October 9, 2012
Hey gang,
Hey gang,
First off, you will heretofore be referred to as the “Boobie Bunch”…just sayin’
So..here’s the deal. As you know, my darling wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. We, at this point, know very little. We met with the oncologist today and here is what we know.
The oncologist was first off an extremely personable and friendly woman who can back all that up with concrete and educated information. She is the perfect mix of a caring/compassionate manner and educated and frank information. What she said is the following. We are looking at breast cancer of course. If it were to be based solely on tumor size alone, we would be looking at stage 1 cancer. We are too early in the process however to really know what stage it is because we don’t have markers back from the biopsy, we don’t know specifics of cancer type, the best treatment, etc.
It is a grade III cancer, which is aggressive. HOWEVER, we have every reason to believe that it has not spread beyond the right breast. The oncologist today did an exam and could not find anything wrong with the other breast, with the lymph nodes nearest the right breast or anything else. She was very confident that this is treatable, this is beatable and that we are going to do both of those things.
That’s the plan.
Ade/we has an appt., for a PET scan at 12:00pm on Thursday afternoon
She/we are meeting with the patient “liason” (an oncology nurse) at 3pm on Thursday who is there to help with comprehension, with note taking, appt. making, etc.
She/we will meet with the oncologist on Friday morning at 9am to discuss PET scan results.
She/we will meet with the recommended general surgeon at 11:30 on Friday morning.
At this point, we believe we are looking at Chemotherapy in addition to surgery (either lumpectomy or mastectomy) depending on the results from the biopsy, results from the PET scan and other results that we anticipate receiving in the next 3/7 days. We will of COURSE keep you all in the loop as we know more and more information.
Please forgive me if I have left something out – I’m exhausted and I can’t remember what I’ve told, learned, absorbed etc lately. I do know that this is a good overall view of what we are praying for, hoping for and being challenged with.
My wife is truly a stud. She has been extremely strong and resilient through the last 28-ish hours since we found out; far more so than I’ve been I fear. She has cried, worried and doubted yes, but she has also laughed, encouraged and built me up in the midst. This woman is incredible and I sincerely petition you on her and our behalf to be in conversation with the Lord and to be thinking about and reaching out to her in all this. Please do not be afraid to text, call, email or Facebook her and offer words of encouragement. Don’t be offended if she takes a while or even never responds – its nothing personal. It’s overwhelming, but its imperative that you know that every time you do something like that, it does NOT fall on deaf ears. She is the type that absorbs those things and every offer of love and encouragement chinks her armor just a little bit more and gives her just a little bit more courage. We’ll take it J
Important times:
Thursday 12:00pm
PET scan – can’t eat for 6 hours previous to scan…she will miss meals from Wed night to essentially Thurs late afternoon. She might be grumpy…
Thursday 3pm
Meeting with Nurse liason – she can be a huge resource to us in terms of technical side, remembering, scheduling appts, etc.
Friday 9am
Oncologist – we get results of PET scan. By the way, the PET will determine if the cancer has spread anywhere else in the body…kind of a big deal.
Friday 11:30am
Meeting with Dr. Dickinson – general surgeon who we have been referred to as a potential for surgeon to perform whatever actions are going to be necessary.
Specific prayer requests: (if you are a praying person, theses are the most important details for us – we want prayers)
-That the cancer has not spread beyond the right breast.
-That we will be able to sleep and for that sleep to actually be restful
-That we will know specifically which doctor will be the best choice for the surgery that we know she will need. We’ve gotten counsel outside of our oncologist that suggests that we should not use a general surgeon (go only to a breast specialist), but our oncologist who we feel wonderful about has said that if she herself had cancer, Dr. Dickinson would be the one she would have do it. Discernment is the key…
-For patience and grace and understanding for each other and to be only of the utmost support and encouragement to each other.
Most, if not all of you have asked what you can do. I have a totally lame and unuseful answer for you – I don’t know. At this point, pray. Pray when anytime you think about it. Pray anytime you can. Beyond that, we might need meals in the future. We might need someone to come clean the house. We might need someone to run errands. We might need someone to pick up scripts at the pharmacy. I have no idea, but I imagine that these things among many others might be useful. I and we will let you know as these and other needs make themselves known. We so appreciate the offers of help and the things that some of you have just done without asking. That stuff is vital, its so important and it makes us feel and realize that we are loved and cared for so much.
The most frustrating thing right now is how little we know. There is so much of this that falls into the category of “hurry up and wait” I will do my absolute best at communicating this as we get more and more info. Please don’t hesitate to call, text, email, FB, send a carrier pigeon…whatever. If you have a question, a concern or whatever then ask. There are no off limits and you aren’t inconveniencing us by texting or whatever. You aren’t interrupting, you aren’t bothering us. we love you and appreciate the love you have for us.
Thanks so much, please pass this along to anyone I may have forgotten or anyone you know would want to know. If there is someone I have forgotten who needs to permanently be on this list, please send me an email address and I will add them.
We love you so much and thanks in advance for the support and prayers and love and house cleaning…we really appreciate it!
J&A
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