January 12th Update

After the disaster this morning with the surgeon’s office, I made a few phone calls. I did speak with the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Zion, and not really sure about them. For starters, they want me to go in for a full 3 days right off the bat for testing that might not even be necessary, AND I am supposed to find some poor slob who has nothing better to do than accompany me for this fun filled event…. Any volunteers? Buehler? Yeah not my cup of tea either.

So I called Gaver’s again and after some phone tag, Lynn -my contact there and I were finally able to talk. She understood me not having a ton of faith in this surgeon after being treated like that though she said in several years she had only heard of her cancelling an appointment one. The whole thing just didn’t make much sense to me. If she was coming in before her surgeries to see me like I was told she was, and then she ended up in emergency surgery…what happens to those other surgeries? Why wasn’t one of the other several doctors covering? Just didn’t feel right, and quite frankly, as a patient I am also a customer. If you can’t give me decent customer service, forget about it. Don’t tell me you will call me later to let me know when I can come in. Set me up with an appointment for pete’s sake! But, oh well, their loss.

So, anyway. While talking to Lynn, I had pointed out that CTCA had said I should have received more test results. Lynn apologized and said yes there are more results. As a nurse she only gave me the “big news” as she was under the impression the surgeon was going to see me later on Friday…not 3 days later. (Yeah another strike against that doc). So we discussed my results. Here’s what we know:

I am positive for hormone receptors.

My Ki-67 is only 10% (20% is bad news).

I am HER2 positive, but it’s not amplifying.

It is NOT inflammatory breast cancer.

There is no lymphatic activity.

The tumor in duct is 2.3 centimeters. Where it has grown out is 1 mm.  So it has been caught very early.

While a lot of this is fairly decent news, what they aren’t entirely sure about is the actual lump that can be felt. While it can be felt on the outside, the mammograms and ultrasound aren’t showing what they would expect and therefore not giving them much information on what it is. It’s possible that it is cancer in the tissue. They don’t know yet.

Lynn is working on setting up an appointment with a different surgeon and checking to see if he will go ahead and order the MRI I will need, and see if he wants a second biopsy done. She believes I should be able to see him on Friday.