Friday, February 2, 2007

Good News!

Well, I met with my surgeon this morning. The pathology report came back with no evidence of any cancer in the lymph nodes!!! That is the best news and the part I was most nervous about. The final report is still not complete from the tissue surrounding the tumor they removed. They sent the tissue samples off to Mass General again to have more complex slides made. The Newton-Wellesley pathologist is still leaning towards the tissue being a type of metaplasia versus a sarcoma (a bad type of cancer that originates in bone, fat, or connective tissue) like the original pathology a few weeks back suspected. The tumor removed was the Ductal Carcinoma In Situ that became invasive. No surprises there. So my cancer is a Stage I which is the best place to be other than cancer-free.

My next step is to meet with the radiation oncologist (next Wednesday morning) and the medical oncologist (sometime next week) to go over the plan. Radiation is a definite but chemotherapy is a question mark still. It depends again on the finalized pathology report. Nothing will start for at least a month because I need to be totally healed from the surgery first. I am also awaiting the results of the genetic testing. Those results may further add pieces to my plan.

That is all for now. A BIG THANK YOU to all who contributed to my fundraising efforts for the American Cancer Society's Daffodil Days. I told my surgeon that in three days, we have raised almost $1,000!!! He was very impressed about how I wanted to take this negative experience and turn it into a positive one.

Hope to talk to you all soon!

Take care,
Anne

3 comments:

Rae said...

Anne I'm so glad to hear everything went well today! Keep up the positive outlook!

Maria and Brian said...

What a relief Annie! We are so happy to hear this wonderful news! Thank you for keeping us all in the loop. We will continue to pray for more good news ahead.

Unknown said...

Anne, your dad keeps me up to date on how you are doing. I am so happy to hear things are going well. You are an incredibly strong, beautiful woman and I look up to you for strength. I had my first ever mamogram yesterday after experiencing some breast pain. I probably would have ignored it, it hadn't been for your story. My doctor thinks the pain is more from carrying my granddaughter than anything else, but I insisted on the test. Take care and God Bless you and your family.
Kathi Whitehouse