My First Day at Huntsman

Today was kind of a mess. I was told to go to Daybreak and given that address. I got there to find out that I was supposed to be at the main Huntsman hospital. So I rush up there and meet with the surgeon for just a minute. He seemed very nice and easy to work with. BUT my doctor's office in Provo hadn't sent my MRI or latest ultrasound. So I had to wait for results. The MRI finally came through at 1:15, over 4 hours after my appt time.

We had taken a break for lunch and ate at The Pie, of course. Once the radiologist read the results she decided to do another ultrasound. This time she DID find a few lymph nodes that look questionable. So they did a biopsy of the nodes. This is EXACTLY why I chose Huntsman. They found what others missed and we are only at the beginning. 

By this time my surgeon was in surgery and couldn't meet with me. His nurse sat down with us (Jim was with me) to give me the info they had. Here are the results, for those that speak cancer.

Invasive ductal carcinoma

Grade 2 tumor

ER+

PR-

Her+

Best guess on staging is either stage 2 or 3, but that will depend upon the lymph node biopsy results. Actually, they may not know the real stage until the pathology report is back after my surgery.

So what does this really mean? It means that pretty much my whole left breast is cancer. Nothing in the right and nothing in the chest wall, which is great news. I will have to have at least a mastectomy on the left, but really I'm leaning toward a double mastectomy. I do NOT want to go through this again!

I meet with my surgeon next Friday morning, immediately followed by an appt with the plastic surgeon. If they are both on surgical rotation the following week, I'll have my surgery Thanksgiving week. But they both have to be there. So I guess I'll find out next week.

After surgery I will need to have chemo. Not looking forward to having a bald head, I'm not going to lie. Kind of vain that way I guess. I don't know that my head shape is a good one for no hair. I guess we'll see.

I'm still feeling pretty positive. I know there are rough days ahead. But I kind of feel like my whole life has been full of hard things to get through and this is just kind of the next trial on the list. I'll plow through and deal, just like I have with everything else. We all have our trials, right?

In the meantime, I've been given a binder of fun things to read...

I have to say that I am really impressed with Huntsman. The medical staff was wonderful and I felt safe and like I was in competent hands. I'm so blessed to have access to this great cancer hospital.