Hey ladies - Make a date with yourself (the beginning of a new month is an easy time to remember) to check your breasts. Go ahead, touch yourself!

From the American Cancer Society...

"Breast awareness and breast self-exam (BSE): BSE is an option for women starting in their 20s. Women should be told about the benefits and limitations of BSE. Women should report any changes in how their breasts look or feel to their health professional right away.
If you decide to do BSE, you should have your doctor or nurse check your method to make sure you are doing it right. If you do BSE on a regular basis, you get to know how your breasts normally look and feel. Then you can more easily notice changes. But it’s OK not to do BSE or not to do it on a fixed schedule.
The most important thing is to see your doctor right away if you notice any of these changes: a lump or swelling, skin irritation or dimpling, nipple pain or the nipple turning inward, redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin, or a discharge other than breast milk. But remember that most of the time these breast changes are not cancer."

If I didn't do this then I don't know what would be in store for me down the road. Who would think that at my age I would have to worry about something like this??? If you know your body well, then you will be able to better notice any changes that happen to it.

So make a date with yourself and have fun!

~Anne

American Cancer Society's Daffodil Days

Hi,

Because I want to use my experience in a positive way, I became a coordinator for the American Cancer Society's Daffodil Days. Please visit www.cancer.org or my personal page http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=1898814&pg=personal&fr_id=2825&et=eoEqLkOUtJJjTB7APgRdUw..&s_tafId=64071 about this event for more information.

With your help, my goal is to raise $500 for the American Cancer Society through this event. You can celebrate spring and help save lives by making a donation for Daffodil Days items. All donations from Daffodil Days will support the American Cancer Society's efforts to fund groundbreaking cancer research, provide up-to-date cancer information and education, advocate for public health policies that benefit the community, and offer free services that improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Please visit my personal Web site to learn more about my story, about this campaign, and to donate to Daffodil Days. Items include fresh-cut daffodils, e-cards, a collectible Daffodil Days Boyds' Bear, and anonymous Gifts of Hope -- daffodil bouquets delivered to cancer patients to brighten their day. All items that are ordered will be shipped to me mid-March. I will then deliver the items as soon as possible.

Thanks for your support!!!
~Anne

My Blog

Hello,

Thank you all for all of your love and support during this difficult time. Knowing that so many people are there for me and my family is a wonderful feeling.

I have started this blog to help me communicate with all of you about what is happening with me and where I am on this journey I have found myself on. That's the way I am looking at this. It's a journey. One I certainly did not plan for or wanted but one that will only make me stronger.

I am also using this blog as a way for me to chronicle this journey so I am going to write it like a diary in some ways. It might be too much info that I put down but I want to remember all of this - good, bad, or indifferent. Feel free to add your own posts if you want and I will update this site often.

Thanks again for all of your support!!

~Anne

My Surgery

Hi Everyone!

These past couple of weeks have seemed like months. Just knowing that there was cancer growing inside me was driving me crazy. All I wanted to do is get it out! Finally surgery day came. Yesterday (Wednesday, January 24th), I went into Newton-Wellesley and underwent a lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node removal. When I first arrived at the hospital I had to go get the mass mapped out by having a mammogram done. Then I met with Nuclear Medicine who injected the sight with a radioactive isotope. This injection then travelled to my lymph nodes and showed the surgeon which nodes were the closest to the mass and flowed to that side of my chest. The cool thing about having this injection was that I peed bright blue several times after the surgery.

Then it was surgery time. The surgery itself went extremely well - it lasted about 1 1/2 hours. My surgeon (who by the way I think is brilliant) removed the upper right quadrant of my breast. He ended up taking more out than he had originally planned because he wanted to be sure that he removed all of the diseased tissue and so that when the section was examined by pathology that it came back with clean margins (no disease around the out edges of what he removed). I also had 3 lymph nodes taken out. Upon initial examination by a pathologist in the operating room, the nodes looked clean - no apparent cancer has spread there. The doctors cannot say yet for certain that there isn't any disease there. What will happen now is that the lymph nodes will be made into a lot of slides (50-100) and every single cell will be looked at. This way, they will be able to find out if there is just one cancer cell there. If something is found, I will have to go back in for more surgery to have the remainder of the lymph nodes under my right arm taken out.

I had to stay over last night at the hospital because the surgeon removed more than he originally thought he was going to so he had to put a drain in the wound to help relieve swelling, pressure, etc.

So for now, things are going well. The next step for me is to recover from the surgery. I meet again with the surgeon next Friday (February 2nd) for a follow-up and to go over the final pathology reports. These reports will then tell me and my doctors what the next steps will be. If there is no evidence of cancer in the lymph nodes and the margins of the mass the surgeon removed comes back clean, I will definitely have 6 weeks of radiation (every day for those 6 weeks). If there is more evidence of cancer in the margins, I will have more breast tissue removed. If there is evidence of cancer cells in the lymph nodes, I will have all my lymph nodes removed and will probably have chemotherapy. One thing at a time. Like I said before nothing is decided until the reports all come back and I meet with the surgeon and oncologist.

I am feeling really good right now. I am a little sore and stiff and can't go out and do anything crazy but I am good.

Thank you all again for all of your love and support!!!!

~Anne