Needles, schmeedles

Saw the doc after all of those tests. I have to admit that I spent the weekend not very happy. OK, yeah, that sounds odd. But I wasn’t happy to have been through a round of tests and then have to sit tight for an entire weekend. It’s not even that I had to deal with the worst-case-scenario running through my head. Rather it was just the not being able to do anything (again). But Monday came, and I was in to find out where things stood...

She was incredibly positive. The tests all came back really great. The CT scan was clean. The MRI showed some things, but hey, we knew there might be something. She checked out a few of the areas with her portable ultrasound right there in the office. The only spot that still worried her was the area around where the calcifications were found on the MRI. The bone scan was also clean—and that was a huge relief. OK, back to the great unknown, but at least the worst-case-scenario was NOT happening. For now, the assumption still had to be that the primary location was something in the breast tissue. I questioned the doc on several things, but my biggest concern was determining the primary location. She was confident that it it’s NOT lymphoma (of any kind); the cancer cells from the lymph node biopsy showed adenocarcinoma cells. These cancer cells do not originate in the lymph nodes.

Stereotactic biopsy… So I’m not sure I can explain a lot of this in words. In fact, they gave me a diagram showing how it works. I again wound up on my belly on a table, with the area in question poking through a hole in said table. Underneath that table was a unit, similar to a mammogram press, complete with xray. Here is where it gets dicey to explain the details. Let’s just say that after 5 or 6 tries at getting the position correct, I was finally told to hold still. This, of course, with my left girl in a press and my body contorted. I had to breathe very carefully to ensure that inhalations didn’t reposition me such that I’d have to go through the set-up over again. Here I stayed, for some 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes my boob was numbed, stuck, and plucked. After all was said and done, they had 12 tissue samples, some of which in fact had the calcifications that were seen on the mammogram. I left the office bruised, stunned, numb, and sore. I can say compared to that, a mammogram is nothing.

The call I received from the doc concerning the results of this biopsy—DCIS, or ductal carcinoma in-situ. Simply stated, these cells are precancerous cells that haven’t moved anywhere. This of course adds to the confusion—I have cancer cells in my armpit that came from somewhere. I did some of my own research as well, and it does seem that these cells CAN become invasive and move. It’s highly likely that there is a small area that is invasive (and moved on to my lymph node). Have I mentioned that I like my doc? We have spent a few conversations over the phone—a nice thing that doesn’t require me to keep going in for consults in her office. Over the course of these conversations, we have laid out a plan for the situation—chemo followed by surgery. OK, it’s not exactly that cut and dry, but close.

So tomorrow (Wednesday), I’m headed in for out-patient surgery to get the port put in place. This port will help with the administration of chemo drugs. It gives a semi-permanent, direct line to a vein. The stick at each chemo treatment will be into a receptor on the port that then travels into the vein. Saves the arms and keeps me from looking like a heroin addict. Along with the port placement, the doc has decided to do part of the other surgery—she’s going to remove a piece of breast tissue where the other biopsies have come from (called an excisional biopsy; it will be about the size of a quarter). It is likely that the cancerous area is small enough that they have just missed it with all of the needle pokes. As nice as it would have been to just go straight to this (to avoid all of the needles), it is encouraging that whatever is in there isn’t large enough to hit directly with a needle stick. Strangely, I am hoping for a positive test result on that biopsy. The mystery will be solved, and I’ll be ready to start getting the chemo treatments. Have I mentioned that I like my new hair cut?