Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Journey to UCSF

First of all thank you all for praying for my family and I through this whole journey of mine and for your encouraging words through this.
Where to start? What a week this has been for me. I have been up, down, trusting, anxious,happy and discouraged. BUT.... The Lord has carried me through all of it praise Jesus!
This weekend I found a very hard and large area on my left side that became very painful and unusual. I called Dr. Enevoldsen (plastic surgeon that has done my reconstruction) about it and long story short he saw me Monday afternoon. He ended up suctioning fluid out to check if it was an infection. He stuck a needle in and saw it was not infected but wanted to reopen my drain hole to let it continue to drain out. So he numbed my side and began to cut out the scab and waaalaaa fluid came out. Thank God it was not infected. He then had to check other things and lets just say my pain tolerance has gone down since this whole thing has started and I have been in excruciating pain for the last 24 hours.

This afternoon Jeff and i were able to meet with an oncologist at UCSF Medical Center in breast care. He began to tell us that because I tested er positive on my pathology report I will have to have hormone therapy for 5 years. With this can come some side effects, one being early menopause ( that's what a 34 year old wants to hear is I will start hot flashes early hahaha). He has ordered a test called Oncotype DX to be done on the tissue that was removed during surgery and that test will determine if i need to have chemo or not. If I test high or medium I will but if I test low hormone therapy is all i need. I am so grateful for the resources the Lord has laid in front of us during this journey. After we talked about treatment he told me he would like us to talk to a genetic counselor because of being diagnosed with breast cancer and melanoma by the age of 34. The counselor came right in after he left and we began to discuss what this gene is. It links breast cancer, melanoma, ovarian, prostate and one other cancer. If you carry this gene you are susceptible to one or all of these. I will take this test in 2 weeks. If my results come back that I carry this gene then one of my options would be to have my ovaries removed (more yummolicious dinners from you guys YEAH) I'm kidding, as much as I love your cooking I would do without surgery!!! One of the resources the Lord laid before us was a lady named Erin who came to our appointment with us and audio recorded and took notes on the entire appointment. I am so thankful for that because you hear a lot of blah blah blah.
Jeff and I had a great day in the city and were able to relax and enjoy each other. Thank you so much for praying for today I felt the Lords presence with us and i feel many prayers were answered just in the testing. Some of these test are not approved by insurance but the type we have will approve it! Thank you Lord Jesus. Again His timing is perfect and i continue to pray His will be done for me. Please pray that my oncotype test comes back low so no chemo and I don't test positive for the gene test.
Thank you all so much! The Lord is good and I know his plan is perfect.

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