Speed Bump

I have decided to start a blog about my Mom’s battle with breast cancer. I know I am a little late at starting it considering her last chemo is this Wednesday but better late than never right? I am still learning how this blogging thing works, so bare with me. I have a whole lot to catch you guys up on so I have decided to start with a timeline.

Monday Dec. 13, 2010
My Mom had her yearly mammogram.

Thursday Dec. 16, 2010
My Mom told me she had to go to work early because she had a patient. I didn’t think anything of this. I had the day off so I ran some errands and came home around 3. I noticed when I pulled in the driveway my Mom and Dad’s cars were both home. I thought it was kind of weird that my Dad was already home from work. I walked in and My Mom was sitting in her green rocking chair and my Dad on the couch. I asked my Mom how her day was and noticed that she had been crying, I asked her why but she said she had a long day and was tired. I believed her. I then looked over at my Dad who started crying. I knew right then that something bad had happened. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know what happened. By this time I had already started to cry and pace. It’s weird but I think that I kind of knew what they were going to tell me. I remembered that my Mom had had a mammogram on Monday and I knew then that it was breast cancer, my body started to go numb. This kind of thing only happens in the movies and to other people, it doesn’t happen to you or the people you love the most. We cried, cried, and cried that night.

 My Mom had woken up that morning to go have an ultrasound of her breast. Once she had the ultrasound she knew that what she saw wasn’t good. The radiologist then came in and told my mom that he was 99.9% sure she had breast cancer. The next step was a biopsy. The radiologist didn’t have an opening until the next day, if any of you know my Mom that was not going to happen. She told him she would stand outside of his office all day until he could do the biopsy. He told her to come back at noon. My Mom went to work and called my Dad, he met her at the hospital for her biopsy.

Friday Dec. 17, 2010The pathologist was able to tell my Mom that the tumor in her breast was a grade three, the fastest growing kind of tumor. He told her she needed to get her breast removed ASAP. My Mom, Dad, and I all met with my Mom’s surgeon, Dr. Anderson. He made us feel a little bit better and was able to get my Mom in for surgery on Tuesday.

Tuesday Dec. 21, 2010
 Double Mastectomy Day! We woke up early and took my Mom to the hospital. The first thing they did was inject my Mom’s breast with some kind of dye that would help the surgeon to find her sentinel lymph node. This is the lymph node that the cancer would usually travel to first if it has gone to the lymph nodes or to another part of the body. The dye was supposed to glow if the cancer had invaded the sentinel lymph node. We waited around a few hours for the dye to work and then they wheeled her into surgery. The surgery lasted about four hours. The sentinel lymph node had glowed so they removed the patch of nodes around the sentinel node, these nodes would then be tested for cancer. We got to take my Mom home the day before Christmas Eve. Before we left Dr. Ben Jacobs, the oncologist, talked to us about what would be our next step. My Mom had to have time to heal before they could start chemotherapy, he suggested four to five weeks. We had a trip planned to Hawaii in January and we were worried to go. Dr. Ben Jacobs told us we needed to go and the week we came back we could start chemo. Dr. Ben Jacobs also told us that the thirteen lymph nodes that were taken out were all negative for cancer, the only one that had cancer in it was the sentinel node. This was our first miracle. My Mom’s tumor was about 3cm, there were spots of cancer throughout the whole breast. They staged my Mom’s cancer at a 2B, because of the size of the tumor and the one positive lymph node.

This is just the beginning of the story. I know this post is long, I’m sorry! I could keep writing and writing but I will continue tomorrow.

I just want to let you all know how thankful we are for all of the prayers and  positive energy sent towards our family! My Mom keeps saying this is just a speed bump we need to get through. That’s all it is, a speed bump.