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Tl;dr- Could be worse; double-mastectomy incoming. Outlook, and I quote, "great!"
Long-ass version: Invasive ductal carcinoma. Grade 2 (not slow, not aggressive), Stage 1 (left the nursery, but hasn't left the breast as far as we can tell). Further tests are pending to gather more information including an MRI to get a better look at everything, further genetic testing (8 years ago I tested negative for two factors- BRCA 1 and 2, now we're up to looking at 47 different markers), and testing the tumor tissue from the biopsy to see if we need chemo which is generally indicated for big tumors or aggressive flavors, and mine is neither as far as we can tell but this will get into the nitty-gritty and give more info. We know it's got estrogen and progesterone receptors (...typical?) but not HER-2 (this is good news, those are harder to treat).
Treatments: we're testing to see if I should get chemo, and I'll probably be taking aromatase inhibitors for a few years based on the receptor thing above. This is better than the Tamoxifen I took before but then had to stop because it gave me a damn blood clot- thank the gods.
I will have to have surgery. The doctor said since I've had cancer twice now, and in different breasts, she'd lean towards a double mastectomy. Evidently this is sometimes a hard sell to some (often male) doctors who worry their patients will be depressed and not feel like women anymore. I don't have any emotional attachment to having breasts anyway, I see myself as gender-fluid and not strictly a woman and I view my breasts as sweaty, troublesome, useless bags of fat that can just fuck right off, so I am 100% behind this plan. I also am not inclined to bother with reconstructive surgery either, since the idea of having more surgery to get sensation-free fake boobs seems laughably pointless. She says she will make things nice and flat and smooth, which sounds, frankly, terrific.
Since we're taking out everything that would need radiation, there would be no need to mess with that either. She'll take out the nearest lymph node since that's usually the first non-breast place breast cancer jumps to, just to be sure we've got it all.
This will all go pretty quickly. I will not go quietly into the night, I will not vanish without a fight. I'm going to live on, I'm going to survive. On July 4th, I will very likely be celebrating my Independence Day from boobs. This will coincide nicely with my hysterectomy anniversary on July 6. Farewell, useless organs all, and trouble me no more.
Long-ass version: Invasive ductal carcinoma. Grade 2 (not slow, not aggressive), Stage 1 (left the nursery, but hasn't left the breast as far as we can tell). Further tests are pending to gather more information including an MRI to get a better look at everything, further genetic testing (8 years ago I tested negative for two factors- BRCA 1 and 2, now we're up to looking at 47 different markers), and testing the tumor tissue from the biopsy to see if we need chemo which is generally indicated for big tumors or aggressive flavors, and mine is neither as far as we can tell but this will get into the nitty-gritty and give more info. We know it's got estrogen and progesterone receptors (...typical?) but not HER-2 (this is good news, those are harder to treat).
Treatments: we're testing to see if I should get chemo, and I'll probably be taking aromatase inhibitors for a few years based on the receptor thing above. This is better than the Tamoxifen I took before but then had to stop because it gave me a damn blood clot- thank the gods.
I will have to have surgery. The doctor said since I've had cancer twice now, and in different breasts, she'd lean towards a double mastectomy. Evidently this is sometimes a hard sell to some (often male) doctors who worry their patients will be depressed and not feel like women anymore. I don't have any emotional attachment to having breasts anyway, I see myself as gender-fluid and not strictly a woman and I view my breasts as sweaty, troublesome, useless bags of fat that can just fuck right off, so I am 100% behind this plan. I also am not inclined to bother with reconstructive surgery either, since the idea of having more surgery to get sensation-free fake boobs seems laughably pointless. She says she will make things nice and flat and smooth, which sounds, frankly, terrific.
Since we're taking out everything that would need radiation, there would be no need to mess with that either. She'll take out the nearest lymph node since that's usually the first non-breast place breast cancer jumps to, just to be sure we've got it all.
This will all go pretty quickly. I will not go quietly into the night, I will not vanish without a fight. I'm going to live on, I'm going to survive. On July 4th, I will very likely be celebrating my Independence Day from boobs. This will coincide nicely with my hysterectomy anniversary on July 6. Farewell, useless organs all, and trouble me no more.
