Julie can't eat cheese

Invasive ductal carcinoma. After I read that and the other parts of the pathology report, I gave my phone to Dan, asking what does it mean?! When the text came in, I was getting ready to go to P’s school for an event and had to leave. Right after I got there, the nurse called me. She could hear I was somewhere noisy, but it was a Friday afternoon so I wanted to answer the call. She promised to call me back in a few hours.

I spoke with the nurse later that afternoon. I was positive for cancer. The biopsy on the lymph nodes was negative. The type of breast cancer I have is estrogen/progesterone positive and HER2 negative. It’s a level 2 in terms of growth (1 is slow, 3 is fast). She said this type is easier to treat and has a better prognosis. She explained that next, I would have an MRI, meet with a surgeon, a genetic counseling consult, and have an oncology nurse navigator assigned to me. *Deep breaths*

We told P on 10/2 – we were getting ready to leave for CA for a week on 10/4 and didn’t want her to overhear anything. We also wanted to be able to answer any questions she had. We let her know I was going to need to have surgery to remove a lump, that I’d be having a lot of appointments and Dan slipped in towards the end it was cancer, as I couldn’t say it. She asked if I could go the next day to get it out and how long I would have to be in the hospital.

On 10/3, my referral for an MRI came in and I scheduled both my MRI and my surgery consult on 10/12.

On 10/11, my nurse case manager called me. She reviewed a TON of information and emailed me even more. She told me I would qualify for genetic testing and a genetic counselor would be calling to schedule an appt. I would have to do a blood test and results would take about 10 days. After my surgery, I would get a medical oncologist. She also stated Kaiser has an interdisciplinary team that meets every week to review new breast cancer cases to give input into the care and treatment plan.

On the morning of 10/12, I got a call that my surgery appt was cancelled, as the doctor was sick. They said another surgeon might be able to see me later in the afternoon after my MRI and someone would call me back to confirm. I got another call back to reschedule with a different surgeon who was available the following week. She said she wasn’t supposed to say this, but he was the absolute best – she said they were all very good – but she’d worked with him the longest and so not to worry about the delay.

On 10/12, I had my MRI to confirm the size and location of the cancer with and without contrast. I’ve never had an MRI before – I am not claustrophobic, but started to feel a little panicky right before. Luckily, my head was towards the entrance, so it lessened some of the panic. I tried to imagine myself on a beach during the 25 minutes in there… but it was super loud. Ok, I am on a beach in Ibiza with loud bass… It kind of worked… And it was over.

I got a pathology report that afternoon. The 3 lymph nodes that were benign were still noted as an area of concern from the MRI. There was also a second area (apart from the known mass) on the left side that looked suspicious. The report recommended an MRI guided biopsy of the second area.

On 10/13 I had my genetic testing call/consult and I qualified for this as I am under 46 (considered young for adult onset cancers). This was a super interesting call and I told the woman it would be way more interesting if it weren’t actually happening to me. She explained most cancers are not hereditary, but there are some that are believed to be (about 5-10% of cancers). The genetic testing would look at about 45 different genes, all of which they think may play a hereditary role in cancer. The big ones for breast cancer are BRCA1 and BRCA2 and there is a ton of research on these. If positive for a BRCA mutation, you have a higher chance of recurrence, as well as getting ovarian cancer and treatment options are different. Without a BRCA mutation, about 12% of all women will get breast cancer. I agreed to the testing and the genetic counselor put in the order. She said if I could get to a lab today, there was a good chance the lab would get the sample started by the weekend.

Luckily my town has a Kaiser lab, so I ran over to get blood drawn. No line at the lab – I was in and out. But now, we wait again for results in 7-12 days.