Cancer Free!

Drum roll please....I have big news.  I had a complete pathological response to chemo.  Meaning that the cancer is gone.  I'M CANCER FREE!   There wasn't a cancer cell to be found in either breast or lymph node.  The medical staff at KUMed was really excited because it is really rare to have  such a good response to chemo.  Very few people with stage II breast cancer beat it just with chemotherapy.   This is really good news!   I am in a state of shock, so much so that my doctors, nurses, and cancer care team keep telling me that I am cancer free.  (I may have asked them to do that, because it all I wanted to hear ever since we got the diagnoses.) 

So you might be wondering how my bilateral mastectomy and lymph node dissection went.  Well I am officially two weeks out from the surgery.  Everything went well, and I only had to stay in the hospital over night.  The entire surgery lasted seven hours.  I am still pretty sore and tired. Doing basic things like getting dressed, showering, and reaching up into the cupboard is still a challenge.  

The medication they used to put me under, caused me to be pretty nauseous for awhile.  So they loaded me up on all the anti nauseous meds and then I was fine.  I think I may have had a small reaction to the nerve block, my back is itchy.  For me, the worst part of this surgery was the drains, they were pretty uncomfortable and just plain gross.  So I was really happy to get them taken out, I only had them for a week.  Getting the drains removed wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Seeing my breast free body was a bit of a shock, but overall my scarring isn't too bad.  My surgeon did an amazing job.  I donated my breast and lymph node to science for cancer research.  It is my hope that my breasts can now do something positive for someone else. 

I will continue the Herceptin treatment every three weeks, so that it completes a full year.  So until next October.  Other than that, we don't really know what the rest of the treatment plan is now.  I am guessing that I'll still have to undergo radiation, as a preventative measure.  If not then I continue on with my GI surgeries.  But we won't know for sure until March 6th, when I have another doctors appointment with a radiologist.  

We'll keep you posted.  Thanks for reading!  Have a great week!  :-)