Calm

   Surgery is scheduled (in 2 days) bags packed, lists made, in-home care arranged, sitters scheduled.
I am ready to begin the next chapter.  To be cancer free and begin my recovery.  I have been blessed abundantly by family and friends with meals after surgery, multiple offers of help and most importantly with prayer.
  
 This experience has been surreal and sometimes I just know it isn't really happening, but it is and I have come to accept it.  Really I am ready to be done with the whole ordeal because I am having quite a bit of pain.  It feels like pain that is trying to kill me and I know after surgery the pain will represent the life I get to keep living.
  
 I feel surprisingly calm moving closer to my surgery date.  Sure I'm scared and I cry sometimes, but I mostly cry when I realize that I am loved and do not have to do this on my own.  Thank you so much to everyone who has been standing with me through this.  I am ready to look forward and I pray that I can stay strong.

Surgery

Surgery has been scheduled.  I will be having my procedure on March 22nd.  We don't know what time surgery is but we do know that we are in for a long day.

Two hours before surgery I will have radioactive tracers injected in to me, then we wait for them to land in my lymph nodes.  This is an important step because they will be removing some of my lymph nodes to check for cancer.  If they are "clean" then I get to keep the rest of my lymph nodes.

Surgery is approximately 4 hours with 2 hours being the breast removal and then 2 more hours for reconstruction. (I will be beginning my reconstruction immediately but won't be done with this part for months.)

I expect to be in the hospital for 1-2 nights.  Then I will go home to begin my recovery.

Thank You for all of your continued prayers.

Test results are in

I just received the call this morning.  My BRCA test (genetic test) came back negative.  I do not have a genetic mutation that makes me more prone to breast cancer!  Such a relief, I have been thinking non-stop about my sisters and my children.

Now I am left with other questions floating around in my mind, why do I have a breast cancer diagnosis at age 34.  I have been doing some reading and was surprised that alot of women will have breast cancer for 8-10 years before a diagnosis.  This makes me question the way preventative screening is done.  If you have been reading my blog then you know that I really had to advocate for myself to get the tests I needed.  In hindsight I think that this all started last May when I had some changes to my breast tissue.  I had a mammogram and ultrasound then and was told that I had benign cysts and a normal mammogram.  Months later I started having lots of pain that I thought was related to cysts and something that I would have to live with.  This time around I was also told that I had cysts, these are different cysts than before and there are multiple areas on my mammogram.  That being said I only had one of these areas biopsied because of the way they presented on the MRI.  When I saw my surgeon a couple weeks ago she told me that there could be other areas of cancer in my breast.  The cancer they found is DCIS (stage 0) grade 3.  The grade 3 is concerning because it means that it is very aggressive.  I have to be prepared for the fact that I could have more cancer and that some of it may be invasive.

I have an appointment with my surgeon this Thursday, this will be a pre-op appointment.  I will be having surgery soon.  I don't have an exact date but I would not be surprised if it is next week.  I will be having a bilateral Mastectomy.  This may seem extreme but it is the right choice for me and my family.  My chances of recurrence are very high with lumpectomy and are at least 30% in the healthy breast.  I cannot have this threat looming over my life so I choose to be proactive.

Thank you for all your support and prayers they are appreciated and I am sure they are the reason that I have been able to keep a level head through all of this.  I ask for continued prayer, please pray that there would be no invasive cancer and no lymph node involvement.