WE found out today my Mom has breast cancer. don't freak out just yet. trust me.
because this is much easier than explaining it a million times, I'm going to copy and paste exactly what i was posting on a message board (the rmfo girlie board), which explains everything:
From about 2pm today:
we just found out today...after a bad mammogram a week or two ago, and the a biopsy at the beggining of this week, the test results came back today. i am putting this on here just to let you know what is up and to ask for your prayers, etc.
I don't really have time to be posting this, cause everything is kinda crazy busy right now. so i will have to make this quick with little details. but kate is keeping updated with everything that we know, as we know it. she is welcome to tell anything and everything.
mom and i and my dad and my brother and his fiance are all going to the dr with my mom today here really soon, to the surgeon, since, when she got the test results they told her she needed to meet with a surgeon asap. so i assume the meeting today with the doc is going to be kind of a consultation.and discuss what needs to be done.
anyway. no idea if any of that was coherent. i need to go
im ok seriously
please pray
the post i made around 9 pm tonight:
thanks so much ladies
heres the update
we went to the doc today and got GREATTTTT news. i will try to make this as coherent as possible and remember as much as i can. myself and brother and dad were all there with my mom when we talked to the doc.
we were told "if you've got to have cancer, this is the best possible news you could get." i guess cancer is rated on a 0-5 scale. this is a level 0. which basically translates into a few things. one: it was caught at the earliest possible detection stage. two: it is completely non invasive, so its located only in the mammory duct (which is where all breast cancer originates), and hasn't spread, and suz can explain this much better than me, but its all self contained within a sheltred area. suz...help me out.
this is seriously GREAT news, guys. in the cancer world, this is a piece of cake. i mean...hypothetically.
so this is the plan of attack:
STEP 1) mom needs to heal up from the biopsy that was done on her. once again, suzan can explain any and all of anything that i'm not explaining well. but they did the biopsy, where they stuck needes into her breast to take "samples" of tissue (on monday) to find out if the areas of calcifications (suz...lol . Laughing ..explain) was located from the bad mammogram report, were actually cancerous, or if they were just non cancerous lumps/calcifications (which is common, too). So, the biopsy, of course, caused her to bruise, etc, be sore, etc. so her breast has to heal up from that surgery before they can do anything else. the biopsy, was "minor" in the sense that she was awake for it and came home the same day.
so she heals from that for two weeks. so in two weeks, she has her appointment to come back in with this doctor so he can take a look at her to see if shes healed up enough to take the next step...if she is healed up enough...
STEP 2) about a week after that (or maybe a little longer, cause mom is going to try to have this done over spring break/middle of march, since she works at a school and wouldn't have to take off work), she will have surgery. She will have a lumpectomy (totally not spelling that right...who cares) and at the same time they will enject radiation into her breast.
now i will explain (or try to) what this means. At the time of her biopsy, when the doc went in and took tissue samples, they leave behind little microchips at the exact places they take the tissue, which show up on x rays, basically for tracing and placement purposes. So when she has the lumpectomy, the docs will know right where to go in and they will cut out a small "lump" of her breast, right where the chip was placed, so that the chip is in the core/center of the section they take out. by doing this, they hope to remove the cancerous tissue, and remove a "big enough" area so that the area on the very outter edge, is healthy tissue/not cancerous. this is to ensure that they get all traces of cancerous tissue out. hope that made sense. the doc said it would prob be about the size of a walnut or something.
ok. the second part to this is...at that time, they inject some type of radioactive material in the area around where they take the lump out (this is where i'm the most shaky, so suz...help again, please
Laughing ). And the radioactive material, i think, travels through a natural body passage way, to i think, lymph nodes and such. then the doc makes a second incesion closer to her armpit, on her breast, and they use something called a geigometer (suz?) to check the levels of radiation and do something about tracing where it is most active? they can somehow tell if its in lymph nodes and stuff? and something about it being able to trace to see if she might have cancerous or cancer prone areas in any lymph nodes. ? susan, i am really kind of sketchy on this part...so if you have any idea...feel free to fill me in (susan is my hero...hehe). anyway....so.....assuming that that all goes well....
that surgery is only supposed to take an hour and a half or so and she goes home the same day! she heals up for about 72 hours...and then...
STEP 3) she will start a session of 30 radiation treatments. this is SUCH GOOD NEWS. unlike chemo, with radiation, the patient has minor/much fewer side effects. She will have about 5 treatments a week, for about 6 weeks, in which they take about 30-40 minutes. the doc said toward the end of the treatments, especially, the patient suffers fatigue. there is no hair loss, etc etc. that is SO GREAT. what a blessing. I'm not sure what a radiation treatment entails, exactly...so susan, you can feel free to fill me in on this, if you want. lol. no pressure.
anyway. i think thats all i've got right now. i'm certainly not the best at explaining this, and this is just off the top of my head from hearing this from the doc, today.
our family is all VERY psyched about this news, you guys. i have a very involved/very supportive family. so everything, even just in the ....fewer than 12 hours we've known she has cancer, everyone is like...AMAZING. we have all these calling-chains where everyone is keeping everyone posted, and etc. my cousin, who is a doc (and so is her hub), is actually driving up from wichita, ks (3-4 hrs away) tomorrow evening, to come stay with us for a night or two, to talk to mom and be here for her. this is really great, cause i'm sure more questions will be answered and we can better understand stuff.
we are very blessed. no matter the outcome, we are blessed.
i so appreciate your prayers and will try to keep you posted as best i can as info comes along to me.
anyway. i think thats all. much love
and then this is a post that my friend Susan, from the message board, posted back tonight(shes training to be a doc):
AWESOME NEWS, Dena. My mom got similar news (she did have to have chemo, but she was only a stage 1 or 2 w/ no spread) and I will never forget the relief and tears of joy.
OK, first of all, you TOTALLY spelled lumpectomy AND geigometer correctly Laughing
Here's the most basic explanation:
Step 1: Sounds like your mom had fine needle aspirations of what they saw on mammogram. Basically, on the mammogram it's hard to tell if something is a calcification -- basically, a scarred cyst or something that actually has calcium in it, and thus shows up on mammogram -- or cancer tissue. So they have to stick a needle in there and grab some tissue to look at.
Step 2: A lumpectomy -- only taking out the part of the breast where the cancer is, and a little bit of space around it to make sure they got everything (what we call "clean margins"). The geigometer is actually REALLY COOL. If they use the same stuff we do, it's a blue dye that is also radioactive (not in a dangerous way, just in a use-a-special-scanner-to-see-it way). They will mush it around in her chest for awhile to make it spread through the lymph nodes (see, you were more right than you knew!). Then, they can use both their eyes to look for very blue nodes and the scanner to look for very radioactive nodes -- the MOST blue and the MOST radioactive node is what we call the "sentinel node," which is where all the lymph drainage goes first. This way, they can just check this node for any spread -- if it hasn't gotten to the first node, then it can't have gotten anywhere else. It's a really cool system and prevents a lot of iatrogenic problems (problems caused by doctors' procedures or treatment) that can occur when you have to take out a lot of lymph nodes.
Step 3: Radiation mostly causes fatigue and then some increased tissue thickness and numbness at the site of radiation. Like a bad sunburn would, essentially. The keys here are SOFT CLOTHES, like camisoles and such, that don't rub the skin when it's all damaged. www.softsurroundings.com is a good place to start Smile
So... yea.... this is really, really great news Dena.