Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Staging Is In - But I am not a statistic

That's what the doctor said...several times..."You are not a statistic."

He also said that dang old tumor was 5.7 cm. If you're not a tumor expert, that is officially "huge". And of the 18 lymph nodes they removed, 12 had cancer cells. T*W*E*L*V*E. Which is officially "a whole bunch".

That puts me at a Stage 3.

I'll be "presented" to a cancer board tomorrow. About twenty of Huntsman's finest. They'll put together a recommendation for treatment, which I'll learn about when I meet with an oncologist next week. Chemo will begin in two to three weeks.

But I am young and strong and healthy and I will beat this thing.

Just do me a favor and do routine breast checks. By routine I don't mean annual. Mammograms have their place, please get them done, but don't count on them for safety. Ten to fifteen percent of tumors are the kind that don't show up on mammos. They call that rare. I call it likely enough to be persistent. While I may not be a statistic, I don't want any of the women I love to be one either.

2 comments:

Taffy said...

The last time I got a mammogram, the mammogramee swallowed the laughter that kept bubbling up. "Why exactly are we doing this?" she asked as she tried to find some way to get an xray of a paper-thin female part.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the reminder, Suzanne. Hang in there and I pray for speedy recovery for you.