I keep looking up....

How nice life has been with no more chemo and my hair.. yes I said hair Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!  Has started to grow back, its now the first of June and I no longer look like a chia pet. And weighing in at 183 at the end of November 09.... Drum Roll...... Now at 160!! Whooo hooo!!! I married my prince in April and very, very happy. I just learned today that I no longer have to have herecptin, thank God! cause my heart was not liking it so much.

Okay let me back up a little.... the end of January I went in for some tweaking on my reconstruction, which is common if someone has both a mastectomy and reconstruction done at the same time. Well... the day after the Superbowl Feb 3rd? I woke up in a puddle of blood and said that doesn't look good. I went to the doctors and ended up in the hospital having my implant removed after a few days of healing I went home. So hear me out... I'm getting married in April so I wanted to heal up fast to get my boob back before I leave for Jamaica. We pushed it and waited about 6 weeks (should have waited 8) my one boob was getting lonely, so we gave it another pal to hangout with! Back in for more surgery (but a happy one).

Here we are in March and I'm super happy I'm going to Jamaica to get married when my friend Betsy asked to see how my girls looked, she is like my sister so I showed her. She gave me a few funny looks and said it looked really red, so we felt it and yep... sure enough it was hot as could be. I went home right away to my man and said "Houston we have a problem" called the doctor after hours and she had us meet her at the hospital right away. Sure enough I had a bad infection, this time I didn't let it get to the bleeding point (sorry for the gory details). She took it away! I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway when he lost Wilson..
A few weeks of stinky antibiotics and I batted my eyes and begged for a boob before the wedding. So things looked good the end of March and I went in yet again for more surgery, this time a tissue expander was put in. The purpose of the expander is to create a soft pocket to contain the permanent implant. YAY!! Michael will have a two boobed bride!

Okay its the beginning of April so my little sister and I are shopping for bathing suits for Jamaica and we are in the dressing trying them on, when I noticed my breast was really red and warm to the touch... NOT AGAIN I said! We left right away and I called my doctor who was out of town, great! could my luck be any worse I thought?! So they gave me the doctor that takes her patients when she is away, I called and he had me come in right away. I pulled up in front of the new doctors office and Michael was waiting for me in the parking lot, we walked in and my heart was beating so fast I was so scared. The doctor told me that things didn't look promising and that he wanted me to go to the hospital. He told me I had time to go home and get packed and go have dinner, but I was going to be in there for awhile. The doctor called ahead to the hospital and they had a room waiting for me as soon as I got there. The put me on antibiotics via- IV and I met with the infectious diseases doctor the next day when she came to room. She said things did not look promising and if the infection didn't clear up with the IV they had to remove the tissue expander. After 4 days on IV it was still red, I had no choice! there was NO WAY I was going to Jamaica with an infection hoping it would clear up, and if things got worse there, I would end up in a Jamaican hospital (which was out of the question). Okay...Okay... I'll just end this quick by saying YES! I was a uni-boob bride!

Next surgery is scheduled for July 19th.......... (to be continued..........)

It's been awhile since I have last updated everyone...

Sorry to have left you all out in the dark these last few months, the chemo had me so tired and lazy I was not in the mood to do much. So lets fill you in on the lastest and greatest.....

I was just in HELL for 6 months, I thought hell was supposed to be hot? Nope... it comes in IV form and is called TCH, okay in human terms its my chemo regimen. Meaning experimental regimen of Taxotere and Carboplatin with one year of Herceptin and 5 years of Tamoxifin.
I just had my last chemo treatment yesterday.. YEAH ME! But I'm not in the clear yet, I still have to go every three weeks for 6 more months of the herecptin drug injections they have been giving to me along with my chemo. Well the last 3 treatments I have not had the herceptin due to damage it is causing my heart. They say that it will go back to normal, so they are sending me in for another muga scan on my heart before they will start to give me the herceptin again to make sure my heart is strong enough to take it. I know you are probably asking yourself.... WHAT IS HERCEPTIN? So I will tell you... Herceptin (trastuzumab) is a treatment for women with breast cancer whose tumors have too much HER2 protein. This type of cancer is known as "HER2-positive", "HER2+", or "HER2 overexpressing". HER2+ tumors tend to grow and spread more quickly than tumors that are not HER2+

And this is what I am experiencing right now....Herceptin treatment can result in heart problems, including those without symptoms (reduced heart function) and those with symptoms (congestive heart failure). The risk and seriousness of these heart problems were highest in people who received both Herceptin and a certain type of chemotherapy (anthracycline). Your doctor will stop or strongly consider stopping Herceptin if you have a significant drop in your heart function.

We will see how it will still effect me now that I'm no longer taking the chemo drug. But all in all I am doing great, yes I still have my concerns in the waaaaay back of my head about it coming back. But I have the best family and friends supporting me all the way.

June 18th... A few weeks after Surgery and still recovering

Recovering....

I have to say... I'm very thankful to have such a wonderful family and supporting group of friends around me to help me through this.
My significant other and I have been staying at his Parents home here in Annapolis so that I can have care 24/7. My friends and family have came by and helped me bath and get dressed and did my hair and my make up too!
And talk about supporters Kate & Tayna even ran the Susan G. Koman race for me in D.C. for me and raised money and awareness for me.
Michelle brings me gifts and clothes to help me feel more comfortable during and after surgery. My Princes sister sent me a care package and lots of loving gifts.
Betsy and Karey have made me food and showered me with gifts. And most thankful for his mom and dad they are such wonderful people to open their home to me and help take care of me. And last but not least my Prince Michael..... God could not have given me a more supportive, understanding, loving guy who loves me to no end I couldn’t be blessed anymore! Thank you everyone!

So the beat goes on......

My BRACA test came back negative! And I had a CAT scan to make sure the rest of my body was cleared of cancer. And today I had a MUGA scan on my heart to make sure its strong enough to make it through the chemo.
Michael and I go to Chemo class tomorrow after noon to learn what the chemo treatments are going to do to me and for me, we will schedule my first treatment after the class.

I will fill you in this weekend on what the outcome of tomorrow will be!

Saturday, May 30, 2009 I'm still in the hospital

I'm in the hospital still....

Saturday, May 30, 2009

this is going to be short cause Im on a ton of pain pills and very tried, I just wanted to fill you all in on what happned.So i came in Thursday Morning at 5:30 am for a bi lateral mastecomy with full reconstructive surgery (no expanders yeah) they also installed a port (ouch it hurts like hell) but it will make me getting stuck over and over for chemo easier. They also did a Sentinel node biopsy to determine if cancer has spread to the lymphatic system. The sentinel lymph node is the first lymph node to which a tumor drains. By finding the sentinel node before surgery, doctors can remove the node for study during surgery. Removing the sentinel lymph node, or nodes, also carries with it the possibility of lymphedema, although neither the extent nor the risk is as great as with axillary dissection. ti see If the sentinel node is free of cancer, medical technique that the dotcor used on me was called a frozen section to evaluate the lymph node tissue and gain preliminary information about its status during the operation. And was told during the biopsy that the first two lynodes did test positive so they went back in and removed about 10 -15 more nodes to have them checked.I will have to PET scan to see if the cancer has spread anywhere else in my body!

5/25/09 Update on what proceedure Im having done

Update....

Monday, May 25, 2009
Okay so I'm going to make this one short, I will type more laterI'm scheduled to go for my bi lateral mastectomy Thursday morning at AAMC. Following the mastectomy I will have reconstructive surgery and depending on how it goes the surgeon maybe able to give me my full implants without me going through with the expanders faze since I'm going down in size (Yes!!! I'm shrinking the girls) If I were going up in size my skin would stretch and I would not be able to heal. Thankfully God has blessed me with extra stuff I MAY not have to go through all that extra surgery.During the operation they check on my lymph nodes to see if they are infected as well....Whether the lymph nodes contain cancer cells is an important factor when staging breast cancer, determining treatment, and predicting survival. Though breast cancer has the potential to spread to other regions of the body first, it most commonly spreads first to the (underarm) lymph nodes. This is known as regional spread. From there, the breast cancer can metastasize (spread) systematically to other areas of the body (such as the bone, liver, lung, or brain). Right now the Docs are saying that I have a 50/50 chance of having infected lymph nodes due to the tumor size and its aggressiveness...but the MRI looked clear! So there is a chance I may not need either! (Glass is always half full)

May 5th 09 (Surgery Date)

My life has changed forever....

So this is all still a new language to me so bare with me in my stumbles and misspelling of words.. This is why I'm not an English major.In my many journeys to the doctors and learning this day by day, I have learned that I do have one of the most treatable forms of breast cancer. But due to my age and the agressivness we are taking the most serious measures to make sure I'm in the best hands. Along this journey I learned not all breast cancers are the same, they are all unique and treated differnt..though we all have the same agendas and that is to kick this thing in the rear, I can not compair myself to other breast cancer patients. Mine is hormonal meaning that it is in the same family as ovarian cancer...so yep you guessed it my ovaries and my fallopian tubes and I have to part ways. But we will get back to that.So with all my test results and my pathology report the signs and the doctors at Anne Arundel Medical Breast Center thought that a bi lateral mastectomy would be a good option for me. Though as said in my last note that I will be 100% in the clear...yeah not so much, that was wishful thinking on my part. It just lowers my chances of a reocurrence or a new growing cancer in the other breast a lot lower. So like I said I want the best!!! During the surgery they will check my lymph nodes to see if they are infected if so they will remove about 15-20 of them. The doc said my chances right now are 50/50 of being infected. I'm also going to have reconstructive surgery at the same time....and you all are thinking wow she gets new perky boobs...well there is always a catch not everything looks as good as the food pictures in the menu. I will completely loose both my nipples in the process (no ways around that one I asked) So Yes I will have Franken boobs for a few months till I get Tattoo nipples WOW!!!! NOT!!!! Okay so after I heal a bit after surgery and start feeling a little better... I start Chemo and if my lymph nodes are infected than I will start radiation after chemo and have to have a pet scan to see if its anywhere else in my body ((keep your fingers crossed on that one))They big sugery date is the 28th of May... I will keep you all posted on my crazy road life calls a journey

April of 09 (First Diagnosed)

I was diagnosed April 16th with Breast Cancer, though I don't know much about it I am learning as I go. So bare with me if some of this doesn’t make since as I'm trying to make since of it myself. The type of breast cancer I have is an Invasive breast cancerInvasive (infiltrating) breast cancers spread outside the membrane that lines a duct or lobule, invading the surrounding tissues. The cancer cells can then travel to other parts of your body, such as the lymph nodes. (which is soon to be checked)Its full name is: Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC).it accounts for about 70 percent of all breast cancers (very treatable) The cancer cells form in the lining of your milk duct, then break through the ductal wall and invade nearby breast tissue. The cancer cells may remain localized — staying near the site of origin (which in my case it was, that was the HUGE lump I was talking about. it was a little bigger than a golf ball, but the actual size of the tumor itself was 3cm. Or it can spread (metastasize) throughout your body, carried by your bloodstream or lymphatic system.
Next... They grade tumors, yes just like in School and nothing has changed for me... I have the bad grade. Here is the chart..Tumor gradeIf the cancer is an invasive type, the pathologist assigns it a grade. The grade is based on how closely cells in the sample tissue resemble normal breast tissue under the microscope. The grading information, along with the cell type, helps your doctor determine treatment options.
Breast cancers are graded on a 1 to 3 scale:
■Grade 1. The cells still look fairly normal (well differentiated)
■Grade 2. The cells are somewhat abnormal (moderately differentiated).
■Grade 3. The cells have lost their proper structure and function (poorly differentiated).The pathologist determines the grade by looking at the size and shape of both the cell and its nucleus and counting how many cells are in the process of dividing. A higher grade suggests a faster growing cancer that's more likely to spread.
They also test for Hormone receptor status, which I have to do.. I will fill you in on that once we have word.
MUST HAVE TREATMENT: Well no matter what I decide to do with my boobs I do have to go through 6 weeks of Chemotherapy, which to the use of anti-cancer drugs to kill breast cancer cells. And to be prepared for the side effects:• Loss of appetite • Nausea and vomiting • Weakness and fatigue • Mouth soreness • Hair loss • Weight gain • Premature menopause • Lowered resistance to infections • TREATMENT OPTIONS:A re- excision (also known as clearing of the margins) & Radiation?Many studies have reviewed this approach for patients with invasive cancers. Nearly all show that the risk of relapse in the breast is much higher when radiation is not used (20 percent to 40 percent) than when it is (5 percent to 10 percent). Having breast cancer reappear in this way is a very traumatic event psychologically. Also, patients may need to have a mastectomy to be cured in this situation, so in more cases they may lose the breast than if they had undergone radiation therapy initially. Finally, not everyone who has a recurrence in the breast can be cured. (CAN NOT BE CURED!!!!)I'm young and I have to think long term here people!!! if I were thinking for the moment and what would be easier right now I would go with the re excision & radiation, but I don't EVER want to deal with this again and there is still a chance 5-10% but still a chance of a relapse...AND than I cant not be cured!!!* Women age 45 or younger at the time of treatment may have a slightly increased risk (by a few percent at most) of developing cancer of the other breast with time, compared with the risk they would have if they did not undergo radiation. There is a very small risk (perhaps one in 1,000 individuals) that cancers may develop five, 10, 20 or more years later in the skin, muscle, bone or lung directly in the area of treatment. Ummmm NO! if they are saying there is a chance (small risk) thats is not one that Im taking. ***OR***Do a Mastectomy on both my breast and have reconstructive surgery at the same time and than I will be 100% in clear no chances no risks!!!!!SO by the end of next week should know what road I want to take!Thanks for reading….. and I will you keep you posted!!!