Recent History

April 29, 2014

I have never ventured to create a blogspot before, but I know that I have many friends, family members, associates, and neighbors who are concerned about and love me.  So I decided to write this blog to keep you informed about what's happening in my life. 

As many of you know, the first week in March I discovered a lump in my breast and decided I had better have it checked out, despite having a "clean" study at my annual mammogram 10 months earlier.  That day began with a medical exam by my doctor, who agreed that I should have another mammogram.  The mammogram led to an ultrasound, and that led to a core biopsy of the lump.  A few days later it was confirmed that I had breast cancer.  Following consultation with Dr. Ed Nelson (a surgeon at Hunstman Cancer Institute) we determined the best treatment option was to have a mastectomy and  removal of sentinel lymph nodes for biopsy.  That surgery took place on Monday, April 7th (right on the heals of a glorious General Conference weekend). The surgery went very well and I was home 24 hours later.  The surgeon identified seven sentinel lymph nodes and removed them for testing.  Five of these were tested for the presence of cancer at the time of the surgery and they were all clean.  We felt extremely blessed with these results.  However, the pathology report we received the week after the surgery showed that subsequent testing of the other two lymph nodes found the presence of cancer! 

My case was reviewed by a panel of doctors called the "Tumor Board" (sounds rather ominous and anonymous, I know) and recommendations were made for me to meet with a medical oncologist, Dr. John Ward, and his staff (nurses, nurse practioner, etc.) at Huntsman Cancer Institute yesterday morning. They reviewed the pathology report with Blake and me.  We were told that  my type of cancer cell is the easiest to treat. It is richly estrogen receptive, it is slow-growing and well differentiated, and the tumor was considered small (1.6 cm).  The stage of cancer would have been considered stage 1, except they found the cancer in the two lymph nodes--that then puts it at stage 2A. They still say that there is every reason to be optimistic about my treatment and complete recovery, which we are! 

I am scheduled for a PET scan on Thursday, where they will scan to see if there are any signs of cancer spread anywhere beyond the lymph nodes.  They don't believe that there is any spread, they just want to make sure. The next step is to surgically place a "port" under my skin that makes it easier to administer chemotherapy in people who have "difficult" (aka non-existent) veins. Then I will probably have four rounds of chemotherapy spaced three weeks apart. About three or four weeks after that I will probably have four or five weeks of radiation treatments. (We are scheduled to meet with a radiation oncologist on Wednesday morning to see what her recommendations are.)

I know I am the luckiest girl ever! But this situation is very difficult for me emotionally.  I know that I am well-loved by many family, friends, associates, and neighbors and I really appreciate your desires to provide love, support and encouragement.  However, it is really hard for me emotionally when I have to re-share the details of this story with all of the friends who want to personally express concern, or offer support, and sympathy.  I would love to have everyone treat me like they would if they didn't know anything about this cancer. That would help me stay positive and upbeat which I need to do. 

So I plan to use this blog to share details about what is happening in my life and how I am feeling.  You can subscribe and keep up to date as you wish.  Thanks for your love, care, support and prayers.