Checking in on Amy

Way back in March I met my surgeon and I really liked her. On Wednesday (7th) I finally met with her again, and was thrilled that Rick could come with me so that he could meet her too; I knew he would like her as much as I did. My surgery is going to be next Wednesday (Sept 14th) and I am VERY excited about it. I can't wait to check another part of my treatment off the list. To me, this one seems easier than chemotherapy because it will happen quickly and not drag out across many months. My surgeon specializes in breast surgery, which is nice! Since my tumour had gotten quite large before I started chemo, the area she will remove from my breast is significant relative to the size of the breast. This means that my lumpectomy would leave me quite deformed without a bit of a rebuild. After surgery I will have a new, smaller, 'redesigned' right boob. We discussed operating on my left breast at the same time to make it match, but had to put this plan aside because of my still-no...

I had my first post-chemo appointment with my oncologist today and he had great news to share. My MRI looked really good! Lymph nodes are looking clear and there is only a very small tumour left in my breast after chemo. He explained that they can't even really tell if it is a tumour for sure and that it may just be scar tissue.  This was the good news I was hoping for, but the EVEN BETTER NEWS is that the planned surgery is a lumpectomy and lymph node removal! After mentally preparing for a much more invasive surgery I was surprised and delighted by this news. I don't have a surgery date yet, but it should be sometime in September. If they do a lumpectomy as planned, they will examine the tissue they remove (what remains of the tumour as well as the tissue around it) and that will inform the rest of my treatment going forward.  Tomorrow I have my first immunotherapy-only treatment (the drug is called Herceptin) which happens in the chemo suite where my other treatments were. ...