A bump in the road .... and a 2nd opinion

June 26 - A BIG week with a bump in the road and other detours

First of all, I "passed" the MUGA and my bone scan was normal! - yay!
But, then the ultrasound results were confusing and the MRI showed an "area of concern" of almost 8cm as well as a much more dismal view of the axillary nodes. Not what I was hoping.

Outside of that it was like the path disappeared for a while..... then re-appeared but at a distance.

On Monday I did have the node ultrasound but the results were very confusing to the team. Several of the nodes did look "involved" ( ie cancerous) but the pesky 2.5 cm node appeared normal ( which we all knew to be preposterous). So, after a presentation to the tumor board, the team decided that the safest solution was to perform an excisional ( ie surgical) biopsy on several of the nodes and get a clear pre-chemo pathology report on the level of "involvement". This would also aid in staging the disease, ensure that during breast surgery the safest/most appropriate number of lymph nodes would be removed and that the appropriate radiation treatment would be recommended.

I was disappointed to learn that the chemo would be delayed by 2 weeks because of this decision but I do understand the importance of getting accurate pathology data on the nodes. The surgery is scheduled for this Mon June 29.

Another development was that the Stanford tumor board called back this week and so I scrambled to get the biopsy slides, charts and a cd of all the mammogram, ultrasounds, and MRI to Stanford. Don't get me wrong - I am very happy with my team at PAMF, I just thought that it would be a good idea to get a 2nd opinion and also to get into the Stanford system in case things got, um, "more interesting". I'm reallly happy that I got a second opinion from such an excellent team and that this team came up with the same exact diagnosis and treatment plan as my current PAMF team. I was especially happy to hear that my oncologist had worked under the head Stanford oncologist and that his reviews of her were glowing.I'll sleep better knowing that I got a second opinion, that it matched my plan and that my current team is validated.

I'm scheduled for surgery Monday and will stick with the PAMF team at this point and am looking forward to getting treatment underway!