Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy?

OK, here's the latest scoop. We met with the medical oncologist today, Dr. Harden. She was very nice and assured us that this is very cureable. She did not give us a definitive stage or grade since there are still more tests to be done, but for now she's giving it a Stage II. The fact that there are 2 positive tumors and I am so young upgraded me from Stage I to II. She wants to treat me aggressively due to my age (greater risk of recurrence) and the multi-focal tumors. This means that she wants to give me chemotherapy as opposed to just hormone blocking therapy. She also wants to give me the chemotherapy first (before surgery), called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. There are supposedly many benefits to this which include getting rid of any cancer cells that have traveled outside of the breast right away and we can assess the effectiveness of the chemotherapy on the tumor as it shrinks and/or is removed and tested. If the lymph nodes are clear, the therapy will be every 2 to 3 weeks for 4 rounds (that equate to 2-3 months). If there are positive lymph nodes, she will go with 8 rounds (4-6 months). This chemotherapy is usually given once every 3 weeks via IV. It takes 3 hours to infuse and is done in the clinic. If she decides to do it every 2 weeks, called dose dense therapy, it will be the same dosage and side effects only there will not be that last week of feeling almost normal. This will leave me more tired, but with the anit-nausea meds and white cell boosting shot, it is usually tolerable. It will cut the total therapy time considerably and research is being done to confirm that it may be killing off more cancer cells in that 3rd week as they are trying to recover from the previous dose. THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN IN MID-APRIL.

I will lose my hair. This is the longest it has been since I was a kid and I love it. I have a great hairdresser ( you ladies know how hard that is to find!) and she keeps it looking nice without too much effort on my part. I guess it's time to get over it and have fun with a short, sassy haircut. I have an appointment on Monday to get it cut fairly short. I think it will actually be kind of fun to have short hair again, if only it were by choice. I don't think the kids will like it very much. They seem more attached to my hair than I am. Kids are funny, they don't want mom to change too much. When I was 5, my dad shaved his mustache off and I cried my eyes out and told him to "shave it right back on"! I was angry and wouldn't speak to him the rest of the night and told him he wasn't my daddy. I'm hoping if I transition from long to fairly short to very short to shaved it will be less traumatic to them AND ME than to go from long and thick to bald. We shall see.

My mom is planning to come for the first 2 rounds of chemotherapy. Chris's mom and dad are on call and eager to come help when we tell them to. It sure is nice to have back-up fairly close by. Being in the military, we've never had the luxury of living down the street from family like many of our neighbors and friends, but this is the best place we could have been for this to happen since we are relatively close (not Korea!). We also have many friends helping!

One thing that is extremely hard is telling people. It is hard to keep your own cool and be strong when the person across from you breaks down and starts hugging you like they'll never see you again. It's hard to be asked your prognosis, too. I don't know why. I guess it's just hard to talk about what your chances of living are. Anyway, who's to say any one of us has a better chance of living through tomorrow. Depending on what crazy drivers you encounter, you may have a worse prognosis than me. It's hard to break the news because I don't want people to start bawling and saying, "Oh my God. Why did it have to happen to you?" as if I'm about to die, WHICH I AM NOT! What I think I'd like is for people to say, "Oh crap! Cancer sucks! Well, you be strong and kick cancer's butt!"