From today until Thursday at 9.30am when I have my oncologist visit I have no Dr appointments or Dr things to do (apart from drop my scans off- but that doesn't involve hard conversations or needles or machines)- YAY
All the staging is done. All the results are in and now it's up to the experts to make some decisions on which cocktail of drugs they want to use and when to start.
So far this is what we know for sure.
I have two types ( which is common )
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)- The most common type of noninvasive breast cancer. Cancer cells inside the ducts do not spread through the walls of the ducts into the fatty tissue of the breast.
and
Infiltrating (or invasive) Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) Starting in a milk passage, or duct, of the breast, this cancer breaks through the wall of the duct and invades the breast’s fatty tissue. It can spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system and through the bloodstream.
It's the IDC that they work on treating as it's the nasty stuff.
The good news from all my staging is that so far it is confined to my breast at best guess- That means there are no tumours anywhere else and there is nothing in my bones :) - This is awesome news.
There is no way to confirm though that some cells haven't escaped - mostly they escape through lymph nodes but they can also just escape. My lymphs won't be checked until surgery which is some time off yet.
My breast surgeon wants to do neoadjuvant chemotherapy - which basically means he wants chemo first to attempt to shrink the tumour before he operates.
On Thursday I meet with my Oncologist who my Breast Surgeon sends 95% of his patients to so it's unlikely they won't agree this is the best plan of action. Unless the biopsy tissue and the MRI have shown anything new.
The only other thing that we don't have any information on yet is the hormone receptor status. This is determined from the biopsy tissue. My surgeon sent away for this on Tuesday so I will soon hear the "style" of cancer that we are working with and what drugs it will respond to. If you want more info on what that means this website is easy to follow.
It's all just a waiting game or as my radiologist described it - It's a stair case.
I'm on the third step at the moment - he told me there were many more to go yet and sometimes when you think you are almost there more get added.
For those of you who just want my health updates you can click the topic of Breast Cancer in the side bar and that will just give you the posts related to that. For the next few days my blog will remain cancer discussion free but I wanted to bring you all up to date one where we are and thank you once again for the amazing support.
Richard and I know we aren't walking this journey alone.
