On New Years Eve I popped champagne and my friends toasted to a healthy and awesome 2020. We had a wonderful night, and finally after months and months the fear of cancer and allowing of it to be the first thought on my mind upon waking up was beginning to fade. It was so freeing – along with my recent ability to get back to more normal workouts – I finally felt like “my old self” as much as that is possible after cancer.
On January 3rd while watching TV at night I felt the new lumps in my left breast.
I would like to say I wasn’t worried. I was, I immediately started crying. Justin felt them and assured me that they must be scar tissue (he tells me now he didn’t feel that was true but had to play it cool for my own sanity). A close friend also assured me that its most likely scar tissue but that my plastic surgeon would want ultrasound to be safe. Justin and I agreed, we wanted proof everything was perfectly fine for my peace of mind. January 8th as Justin was leaving the tarmac in Orlando on his way to school in Baltimore for a long weekend, the radiologist told me that one of the lumps was most likely scar tissue and one was a suspicious nodule and concerning for recurrence. One of my best friends stood in the room, hand on my leg, cried with me and told me it was all going to be okay.
As you know from my previous posts literally NOTHING HAPPENS QUICKLY. So January 13th I had a surgery consult in which I was advised to undergo an excisional biopsy the morning of January 15th. Although my heart said, “HELL YES LETS GET THIS OUT!!!” My brain said wait we know too much. Justin and I looked at each other and he asked “don’t we need a biopsy first in case it’s cancer and HER2 positive this time cause chemo would need to be started first? I simultaneously asked “WOULDNT we need a biopsy first so we can do lymphnodes at the same time?” We were told it was okay to do the excision.
I will continue to tell everyone to be their own advocate. Here’s how this goes this time… We leave surgery consult and I call my medical oncologist office and tell them what is going on and ask them to have her call me back. When she does she 100% agrees we should do a biopsy first and gather information on IF it’s cancer and WHAT to do prior to any further surgeries (yah girl has had a few the last 8 months!) I said okay and called and cancelled my surgery scheduled for January 15… and the surgeon helped to get a ultrasound guided biopsy scheduled for January 17.
Biopsy Day – January 17
An hour with my left arm over my head use to not be a big deal! But that was before the double mastectomy and implants, my range of motion still sucks although I continue to work on it… so the hour of biopsies felt like many many hours.
Results Day
January 22nd. In case you didn’t notice that is a full five days of guarded optimism. I call it that because I am not naive, I knew it could be bad, but man a big part of me just wanted so badly to say THERES no way you have cancer again.
“The suspicious lump is positive for invasive cancer.”
Unlike last time, there were 0 tears and no shaky voice. I asked, “what is the hormone status?”
“Unknown – pending”. Okay. He told me he was sorry and to let him know what the plans were.
I immediately called my medical oncologist alerted them of the results so that we could get the ball rolling.
April 11, 2019 and January 22, 2020.
I thought I left this mess in 2019.
But, I have cancer again.
Angry, frustrated, confused, amazed, irritated, gracious?
There are so so so many emotions to work through over the last few weeks. Some come and go, others stay. But I have once again been reminded of how amazing our God is that I even found this lump. That I pursued what it was right away, that I did everything I could to get answers even though I was so full of fear I felt that I couldn’t actually breath. I absolutely can not see the full picture but I know there is one and one day I will see it.
To the friends and family that have already begun to hold me up and support me again, I love you.
I know nothing more. So don’t waste your time asking me. I wanted to share before I knew because I want this to continue to be a place of true feelings of this process. A place where I know prayers will make a difference as results are pending.
I will have PET scan and MRI in this next week as well as find out a multitude of tumor markers, until then we wait and we pray hard.
By end of January I will hopefully have treatment options to pick from. Then, we continue to fight!!!!
Thank you for the continued support,
Sami
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