A New Pair of Shoes Would be Nice....

Ladies of all ages love shoes. Carina doesn't miss an opportunity to clunk around in a pair of someone else's shoes, especially mine. I'm thinking I might need to buy a new pair early next week to ease my nerves.

Not much new news on our end. We met with the plastic surgeon's nurse on Tuesday. It seems that the entire process to 100% recovery will take almost a year from now (at least as far as any upper body exercise). Not quite what we had planned, but I guess a year isn't that bad. I'm going to need to get over my gym addiction cold turkey. I suppose the perscription pain killers will help that.

If anyone is interested, Pam Roble (AKA Aunt Pam) will be the team captain for a walk on May 5th, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer along the lakefront. It starts at 10am and Pam is naming the team "Sandy's Striders". If you are interested in walking with us, please e-mail Pam in the next week or so at nursepam@aol.com with "breast cancer walk" in subject line.

As usual, thank you all so much for your support!!

Hugs,
Sandy

Nice Hat Baby!

Hi Everyone,
I want to thank all the "neighborhood ladies" who were at Amy's last Tuesday and all brought some fantastic hats and other great gifts. We had fun opening them today. Here are a couple pictures of Olivia doing some modeling.

Last week we met Dr. Chitambar who will be my oncologist. He seems to be a great guy and we were very comfortable with him. I think this might be a little tougher than I initially thought, but let's save that for later and just see how it goes once things get started. No sense in worrying now.

This week's appointments are a pre-op Monday followed by an "education session" with the surgeon's nurse. Then Thursday it's off to Nuclear Medicine for a MUGA ordered by Dr. Chitambar. What a name. Something to do with checking heart function due to of one of the drugs they think they will be using in my treatment. Dr. Chitambar said they won't know for sure what drugs the treatment will entail until after the surgery. There is one test that they need to wait 10 or so days for, so it won't be something we know immediately. This is the "FISH" test that determines the HER2 status. This would be yet one more piece of good news that we could get. The first is the confirmation that the lymph nodes are clear.

That takes care of all of the updates for now. Thank you all again for your notes, flowers and e-mails. I can't even begin to tell you how much they mean to me. I feel so fortunate to have so many wonderful friends and family, not just here in the U.S., but all around the world! My self-appointed positive mentor from Australia, Alan, pointed out that someone will be thinking of me every minute of the day. I don't think you can get a better support network than that. How did I get so lucky?

Hugs to everyone,
Sandy

Fortune Cookies Anyone?

It seems that the fortunes I usually get in my fortune cookies make no sense at all. On Saturday we had some carry out Thai and of course, some delicious fortune cookies. I did learn from Dad that you are never supposed to open a broken fortune cookie. My fortune (in my unbroken cookie) was: "While times may seem difficult, your future forecasts a quick turnaround." So, hopefully there is something to these things. Too bad quick isn't a week or so, but I'll take it anyway.

For all of you that have sent notes and personal e-mails, thank you!

And We're Off!!

The surgery has been scheduled for Thursday, April 5th. I also learned today that the node sample that was taken on Monday was clear. However, the doctor warned us that the node biopsy is not 100% accurate. They will remove the "sentinel node" during the surgery and test it then too.

Thank you all for your comments - they're fun to read!

Aunt Karen and Uncle Dan - time for a high speed connection.

Love,
Sandy and Matt

Hi Everyone

We decided that the best way to keep everyone informed was to create this page. We want to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers to this point.

I was dianosed with invasive ductal carcenoma last Thursday (3/1), the tumor is 1.4 cm across and much narrower. It was first discovered in an MRI that I had on 2/12. The MRI was done because I had pevious gentic tesing due to family history and have the BRCA-1 mutation. I had a mammogram in November and nothing showed up. I also had a mamogram after the biopsy and the mammogram still didn't show anything.

On Tuesday (3/6), Matt and I met with a plastic surgeon and the surgeon from the Breast Care Center at Froedert Hospital. The biopsy showed that the tumor is estrogen and progesterone receptor negative. It is a Grade 3 (not to be confused with any of the stages!). They also tested the closest lymph node on Monday but I haven't heard about that yet. The doctor did comment that that test is not 100% accurate and they really can't confirm this until the surgery.

The first step in this process is for the surgery to be scheduled. We are waiting for that now. Right now, it looks like after the surgery there will be 6 sessions of chemotherapy each three weeks apart. The first treatment will be around two weeks after the surgery.

We will put an update here when we learn more, most likely when the surgery is schedued.