On Monday 07 November I saw the nurse specialist to get my results. I was already clear that I was going to be told The Lump was cancerous so when she said it was, I was not even vaguely suprised. I confessed I had done some internet trawling and the nurse was unimpressed as it might overwhelm and confuse me more than I needed. (Fair point, but I know I work better having some grasp on the language and ideas that will be used going forward, so I'm going to be carrying on being difficult, haha!)
Only about three quarters of my results were back and not all the MRI images were ready, plus some of the lab reports were written up unclearly, so the nurse did her best to interpret things, but there were gaps in the story that would not be ready that day. There were the areas of concern that needed further testing to work out what they might be, and there was The Lump:- the most common as muck sort of cancer: invasive ductal carcinoma or NST (no specific type/not otherwise specified)- grade 2 (moderately differentiated, or, average out of three speeds: 1 snail paced, 2 medium paced, 3 galloping)- about 3cm, or maybe a bit more
- irregular shape and not well defined edges
- ER8 and PGR positive (on a scale of 1-8 indicating the average amount of oestrogen receptors per cancer cell, along with the proportion of cells with receptors, I'm at the top end, as well as progesterone receptor positive)
I asked about provisional treatment optoins and, depending a lot on what the second batch of biopsies might reveal, I might qualify to have pre-op chemo to shrink The Lump (neo-adjuvant or primary chemo) and then have a mastectomy and reconstruction in one go. Might. We sprinted over other variations of treatment, but chemo pre/post op was pretty much a definite. We discussed that, being pre-menopausal, I would probably be on Tamoxifen for five years or so, to block the hormones and stop regrowth. I asked about sterilisation but that was not something on the cards at all. I also asked about a double mastectomy and that was thought unnecessary, even though I have fibroadenomas in my right breast as well. They don't like doing double mastectomies unless they absolutely have to.
I joked that my main interest was where to get my long hair cut so I could get it made into a wig, which the nurse thought might be a bit presumptive in the early circumstances. She also pointed out that, if I was allowed to start neo-adjuvant chemo, then I would see the clinical oncologist a few days after I next received the results, and the following week have a chemo work up day (like the first day of a new school), meeting the Macmillan team, the wigs lady, pharmacy and so on. So all my wigs needs would be met at that point.
That was it, really. The HER2 results were not back yet, and the decision had been made to take further biopsies from the areas of concern that had shown up in the MRI.
We booked in a follow up chat for after the second biopsies, and off I went with my Little Pathology Booklet to start giving the family a telephone update
On the way home I went shopping for supper. I'm lucky to belong to a tight group of gorgeous boot camp fitness fanatic female friends (I should say I haven't actually done a camp or any exercise for six months!) who have all supported each other through recent major cancer scares and we discovered that drinking bubbles was the best therapy a woman could buy. So all I could think about as I trundled around Morrisons was: do I have enough prosecco at home?
