Grammi & Grampi's cottage

My nephews have always called my parents camp their "cottage" so that's what we'll call it for Cassidy too. And that's where we were this past weekend - me, Cass & Jake anyway. Cassidy went on her first boat ride and attempted to eat an ear of corn. Nice weekend!

my parents have never heard of sunscreen!

York Wild Animal Kingdom

It must be our new thing to go to Maine on Labor Day weekend because as we sat in traffic right off the exit of the Maine Turnpike I remembered the traffic from last year, labor day weekend, on our way to Ogunquit. Luckily this year we were going to York which wasn't so far.

We had a good time, we petted goats and made "ah ah ah" sounds at monkeys. Cassidy doesn't do the ooh ooh only the ah ah.  Cassidy tried, and almost succeeded, to get in the pen with the deer.  They were friendly.

She loved the Merry go Round. She was all smiles and laughing, until it moved!  Then she wanted mommy to hold her so the horse is going up & down and shes clutching my neck instead of holding the horse. She didn't cry at all - just didn't know what to make of it.

Great beach day

I vaguely remember when I started this blog, I talked about having 3 day weekends. And while that is technically true, in that I don't go to the office on Fridays, I often do work from home a few hours each Friday. Especially this summer as work projects, conference calls and playing catch up for doctors appts have led to many a Friday sitting in front of my laptop.

Well, now I have cancer and I say... screw that! Yesterday, we hit the beach! Cassidy, my mom, my sister and nephews enjoying sun & sand. We had a great day! Big waves and talk of Hurricane Irene coming to New England.  Of course the adults talked about treatment and reconstruction and what-ifs but in between we talked about burying Anthony.

and how Cassidy pooped in her bathing suit / swim diaper. Confirming for me that I don't understand how a bikini bottom doubles as a diaper as you have to pick the poop balls out and get rid of them! We talked about school being cancelled already for Monday and broken boogie boards. It was a great day.

Bill says we got great news

Today we had our doctor’s appointment at LC to discuss my diagnosis and treatment plan. First they reviewed all my test results so far:

·         7/21 Mammogram showed micro-calcifications in varied sizes & patterns. Some clumped together, some not. Very diffuse through the right breast. Ultrasound same day showed no distinguishable lump.

·         8/3 MRI showed enhancement in area of calcifications. This means the dye they put in my blood stream lit up like a Christmas tree on the MRI where the calcifications are.

·         8/17 Two biopsies. Both sites biopsied were determined to be ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), high grade, hormone receptive = positive.

Then the plan: because the DCIS is over so much of the breast, a lumpectomy would leave me disfigured and it would be difficult for them to know they got it all since the calcifications are so tiny. So the only way to be sure to remove it all is a mastectomy. Because of my young age (that’s right, I’m young!) and the large size of the area with DCIS (what they biopsied was non-invasive but that’s no guarantee it all is) they will also perform a sentinel node biopsy, which removes 1 to 3 lymph nodes and biopsies them. There is a 15% chance the lymph nodes would be positive for cancer (meaning there was indeed invasive DCIS in there somewhere).

For the treatment plan we discussed today we’re assuming my lymph nodes will be negative. A lot would change treatment wise if they’re positive so… we’re going to think positive… wait, I mean…  uhhhhh  we're thinking positive that the nodes are negative!

So assuming lymph nodes = negative for cancer is pretty good news.  They said I can have reconstruction right away (I’ll post more on this another day – there are some BIG decisions to make about that and we didn’t meet with a plastic surgeon). I won’t need radiation! Chemo is totally not necessary J  and Tamoxifen (drug recommended if you are hormone receptive positive) would be my choice to possibly reduce the chance of getting cancer on the left (no thanks, menopausal side effects…   I’ll risk it).

The next step would be genetic counseling (I am YOUNG to have this and I have a daughter so I’d like to know if I am BRCA positive) and meet with a plastic surgeon. Before I book appointments – I need to get that second opinion and decide where I’m going to get treatment. DF is working on getting some preliminary data from LC and I expect them to call me tomorrow with an appointment time. I believe it’ll likely be next week as the tissue samples and other test results need to be sent to them, as they will have their pathologists look at the biopsy samples and kind of start from scratch from the films and slides.

I feel overwhelmed. My mind is spinning. Bill feels like we got great news today (no radiation! reconstruction right away!). And it is good news but… great news to me would’ve been “We made a horrible mistake and have a nice day!” I’m still wrapping my head around all this. Even now, it just seems unbelievable to me.

Yesterday’s BBQ was good. I won’t post pictures of other people’s kids but here is Cassidy in the old kiddie pool and chilling in her chair from Saturday.

I have breast cancer

The summer has been busy. We had an oceanside vacation, lots of work travel, lots of weekends away. Somehow during all that busyness I noticed something weird in my right breast and headed to the doctors to get it checked out (only after being yelled at by a friend and a sister that ignoring it wasn't an option and it probably wouldn't go away on its own).  Then squeezed in lots more visits to the doctor for my first ever mammogram (I'm only 39), boob ultrasound, MRI and finally two biopsies. The doctor called the day after the biopsy - ductal carcinoma in situ. 
It's been two days since the call.
I'm still in shock.
We have an appointment Monday with the treatment team. The gave me the heads up on the phone that they're recommending a mastectomy. Wow!  We'll get a second opinion. I think before you let someone cut off part of you that seems like a good thing to do.
We're having a BBQ on Sunday so this is a busy weekend too. some pictures from our summer below.

Chicago really is windy!