Lightning can strike twice

"Bulletproof
    Nothing to lose
       Fire Away, Fire Away
You shoot me down
     But I won't fall
       I am Titanium"......... Thank you Sia Furler and David Guetta....

Who would ever think that someone 65 years old would relate to that song......but I do, who would ever think that lightning could indeed strike twice........but it does. I'd never believe that I could get breast cancer yet again....but I did.

This is my journey.....for the second time. I won the battle last time and I plan on winning it again.  Let me back up a bit and bring you up to speed.

On Tuesday, October 8th, I went in for my yearly mammogram expecting to hear exactly what I'd been hearing for the last 10 years (11 since my breast cancer on the left side)....."Everything looks good, see you next year!"  That's what I expected to hear........but someone changed the dialog on me.  Instead I heard "we need to do a couple extra films", "we see some areas that we think are calcification, but with your 'history', we should biopsy the spot.....can we do it today?"  WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY....A SPOT THAT NEEDS TO BE BIOPSIED.....TODAY!

OK, Peggy put on your brave face, act like this is just a passing check that has to be done....it's nothing but calcification, you've had that before. Smile, tell them yes you can do it today....of course you can...let's get this silliness over with so they can say......"Nope just calcification....See you next year."

They did the biopsy, I didn't feel a thing, they put a tiny piece of Titanium in the spot where they harvested the cells....you know, just in case....so when I'm examined again in 6 months, they'll know that spot has been looked at and is not new..........that was on Tuesday Oct. 8th......I could possibly hear something on Friday, but maybe not till the following Monday or Tuesday.  REALLY??? We can send a man to the moon, but we can't read a simple pathology report for 3-5 'business days'!  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday passed...no call.  Then on Monday, October 14th I went to my Core and Cycle fitness class and right in the middle of class my cell phone rings.......it was my "good news ring"....I just knew it.  "Peggy, this is Jennifer at the mammography department, can you talk?" I'm sorry to tell you the biopsy came back positive for cancer....we need to schedule an MRI to see if there are any more spots.

OK, Peggy put on your brave face and go back into class.....I kept telling myself that as the flood gates opened and I didn't try to stop them.....this can not be happening again.  It's bad enough to be diagnosed with breast cancer (or any kind of cancer) once....but twice...ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!

I went for the MRI and they didn't see much else (thank goodness) but instead of .8mm the area was actually 1.2 cm .....grade 2, stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma with estrogen receptor.  I will have to have surgery to check the margins around the area and a Sentienal Lymph Node Biopsy where they check to see if any of the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.  In my first breast cancer (on the left side), they removed 21 lymph nodes (all clean)...and probably not a necessary procedure.  I will have to have 4-6 weeks of radiation and depending on what they find with the lymph node biopsy, and the percentage of difference it might make to recurrence, I may have to have chemo. I know lots of people might opt to not have chemo, but I opted to have it 11 years ago....because you never know when there might be that one rogue cell that might have detached from the malignant area and be swimming around my blood stream looking for a place to settle and the percentages, as presented to me, warranted the value of getting it.  Granted  it is not fun and plays havoc to your immune system....but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.

Tomorrow, October 23, I go in for my first consultation with the surgeon to set up an appointment for the surgery.   So until tomorrow.....

THINK POSITIVE AND THINK PINK!

 Peggy