Good News!

FINALLY...some good news!! My scan came back CLEAN!! YEA!! We are so excited to know that it hasnt spread. It is contained to the left breast only. That is such good news. Although, they did find that it is in more lymph nodes in the chest and farther back in the chest than they thought-its pretty much as bad as it can get before it spreads. Its called stage 3 metastatic cancer. I am also HER2 positive. All that means is its really aggressive. The HER2 means that I have too much protein and it causes the cells to grow faster. I am so lucky that this was caught just in time. I know that this can be killed and cut out. Its such a good feeling just to know what we are dealing with. We are still waiting on the genetic test-that may take another week or so. So now since all the tests are done, its time to move on with treatment. Dr. C wants to do Chemo first. I have so many tumors and they are all over the place so they want to shrink them first to reduce the chance of spreading cancer cells during surgery. I will be doing a combo of 3 different drugs-they call it TAC. I will for sure lose my hair. I was really holding on to hope that the drugs I would be given wouldnt cause me to lose my hair-but the doctor pretty much squashed that. I was able to see the chemo room and meet the nurses and go through the whole process. I am waiting for the scheduling lady to call and let me know what day I will start, but it should be sometime next week. I will do it on the same day everytime. It will be once every 3 weeks for 6 cycles-so like 18 weeks. The day after each treatment, i will go back in for a shot of something called Neulasta-this is to boost my white blood cell count higher because one of the drugs during chemo causes the cell count to basically disapear. Before each treatment, I will have to do someting called a MUGA scan. Its a scan that will look at my heart to make sure that the drugs arent damaging my heart. I will have to do a blood draw every week to check my blood cell counts to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to. I also have to get a shot once a week for the next YEAR called Herceptin-this is to help those cancer cells that are fuled by the large amounts of protein to stop growing-its kinda like a helper to the chemo. After all the chemo, I will have a masectomy, then reconstruction and then radiation. There is so much information and so much to take in-its all a bit much. They went over the side effects and all the meanings and all these big names-its crazy. I think its going to take some time to all really set in. But...I have one last weekend of being chemo free and im going to enjoy it. Im gonna hang out, watch the Cards kick some bootay, and just relax and enjoy my hair while I have it. Go Cards!!