The results from the MRI I did earlier today are back already! The purpose of the MRI was to see if there was any evidence of cancer not detected by the other tests. The results of the MRI showed no new issues. Dr. Beatty called himself. (Maybe I was wrong before assuming that the physician only calls with bad news). So, this is some good news after a trifecta of bad news (abnormal screening mammogram, abnormal diagnostic mammogram, cancer indicating biopsy). It’s nice to break the streak of negative news. Knock on wood.

Today was quite an eventful day. We met with Dr. Beatty, the surgeon at Swedish Medical Center. He was excellent. My friend, Nancy, John, and I sat through a quite action packed presentation. He said that my tumor looked tiny, about 8mm in diameter. He said that it was slow growing and I’d probably had it for about two years. For those of you into staging, the current staging in 1B (between 5mm and 1cm and no apparent lymph node involvement.)

Dr. Beatty was quite impressive, very patient, experienced, and an excellent teacher. He was reassuring without appearing as if he were glossing over risks.

John was awesome, asking good questions, being there, and holding my hand. Nancy was terrific. She took notes on her laptop and then asked questions that I would never even have thought to ask such as “Should Elizabeth get an oncologist now or wait?” (Huh? I thought they were all oncologists, says the lady who just found out that she had cancer yesterday.)

So the probable treatment plan:

1) Surgery on 6/26. Most likely this will be a lumpectomy. Dr. Beatty will remove a piece of tissue about the size of the golf ball because he is trying to take out the tumor plus a 1 1/2 centimeter margin surrounding it.

2) Radiation treatment starting approximately 3 weeks later, daily for 6 weeks.

3) Hormone blocking medication. Lab tests indicate that my tumor’s growth is intensified by estrogen and progesterone. I will take this medication for approximately 3-5 years.

I also have a number of tests or results that are coming up:

1) I got a blood draw today. When I originally wrote this post, I thought the blood was for genetic testing to see if I had one of the known breast cancer causing genes. That thought turned out to be incorrect. I’m not quite sure what Friday’s blood was for. I’m sure they used it for good wholesome data gathering purposes that I will receive in a lab report. I blame my muddled brain at the time of the surgeon’s appointment.

2) I did an MRI today. (So proud of myself, too since I am a bit claustrophobic. Every time I see an MRI machine on t.v., I think, “I really don’t want to go into one of those unless they give me a sedative.” In addition to being enclosed, they are also loud. They also don’t want you to do deep breathing because that messes up the imaging. Fortunately, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. Oh wait, I didn’t tell you what the MRI was for. The MRI is used as another way to make sure there aren’t any other tumors in other places.

So that’s enough mumbo jumbo for now.

I had a routine screening mammogram on 5/7/12 at the mobile mammogram unit (a mobile home that travels around the Swedish Neighborhood Clinics in Seattle) for Swedish Comprehensive Breast Center. By early the next week, the main Swedish office called to schedule a diagnostic mammogram, which I had on 5/17. I underwent the mammogram and an ultrasound. On the same day, the radiologist who had completed the mammogram told me that there was a very small area of tissue in my right breast that didn’t look like the rest of the tissue. She recommended an ultrasound guided biopsy. I had the biopsy done on 5/22.

Today is May 24th. At about 10 am, the radiologist called to tell me the results of the biopsy. As soon as she identified herself, I figured that the biopsy showed malignancy. Why would they have a physician call with news that the results were benign? That’s a lot of phone calls plus people receiving that happy news probably wouldn’t have technical questions. Anyway, the doctor, whose name still escapes me, told me that I have the most common kind of breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma. Based on the imaging, the size of the tumor appears to be 1 cm but they won’t really know until surgery.

Within an hour, I was contacted by Dr. Beatty’s office to schedule a 1 1/2 hour long consultation about surgery, at 10 am tomorrow. I was happy to hear that I was referred to Dr. Beatty as he was highly recommended to me by my friend, Nancy, a cancer survivor and fellow psychologist who worked for four years overseeing cancer support groups in Seattle. When I told her what I knew, she was extremely reassuring and said (paraphrasing a bit), “Your cancer sounds straight-forward and boring. All of the surgeons at Swedish have done thousands of surgeries like this.” Then she said, “Well, I know it’s not boring to you” but I said, “I like to hear that my cancer sounds boring.” I do not want to be the star of a medical text book, no thank you. Nancy also offered to change her client schedule to be at the surgeons appointment with us. I am so grateful.

The last fact for today is that my hubby and I decided to wait until tomorrow to tell our 13 year-old daughter about this. We don’t want to tell her today and then send her off to school tomorrow. I hope the conversation goes as well as can be expected.