My contribution to breast cancer awareness this October

Cross posted  and edited from FB...sorry for the repeat.



Not enough people saw this yesterday when I posted it... Posting again, with a more detailed personal story attached....

IF YOUR BEASTS are DENSE AND LUMPY, you can miss ANYTHING on a self exam. See your doctor. Ask for a breast MRI to be approved. If you have a good doctor with a good support staff, they will get your insurance to pay.

 Mammography can't always find cancer until it's too late to stop it. Believe me, I am a living example.

I went every year for my exams and mammos, and could not tell by feeling my breasts myself that anything was amiss because they were lumpy with fibrocystic breast disease. 

My own doctor examined me last year, looked at my dimpled, somewhat enlarged right breast (again--enlargement was normal with my hormone cycles, my boobs waxed and waned like the moon), and said it was just my cystic breast disease.

 She said just wait until your annual mammogram in November. 

In the meantime, my nipple on that same breast started to retract, so that by the time I saw the mammo tech, she said there was no doubt the films would come back abnormal. They did.

My doctor had said in July that it was just my cysts,and advised me to wear good bras to keep the heavy tissue from dimpling like that.

 My biopsies in December (6th and 29th) said :

It was not my cysts, it was ductal carcinoma, invasive, and tubular lobular in situ. 

 Yes I had two kinds of cancer in my breasts (one in each side, and both in the right side---the tubular had traveled left from its primary location on the right), and likely HAD for a long time.

In fact, it had possibly been there for years before external signs of dimpling and flattening nipple began to appear. It was there for years.....tucked into the cystic tissue, invisible to mammography, or sometimes seen as an asymmetry in mammo, and presenting as a cysts during follow up ultrasounds.

 If you read no further.....Ask for the MRI.  ACCURATE early detection is the key if your tissue is dense.

 I had a PET scan on January 6, and at the beginning of the new year, I learned that the scan found that the cancer had traveled into my bones and liver.   More evidence that it had been hiding in my breasts for a long time.

 I was completely devastated, for about 5 minutes.  Literally.  Then, I decided to fight with everything I have, and have continued to do so.

 
First chemotherapy treatment was January 16...the day the Dead announced their Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago. 

 After 4 rounds of chemo, which were 90% successful at eliminating the primary and the mets, I had a double mastectomy on April 15th.

The breast surgery was completely successful, having taken all of the cancerous tissue out on the right side, including intramammary lymph nodes, and all of the tissue on the left not much of which was cancerous, but which stood the chance of becoming cancerous if only lumpectomy had been done.  The sentinel node was also on the left, and removed. 

 As of today, I am on my 11th treatment, fighting for my life.  5 more to go.

 2015 has been a rough year...but if I can get this message out, and help just one person to make the decision to talk to her doctor, this rough year will be worth it.

 Save yourself the experience of going through chemo treatments.  

Of losing your breasts. Losing your hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. And pubic hair and nasal hair....Being mistaken for a man (it happened today, someone called me a gentleman, and then quickly corrected himself). Being stared at by adults AND children, and having to hear them say things to others about your appearance. Losing the feeling in your fingers and toes.  Nausea. Insomnia. Pain. Lymphedema in your arms and hands from the surgery.  Weight gain from the steroids in your chemo (for me anyway).

 Save yourself from being told, when you are strong and healthy and happy all at once for the first time in your life, that you may only have about 5 years to live.

Ask for the MRI. Don't wait.

Please.