Mom Cancer Update

I thought I would do an update on my mom.  So she had a mastectomy on Tuesday and as far as the surgery part it went really well.  She had to be at the hospital at 8:00 in the morning and they injected dye into her breast to help determine if the cancer had spread.  Then she and my dad waited until almost 2:00 when they were finally ready to take her back to surgery.  The surgery went good but was long and she didn't get out of surgery until about 6:00 that night.  So it was a super long day for her.


I think I mentioned in my last post that we were hoping the cancer had not spread and that she could just do hormone therapy instead of chemo.  Well the bad part is that they did found cancer in her lymph nodes.  Not good.  They removed three and tested them while she was in surgery and found the cancer so they then removed 22 additional lymph nodes to test and see if the cancer had spread even farther. 


My mom's surgeon pretty much sucked and was not very supportive to my mom or optimistic about the test results.  My poor mom.  Here she had just undergone massive surgery and then told that things were even worse than the doctor had originally thought.  They told my mom to plan on six months of chemo, radiation and then hormone therapy.  My poor mom was devastated by the bad news.


Luckily she got to go home Wednesday afternoon and my dad had all of Wednesday off and could stay with her.  My younger sister, Brittany took off Thursday and today so she has had someone with her every day.  She is definitely a trooper and is doing better than expected but she has been really discouraged.


So she got a call this morning with her test results and out of the 22 lymph nodes that were removed and tested only three came back with cancer cells.  The doctor said that was a great prognosis and that her chances to beat this are really good.  It may have spread a little but with chemo and radiation they should be able to get rid of all the cancer.  So she is at a Stage 2 cancer and will start chemo treatments in four weeks after she has recovered from the surgery.


It still sucks that she will have to go through cancer treatment but she is feeling so much better knowing that the cancer has not spread through her body.  When she called to tell me the news she was just crying because she was so relieved and happy.  Even though the situation is not great it could be so much worse and we are all just grateful for the situation that we have.  It is so much better to know what you are actually up against and have a game plan.  I will keep updating on my blog about her cancer when we know more.