Finally my treatment plan is in place and I feel great about it!

I met with the cancer panel today.  They had already met as a group and had a very lengthly discussion on how my treatment should proceed based on my personal feelings and they came up with a plan that I can totally work with and I am so happy they took my personal feelings into consideration before they set up a plan of action.

My breast surgeon knew that I wanted to save my breasts if at all possible so he told the oncologist, radiologist, etc. how I wanted to fight my cancer and see if it was doable to the group to give me the final result that I wanted and still be in a position where I wasn't putting my life in danger so to speak by not treating my cancer aggressively enough.

I am going to list the steps in the order they will be taken:

1.  Sentinel lymph node biopsy to be performed 01/21 (next wednesday) to check status of nodes for cancer.

2.  Chemo for 4 months.  Will be on Adriamycin and Cytoxan as the first cocktail which will be once every 2 weeks x 4 treatments so 8 weeks of this chemo combination.  The next chemo drug after that will be Taxol which will be the same regimen of every 2 weeks x 4 treatments for 8 weeks.

3.  Lumptectomy - This aggressive chemo treatment has been successful in reducing tumors to a size small enough to where a lumpectomy is an option without taking a machete to my breasts.

4.  Radiation - 5 days a week x 6 weeks

Now this can all change to some extent based on the results of how the chemo is working.  My breast surgeon who is doing the sentinel nodes will take out any nodes that show up as cancerous with the radioactive dye they are putting into me.  He will only take out the minimum amount of nodes but will test a couple of extras that don't show up as concerning for a complete pathology report.

If the cancer has spread beyond my sentinel nodes then when we do the lumpectomy he will take out additional nodes as needed.  Doing this procedure before chemo is to me one heck of a smart move because Chemo can hide the fact that there was cancer spread to my lymph nodes initially.

The radiologist pushed this procedure because she said if the cancer has NOT spread to any of my lymph nodes then she doesn't want to do radiation to this part of my body since it would not be medically necessary.

Now if the tumor does not drastically reduce in size (I have a 4CM tumor) then obviously we have to take a different course of action which means at that time instead of a lumpectomy I might need a masectomy.

I did find out the good news that I am HER2 Negative today.  I also opted to take the BRCA genetic testing.  I don't have kids to pass this cancer to BUT if I do have these genes in my body and I am prone to get cancer somewhere else at a later date, I will at least know ahead of time and be able to be more proactive in future testing and make sure I get tested on a very regular basis.

I am joining a support group that meets every other Monday.  I am also attending a lymphedema exercise class that meets every Wednesday.  I am going to be as proactive as possible to not get lymphedema as that is a side effect that we all can get at any time.  I just want to try to reduce my chances of getting it if at all possible and if I do get it, know what to look for, how to treat it and keep it from getting worse.

I am so excited that I have a treatment plan in place.  I feel so much more at ease.  I get to start my battle with my cancer next Wednesday!!!

I also talked to my horse barn friends and they are having a pre-chemo party for me.  The oncologist said that he has no doubt I will lose my hair and I am ok with that.  So my friends are going to have a party with lots of food and wine and after dinner Judy (she had BC 4 years ago) is going to shave my head for me.  I will have all of my wonderful friends with me when I take this huge step!  I would much rather do it this way than wake up with clumps of hair on my pillow and start bawling my eyes out for hours on end.  This way I am in the driver's seat - I am taking back control of my hair and not letting the chemo do it for me!  I know.....sometimes I am a little bit nuts but that is OK too.  I have 2 reasons to be dumb, (1) I am a true blonde and (2) I am going to get chemo brain.