Change Of Plans

Unbelievable, that is really all I can say. Just when you think one thing, this disease throws you for a big loop. During a routine pre-operative Pet/CT scan, the doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to lymph nodes below Britt's Pectoral Muscle, and to one of the nodes below her chest plate. These nodes are very difficult to remove, and the surgery to remove them runs the risk of Lymph edema (severe swelling of the arm), loss of the use of her left arm, or worst case scenario, damage to a major artery that runs from the chest to the arm. Worse the appearance of these "hot" nodes means the form of cancer we are dealing with is very aggressive, she has now been labeled Stage III. The positives are that it is still limited to the left chest area, and her cancer appears to be receptive to treatment with Herceptin, a wonder drug in the treatment of Cancer.

The opinion of the Doctors at Stanford is that we postpone surgery, and immediately start Chemotherapy, and Herceptin. The goal is to either eliminate the cancer in these nodes, or at least reduce to where they can attack it with radiation, and to stop the spread of the disease. As one of our Doctors put it yesterday, we need to deal with the distant (lymph nodes) disease, before we can deal with the local disease (Breast). To say that this news was devastating would be an understatement. It took a while for Britt to wrap her arms around the idea of a Mastectomy, but she had come to terms with it. We went to Stanford yesterday fully prepared for that course of action both mentally and emotionally. The new course of action means immediate chemotherapy (she starts tomorrow), and in 18 weeks they will take new MRIs and Pet/CT scans to determine if the Herceptin has worked.

One of the strange things you learn in all of this, is that having Cancer means not having control, right now the disease has total control, and no matter how we try and wrest that control back, the disease is always there to remind you who is in charge.

Brian