver lining wherever I can find it.) It is invasive ductal carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer and is Grade 2. The Grade is an indication of how wimpy or aggressive the cancer may be. It is a 3 point scale with 1 being that the cells are normal looking and do not appear to be growing rapidly and 3 being that the cells do not resemble normal cells and tend to grow more quickly and spread more aggressively. Grade 2 is in between, so "middle of the road" as the surgeon said. We won't know until next week hormone involvement (estrogen, progesterone and HER/2). That dictates some of the treatment decisions. We want Estrogen positive.
Mom and I headed to the doctor's office for the
BRCA mutation test. Basically I had to swish mouthwash around in my mouth 3 times and then spit out the stuff into a tube which is sent to a lab for testing. If I test positive, other women in my family will need to be tested, including my sweet little Emily, although I am not sure if we would test now or later. She can't really swish mouthwash around and spit it out! :) We'll find out those results in 10 days or so. The doctor does not think it will come back positive.
Next steps for me are:
- Bloodwork at the hospital tomorrow morning
- CT scan with contrast and a whole body bone scan on Wednesday, January 26
- Breast MRI on Tuesday, February 1
Once we have all those results back, we'll decide on next steps and think about scheduling surgery.
I am feeling pretty good right now. We have a diagnosis and can start coming up with a game plan. I am not looking forward to the hell my body will go through over the next few months but I am trying to take it one step at a time!
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