More waiting ...

First let me start with this: I'm going to try to not turn this into a blog about all cancer, all the time. Because while it is a REALLY HUGE BIG thing in my life right now, I am very aware it is also NOT the only thing in my life.

However, it is the dominating thing, at least while we are still gathering new info, figuring out I feel like I will talk about it a lot and for that I apologize. And here's the good news, I can't see you read this, so if you don't want to, my feelings will be completely UNhurt should you navigate away and wait for more crafty content to appear.

Now that is said, I have a little more updates for today. First it was the BIG meeting with the doctor, were we go over everything and talked about all that is to come. But, it didn't start off on the right foot. She wanted to check how things were healing from the biopsy and as we did that she asked "I don't remember reading in the ultrasound report about under your arms? Did they check them then?" I didn't remember them doing it so we checked today. I have a few swollen lymph nodes. Which truly can be really nothing or really something.

I do have a cold right now. I did have the biopsy last week. Those could cause swelling. And yet, we can't leave it at that, so we did a needle biopsy today to check it. We should hear back in the next few days. The good news is it's not so enlarged that her immediate reaction is it's absolutely cancer. But it's swollen, and we can't not check it. So a bit more waiting.

I go to the geneticist tomorrow for BrCa testing. Which feels really important because if it comes back positive that affects not only myself, but it could affect others. And knowing that fact is weighing heavily on my heart. 

I get an MRI Friday morning. I don't know when those results come back.

We are looking at surgery in 3-4 weeks. Interestingly enough there is a chance (although I think it will happen after) that it could be taking place on my birthday. Which just feels kind of strange.

I have the pathology report. Since some have asked - it is invasive ductal carcinoma. I'm told this is a very common form (although I'm NOT going to google this. Because well, I don't want to read horror stories at this point you know?)  Also, others have asked what stage it is ... we don't know. And we won't know until surgery. We can guess it is stage 1 or 2. But for now that is a guess.

In other news after thinking about it and after seeing how the last two days have gone and knowing my own history, today I met with my primary care physician. Tonight I started something for both anxiety and depression. Right now I am feeling amazing amounts of anxiety. There are moments I just can not stop shaking. I am trying to calm myself down, but I need help. And I have a history of anxiety. While I feel at this moment, anxiety is all that is on my plate, we also know I also have a history with depression. And we know that depression meds will take 2-3 weeks to work fully. And so we decided to go ahead and start it now. Because I don't want to get to the point of surgery and wham - depression hitting hard. This is a VERY personal decision I made because I feel it is right for me.

And now, if you've made it this far ... I am setting up an e-mail group to share updates as we get them (which may be weekly, maybe 3 in one week, and then nothing for 3 weeks) but if you want to be on that list please leave a comment or e-mail me at Brandie185 {at} gmail {dot} com. I promise no spam, I won't try to sell you anything, and I will not let you know every time I sneeze either ;-)