And the hits just keep coming....

Had a Radiation Therapy appointment today with Dr Melissa Mitchell at KU’s main campus. Really impressed with her—all my female docs honestly! (Girl power!) got lots of really good info regarding radiation treatments. A lot has changed in the 23 years since I went to school and so much has improved. Radiation wouldn’t begin for 3-8 weeks after surgery-which would be 4-6 weeks after chemo so it’s in the future but a lot of other things have changed too and all plans are fluid at this point.

In regard to the hot spot on my bone scan from last week. It was reviewed by KU and they think the one in my pelvis is not really a bony metastasis, however, they feel the one on my t-spine is. With that said, it automatically makes me Stage 4 Breast cancer. BUT there are lots of options-one being a stereotactic Radiation treatment to my spine. A possibly one time, high dose treatment to the one area only. Being stage 4, surgery typically takes a back seat to chemo. In my case, with potentially only one spot-it may not have to.
Unfortunately, the Breast MRI showed the mass in my axially tail is so close to my minor pectoral muscle that part of it will have to be resected to make sure she gets clear margins when removing the tumor. It’s also really close to a lymph node which will also come out. Good news is that the vein is far enough away and the tumor has not encased it.

The MRI also showed a 9mm mass in the tissue of my right breast around the implant. This has to have an ultrasound and probably biopsy to rule out another recurrence. And it has to be done before I start chemo. So guess what I’m doing tomorrow at KU’s Indian Creek Campus????

My case is being presented at KU’s tumor conference next week and I’ll be getting all kinds of really smart people thoughts on how to proceed next. Like I said-it’s all fluid at this point. PET scan likely doesn’t need to be done-but an MRI of my spine instead. Waiting for more smart docs to weigh in and go from there.

I am still a go for chemo on Thursday so please send me all your good juju for tomorrow’s sono/biopsy and chemo and we’ll just go from there!

Thank you for all your love and support!!

K