So the last time I updated I had just seen my plastic surgeon and he had gone over my options with me and I was headed in for another appointment with him.
After the plastic surgeon spoke with my surgeon it turned out that I wasn't the best candidate for instant reconstruction. Which was a pretty good thing because I really didn't think it was the best personal option either. I also wasn't the best candidate for implant surgery. This is because I will have so much radiation that the skin may or may not be great at stretching. This left me with the 3rd option of a DIEP flap reconstruction. Where they take from my abdomen and move the skin tissue up to form breasts. I liked the idea of this option the most and it turns out it is the best option for me. With this option they will be able to remove some of the radiated skin and attach the abdominal tissue to the skin that was not radiated. It also cannot be performed until about a year after radiation has completed.
I think this is a good idea for me.
I think I need to become okay with my new body, with looking in the mirror and facing what cancer has taken from me. I think half of this battle is letting myself heal physically and emotionally. I have been through enough hard ache in my young life to know that the only way I truly heal is to feel it. Feel every deep and hard emotion. To walk the steps I need to walk and to face myself everyday. If I was eligible for one of the other options I am not sure I would ever fully heal. Heck, I don't know how long it will take period but I am willing to face it. I am willing to face the reality of this disease and become okay with it. I am willing to prove to my brain that I am not feminine strictly because I have breasts.
So I am content with the decision my doctors and I have come to about reconstitution.
The next step in this crazy journey towards remission was to meet with my surgeon and determine surgery steps. I met with my surgeon on January 23rd. I still had quite a bit of mass left on my breast. So he talked a little about needing to skin grafting from my leg to be able to close the incision and remove enough cancerous skin. There was talk of not removing my lymph nodes if I didn't need the removed any longer. There was also talk of the fact that the large mass still consuming my breast could be scar tissue but that there is no way of knowing that until after surgery when the tissue was sent off for biopsy. In the end he decided he wanted to speak with my team. He wanted multiple opinions on the lymph nodes and on next steps. So I left his office without a surgery date and sort of in the unknown.
On January 27th my surgeon called me and said that he had meet with my care team and other providers and they had decided I needed to have another CT Scan, Bone Scan, and MRI.
The CT Scan and Bone Scan came back with great results. The lymph nodes in my left side had shrunk, the lymph node that had been sitting right above my collar bone was gone. There was no evidence of cancer in my bones. HUGE CHEMO AND CANCER FIGHT WIN!
MRI did not have as fantastic results. I found out that the mass appeared to have spread to my pectoralis muscle. This tissue could be cancerous or it could be inflammation from scar tissue but he is unable to tell until he cuts the tissue out and sends it for biopsy. So I have to have at least half of my pectoralis muscle removed during my mastectomy. They call this procedure a radical mastectomy. It will leave a much more visible difference in my chest. At this point he hopes to only have to remove half of it but he is unsure of how far the tumor tissue sits along the muscle. There is a possibility that it will all need to be removed. I have no idea what recovery looks like with this additional information because right after he told me about this new information he also informed me that a mass showed up on my right breast that was not there in September when I had my first MRI performed.
A mass! that could be cancerous! in my other breast! what? how is that even possible? Chemo worked, it worked! My lymph nodes are small or gone and my bones are clean. How can something be growing anywhere in my body?
My surgeon let me know that because I had already decided to have a double mastectomy it was not mandatory to have a biopsy on the mass they found but that it was an option. He explained that it would help him know what he needs to do with lymph nodes on my right side during surgery and it would tell me what it was prior to surgery. So I decided to go forth with the biopsy. I want my surgeon to have the most information he can have before he cuts me open. I want him to be able to attack to the best of his ability regardless of how tired I am of tests, and pokes, and touching.
On Monday, February 13th I had what they call an MRI biopsy performed. I was placed in the MRI machine while my right breast was placed between two grids and my left breast was covered up to not show on the MRI images. Once they located the mass and the placement of it on the grids they pulled me out of the MRI machine and the radiologist performed the biopsy. I was then placed back into the machine for further pictures and to be sure he was able to take enough tissue. The procedure was my least favorite yet. It was sensory overload for me. So much was going on. I think there was 5 different people in the room with me performing various tasks. My left breast which is a large mass and solid was smashed and hurt so bad that my body was involuntarily moving even though I was suppose to stay extremely still. So still that one of the people had to put pressure on my back while the radiologist performed the biopsy because I could not move at all from the grid or they would have to keep repeating the MRI. The actual biopsy really didn't hurt much because they numbed me. The machine made an awful sound though when it was pulling out tissue. By the end of the hour that all of this was going on I was in tears. I was in tears because I was done. I could not take anymore sensory wise and I was done because my left breast hurt so bad that I almost could't breath. There was nothing anyone could have done though. It was the way I had to lay. I couldn't move and they went as fast as they could. Everyone was so nice. They really seemed to care and once I started crying they went as fast as they could to finish the procedure but it goes down in the current books as the WORST TEST YET!
So this brings me to today...........the results..................CANCER!
I now have cancer in my right breast also. How? I don't know. It appears to be the same type as the left side. The radiologist seems to believe it is a separate case, that this is not the result of the cancer from the left breast spreading into the right. He said that nothing in medicine is 100% but breast cancer doesn't typically jump from one breast to the other it would first show up in the lymph nodes and as far as we know the right side lymph nodes are not affected. My surgeon called about an hour after the radiologist did but I missed his call. So tomorrow (Wednesday, Feb.15th,) I may have more information.
What I do know is that I was already electing to remove the right breast so my treatment path shouldn't change. I may have to have radiation on both sides and I may have a few lymph nodes removed from the right side. I am so beyond grateful that I had already elected to remove both. I can not imagine sitting here tonight coming to terms with the fact that instead of only taking one breast I would need to take both. I came to terms with that many months ago. well, to the best of my ability. It doesn't make it any easier to hear that you have cancer again. I AM 31 YEARS OLD, I tested negative for the genetic gene. I had 16 chemo treatments and 5 months of feeling like crap. I haven't even fully recovered from chemo and yet I have a cancer in my right breast that has grown during it all. How? I have no idea!
Chemo worked but didn't.
This whole thing shows just how crazy cancer is and how it truly is a larger battle then I ever anticipated.
There are no rules and no one can promise me it will go away.
I am trying so hard to stay strong but man some days I just want to scream.
I just want to find a deep, dark whole to climb into and come out when this is all over.
I can't though, and I wont. My girls keep me going. They show me that my only choice is to scream, to cry, to hide for a few short minutes, because they will find me, and when they find me they will have to tell me that one of them is looking at the other one :), and my choice then will be to move on and be there mom. I have to get up for work, I have to put on the smile, and I have to be so grateful for the life I have regardless of cancer.
