The bad update

I received bad news last night. 

When I was first diagnosed, the one thing that the nurse told me was very, very good - was that my cancer is estrogen receptive.  That means they know what makes it grow (estrogen) and they can give me a pill for 5 years post treatment to block my estrogen, helping ensure this won't come back.  My cancer was 80% estrogen receptive, and everyone really focused on that, and how good it was.  It kind of made all the difference...

Unfortunately - "they made a mistake".  When they sent my cancer out to the one lab in the country that does the oncotype tests (on estrogen receptive cancers) they sent it back and said it's not estrogen receptive.  When my clinic got the news, they had pathology re-run it, and it came back as a big ole oops.  Not estrogen receptive. Not anything receptive, actually.


What that means for me is.....I have to stay off the internet.  It's big and scary to read about estrogen receptive breast cancer, but it's bigger and scarier to read about "triple negative" breast cancer, which is what mine is.  They don't know what makes it grow, so they don't know how to stop it.  So that big fun question of whether or not I will need chemo would've never been a question.  I will start chemo by the end of January.  It also means my follow up post treatment will be more intense.  Instead of every six months rotating MRI with mammograms, I will be in every 2-3 months for 3 years.  The other scary deal with this cancer is the chance of distant (in other places in my body) recurrence of cancer is greater, which is why I follow up every 2-3 months. 

I also am at an increased risk of carrying the gene mutation that I wasn't at an increased risk for before. 

So the plan is, I meet with the oncologist on Monday and we discuss how many rounds of chemo, what the chemo cocktail will be, and when it will start.  I will have a port placed in my chest sometime over the next two weeks, and I will have the genetic test.

And I will stay off the internet, and try my hardest to live in today - which is not a skill I've yet to master.