Breast Cancer, The Journey Continued

Breast Cancer, The Journey Continued

Friday Morning March, 25 2011 (sixth post in this series).

As would be pretty obvious, the family has been involved in detailed discussions about the diagnosis and recommendations for Kelly's situation. We have tried to be very careful to give only general statements so that Kelly and her family could deal with, and communicate, the details in a manner that they felt comfortable with.

Last night, Kelly and Damon wrote a very detailed public email discussing of the situation. I am posting that information below. As you can tell, they have some pretty significant decisions to make over the next few weeks. The good news is that they have options and that the decisions will be based on very thorough evaluations by the medical people they are working with.

We have said this from the very start, the situation is scary, but the disease was caught in the early stages.

Please ladies, make an appointment for your yearly mammograms!!!

Hello Everyone!

Happy Spring!

We had a great appointment at the University of Colorado Breast Center on Tuesday.  Over a period of about 4 hours, we met with a surgeon, an oncologist, a radiation oncologist, and a plastic surgeon.  The information that we received pretty closely matched the information we had received the previous week.  It was nice to feel like we’ve been receiving accurate information and the two options presented to us were basically the same.  It was really nice to have my sister Lisa there to take notes and provide a bit of a medical perspective (she is a clinical dietitian at University so she speaks the medical language that Damon and I don’t).

Again, it was very reassuring to hear the doctors say over and over again that this is not “invasive” cancer and that it could be so much worse.

The two options on the table now are:

1) Lumpectomy, 6 weeks of radiation, and 5 years of Tamoxifen (a preventive chemo pill that doesn’t have the same side effects of typical chemotherapy, but has its own side effects)

2) Mastectomy

We are still waiting on some important pieces of information to help make our decision.  Last Wednesday we started the process for the Breast Cancer (BRCA) Test. Because I have no family history of breast cancer, it will be surprising if these test results are positive, but we felt it was necessary to do the tests, both for the benefit of our girls as well as my sisters and my mom.  If that test would come back positive, that would mean that there was an 80% chance that I would have recurring breast cancer and the recommendation would be double mastectomy.  Those test results are expected sometime next week. 

In addition, I have two other spots that need to be biopsied.  We are holding off on those biopsies until we have the results of the BRCA test.  If the test came back positive, the biopsies would be unnecessary.  If we moved forward with the biopsies and one of the spots came back positive, the recommendation would again be a mastectomy.

So…we are looking at surgery, of some version, toward the end of April.  That gives us plenty of time to gather information and make the best decision.

At this point, we’re thankful to have a little break from appointments and procedures.  The girls are on Spring Break next week so we’re going to tag along with Damon on a business trip to Durango and Glenwood Springs.  It should be some nice time for the girls and I to relax.

Again, we want to say thank you to all of you who have reached out, pitched in, and shown support in so many ways!  I know Jamie has an incredible collection of quotes and I can’t wait to start reading them.  We feel SO fortunate to have such an incredible support system!!

We’ll continue to keep you posted as we learn more.

With love,

Kelly and Damon