December 27, 2018

I received the best gift this morning. My very first BFF from when I was 2 years old in Dallas, Texas called me this morning and we laughed and cried and it was like she still lived down the street. We asked each other, why me? why us? why the crazy? will it ever end? Then we laughed some more cuz that’s what we do. Fall down, get up, look for good, cry, laugh, repeat. She told me I had to share my funny story about the MRI because it was just too good. So here you go…

I’ve had a number of MRIs in my time and I’m not claustrophobic so I usually just spend the time meditating, praying, or wondering how those machines don’t have a single spec of dust on them. I also wonder if I’m bigger than I think I am cuz that’s a tight squeeze and do people ever get stuck in there?? I mean, how does a Seattle Seahawk possibly fit in one of those? So many things to ponder while being wedged in a machine that sounds like you are trapped under the hood of a car with a super loud car alarm going off and a herd of wild dogs barking. It’s quite the experience. For a breast MRI you lay face down with your face in a cradle and your boobs nestled in little pillow thingys and I decided they should totally put a Go-Pro down there because my face was all squished and had to be totally awesome. Those pictures could keep those techs laughing for days. So the other really hard thing is you have to lay absolutely still for about 25 minutes. And every itch you can possibly imagine attacks. At one point during a 4 1/2 minute bong, bong, bong, bark, bark, pound, pound my right hip gets a muscle twitch and is literally twitching to the same beat as the machine. I kept thinking, OH NO, I’M MOVING, STOP TWITCHING and then I couldn’t tell if the twitching had stopped and the machine was just shaking so hard it still felt like twitching. The struggle is real!

So the phone rang at 8:00 AM, a Bellevue number. My heart stopped and I quit breathing as Dr. Harrington, breast surgeon, said she had my test results from the MRI yesterday. The good news: my right breast is clear and the lymph nodes still look good. The scary: my tumor has friends. The one jelly fish that I found is approximately 2cm under a 4cm mass. The MRI picked up 2 more masses on either side and another unorganized mass on the other side. I like to hang out with my friends so it makes sense that I would hatch cancer that doesn’t like to be lonely. So what does this mean? More tests. I’m scheduled for 2 more biopsies guided by ultrasound. If the ultrasound can’t pick them up I’ll have to be rescheduled for an MRI guided biopsy. They need to know if the masses are in fact, new tumors. If they are, my treatment options change quite a bit. A lumpectomy will not longer be an option and a full mastectomy will be absolute.

Today we also met with radiology and oncology at Overlake to find out what all the options are. There is so much information to process and Steve and I need to really to figure out what we really want. The important facts I learned today: I’m hormone positive, HER-2 negative but my Ki-67 is relatively high which means it’s aggressive. Not lazy, lay on the beach and enjoy a cocktail type of cancer. Apparently this is where my true colors shine through as this is rare for someone that is 47. It also makes the treatment a little harder to figure out. Hence, more biopsies and genetic testing on both me and my rare cancer. So my unique special reputation in the medical world continues. What a journey!

We are most likely still looking at surgery in mid-January, followed by chemo for 6 months and then possibly radiation for 40 days. This will land me in summer and you will find me on a beach in Puerto Vallarta with my boys, Steve and good friends. We had no idea when we booked the trip how much we would need it!

Your thoughts and prayers are totally helping!!! Please keep Steve, Jenna and the boys in your prayers. This reality is a lot to make sense of and it’s just the beginning. My sweet family knows how to warrior through the hard but watching your mama go through surgery and chemo is going to be really tough. They need the village. Much love and so much gratitude to all of you!

#cancersucks #lovewins #tellyourstory #thejourney