Getting on the Cancer Treatment Treadmill

April 23, 2015
Allison asked me to write this update. If some of you don’t know, Allison has been diagnosed with breast cancer (details in a previous email).
So we had a long, exhausting, overwhelming and emotional day at the Brown Cancer Center. We left the house here at about 9:00 and got back home around 7:30 and didn’t really find out much more than we knew at the beginning of the day. Of course, it started with our wonderful Tricare insurance being all messed up, but after being on about four phones for 45 minutes we think it is straightened out. We thought we were doing an MRI today in order find out the extent and stage of the cancer but apparently that wasn’t the plan. We met with the surgeon first and until they can see the actual spread or not spread of the cancer we will determine whether it is a lumpectomy or mastectomy procedure that needs to be done. Part of that decision will also be predicated on the results of the gene test we had done today (which should come back in a few weeks) to see if Allison is positive for the BRAC1, BRAC2 or several other cancer carrying genes because that indicates chances of reoccurrence or risk of ovarian cancer (it will also be informative for Allison’s sisters and Mia later). We met with a genetic counselor for about 45 minutes
We also met with an oncologist who also spent a long time with us. Basically, she told us that the protocol regardless of the type of surgery is 1) surgery, 2) maybe radiation, 3) maybe pills 4) and then chemotherapy for 12 months (3 different chapters or stages with different frequencies) since she is HER2 positive which makes the cancer very aggressive 5) and then Tomaxafin every day for 10 YEARS.
Our next step is an ultrasound with fine needle aspiration of the lymph nodes as well as an MRI to better see where the rest of the cancer is or isn’t. They haven’t been able to stage it yet. The surgeon said from his physical exam that he would say it was a stage 1 but the oncologist from her physical exam could feel some enlarged lymph nodes in the arm pits and said it could be anywhere from stage 1-3 and they won’t be able to say until after the surgery.
We will be up and back to Louisville a lot in the next month or so. In the first week of May we have a plastic surgery consult, MRI/ultrasound, echo cardiogram (determine health of heart for chemo) as well as some other appointments. We have a lot of decisions ahead of us; none of which are easy to make. I think Allison’s biggest fear and hesitation in all of the treatment is putting the poison of chemotherapy in her body–which we all knows kills good and bad cells. She is worried how it will effect her during and after and that she won’t be herself or the mother and wife she needs to be as a result of the side effects of the chemo and that she will have lost a year while going through this treatment–as well as some of the semi-permanent side effects.
There really wasn’t any discussions or alternatives to chemo discussed. There was no discussion of nutrition or any of that type of thing. It was basically, “this is what you do and before you leave we want to make sure you see the social worker”. While the Center and people there were very nice it was filled with people you would expect in a Kentucky Cancer Treatment center–overweight, smokers, older, etc. Allison is of course very physically fit, eats well, doesn’t smoke, young, etc. It is very hard for her to accept that she has cancer when a) she feels great (ran 7 miles yesterday) and b) doesn’t look like the other patients.
Please keep us in prayer and we go through this pray that we will make wise decision about the course of treatment throughout.
Jamie