Choices

It's funny how when you have cancer hearing your surgeon say "if I remove your entire breast", are words that make you feel comfortable and more confident. If someone would have said those 6 words to me 3 weeks ago, I would have been scared and sad but, yesterday those were words of comfort.

The first time I met my surgeon was almost 2 weeks ago, when I first met him he was goofy and a little inappropriate. I have seen him go from "stop worrying, this is nothing" to "I am so sorry, I would never have guessed this" in a matter of 2 hours. He sat in his office and joked with my husband about how he picked the right profession, "my favorite time of year is right after spring break, all the college girls drink too much caffeine and find all kinds of lumps", see where inappropriate fits in. He is the man that I yelled at, that I wanted to get out of my chair take him by his Santa Clause looking face and start hitting but, ultimately, he is the man who is going to save my life.

As Ryan and I sat in his waiting room yesterday anticipating hearing what he thought he could do surgery wise, he came strolling through the front door into the waiting room making the announcement "sorry I am late, had to go buy beer", he took us into his office, which by the way all doctors should do this. Exiting the cold sterile exam room and entering into their office, where they have family photos, papers, lunch from earlier, and signs that they are too human is more comforting and personal. He went over all my tests again, an ultrasound, a mammogram, an MRI, a PET scan, a CT scan, a biopsy, another ultrasound, and finally a MUGA scan, and the results; Grade 2 Invasive Ductal Cancer, Estrogen positive, HER2 positive, looks like 1 lymph node is involved, confined to just the right breast (thank the good lord), scattered DCIS and finally some benign calcifications. I have worked in the cancer center for 6 years and have seen all these terms a million times but for some reason I needed an explanation of what each meant. In short it means that I do in fact have an aggressive form of invasive breast cancer. After the explanation and seeing the insides of  my of body on a million tests, I get to make a choice, a choice I would rather not make. I can take road A, which is a mastectomy followed by radiation to my chest and pray it doesn't come back, doc does not advise doing this. Road B, I can have a mastectomy now followed by chemotherapy and radiation, again doc does not advise doing this or road C, I can undergo 4 months of chemotherapy now, watch the cancer shrink away, have a lumpectomy (just remove the cancer) followed by radiation and again pray it does not return. None of these options leaves me feeling 100% confident, so the surgeon explains to me he favors road C. If, fingers crossed I don't, I were to have a recurrence later on in life the doctors would be able to look back and see exactly what chemotherapy shrunk my cancer, also only being 31 they would much rather do a "breast conserving surgery". I wanted to go with a modified road C. I asked what the chances are he could remove ALL the cancer he said "if i remove your entire breast, I am confident that..." me "take the entire thing, I want it off", he suggests we wait and see exactly how small we can make the 9cm area after chemo, after all I am 31 and he doesnt like to remove the entire breast of a young person. Yeah, well guess what I don't like having cancer being a young person. In true Amy fashion, "I want the entire thing off, my mind is made up", the doc says "hey, I am not gonna argue with you". Maybe he had flashbacks from the day he said the "C" word. So now my course of action will be chemotherapy, starting Thursday, lasting all summer, then another MRI in August, followed by a mastectomy of the right breast and a reduction of the left (apparently being 5'3 they will not give me a D implant to match my remaining tah), and radiation.

I have made up my mind that I will not go into this anticipating being sick, this is not going to be easy on my body or my emotions but this has already taken so much from me and I will not allow it to take anymore. When it hits me I will hit back a thousand times harder, when it takes all my energy from me I will fight through it. If spending the rest of 2011 tired, nauseous, bald, crying, and any other side effect that will come my way means I still get a lifetime with Ryan, Gabby, and Cole, then bring it on. I AM READY TO FIGHT AND WIN!