A Little More Information...Technical Style

I had my first post-op appointment with my surgeon this past Thursday.
First and most importantly he took the drain out!!!!! HOORAY!!! That thing was making me miserable.
Second....my surgeon is so nice and caring.   How lucky am I to have such a compassionate surgeon.
Thirdly, I got some better soft fake boobs to put in my bra.  Now I can go in public :)
Lastly, I got the full details on my pathology report.  So here are some of the details for those of you that like the details:

WARNING:  I give LOTS of technical terms  (trying to summarize a pathology report for the lay person while keeping science terms intact was kinda challenging)

 (but I love it - I am a science nerd)!!!!

- My cancer has been staged as 2B (pT2, pN1, pMX).
- My breast cancer is an aggressive, poorly differentiated, infiltrating mammary carcinoma.  That means it is a nasty, fast growing invasive cancer.  It is also more aggressive than they originally thought. The largest tumor is 3.5 cm, but there were other smaller tumors and the cancer was found throughout the breast.
- From what I can understand my mastectomy specimen (I believe this is the whole right breast) weighed 1800 grams and measured 26.0 x 23.0 cm with a thickness of 6.5 cm.  1800 grams is equal  to about 4 lbs.  So, I think my right boob weighed 4.0 lbs....pretty crazy :)  At least the tissue part of it did.  I did weigh myself before and after surgery and I had lost 8 lbs.
- Metastatic carcinoma was found in both sentinel nodes, but NOT the other 3 lymph nodes.  This hopefully means that it spread to the sentinel nodes (this is where they think breast cancer spreads first before spreading throughout the lymphatic system and the whole body) and has not spread to the other nodes yet....I hope so :)
- Both tumors tested were positive for Estrogen Receptor in 100% of tumor cell nuclei AND one of the tumors tested positive for Progesterone Receptor in 20% of tumor cell nuclei.  This means I am a candidate for hormone therapy.
- Both tumors tested were positive for Ki-67 (cancer antigen found only when cells are growing and dividing) in 30% of tumor cell nuclei, with strong intensity.  This is a very high result.  This means my cancer cells are rapidly growing and dividing.  When the percent is higher than 20% it is considered unfavorable with a poor prognosis.
- Histologic Grade: Poorly differentiated : score 8-9 (this is a very high score)
- Combined Bloom Richardson Score: 8 (means the cancer is poor differentiating)
- In-situ tumor is found ALL over the outer half of breast
- Margins were negative for carcinoma.  This means they got all the cancer out of my chest with the mastectomy.
- The Her-2 results were indeterminate so they are doing another test.  This test result will determine a lot about my chemotherapy plan.
- My surgeon is going to wait to schedule putting in my port until after the treatment plan is finalized. 
- My doctor (again) told me how sorry he was for all this bad news and how he thought was not fair that I had been handed an awful long history of medical issues.  I told him, "It's not your fault...lots of women get breast cancer". [I had read 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer]  He looked at me surprised and said, "Yup, a lot of OLD women!!!".  He went on to tell me that it is common for 70 year old women to get breast cancer, but very uncommon for young women like me to get it. [he called me young....  :)  He said most of his breast cancer patients are elderly.  He also said unfortunately most of the younger women that get breast cancer get the more aggressive forms and the old ladies get the slow growing.

So hopefully that was enough information to satisfy my science-minded friends and not too confusing for those who maybe have other talents :)   It is not very good news.  I was hoping for better, but IT IS WHAT IT IS.  I choose to spend my energy on things I can change.  I choose to not spend my energy on feeling sorry for myself.  Don't get me wrong...I get sad and have my bad moments, even days of yucky.  But, LIFE is TOO SHORT.  I choose to be happy.

My first oncology appointment is this Tuesday morning.  I already have an oncologist in my town that monitors me due to my first cancer (GIST).  I am going to stick with him.  I should find out what the plan is this Tuesday...I think.  I just want to know....as I have said before knowledge is power.

I am feeling pretty o.k. today.  I even went to church for 2 hours this morning to watch my primary kids practice for the primary program.  I am the music leader and they pushed back the performance until November 11th in hopes that I will feel good enough by then to lead them in their performance.  They even called me an assistant to lead the music when I am not feeling good.  So I went today to see how they are doing even though I don't have enough energy to lead them yet.  It was amazing to see their happy faces seeking me out.  I LOVE them...what wonderful medicine for the soul to have 50 kids loving, missing, and singing to you :)