post-op

I wish this update was different. I wish we were all popping bottles of champagne and celebrating that I’m cancer free. Unfortunately, wishes don’t work. I was going to wait on publishing an update until next steps were more clear but this in between is important too. 

My surgery on 3/21 went as well as it could. Of 20 lymph nodes removed, 17 were cancerous - this is good news that not all of them were cancer. My surgeon did get clear margins but they are very very small margins. I’m feeling great - better than I thought I would two weeks out!

Now, this is where things go off the rails. I will not be having my second surgery right now. Putting off reconstruction is incredibly difficult. I am nowhere near okay with this. But it’s what I have to do. 

Because there was so much cancer left at the time of surgery my entire team agrees I need to immediately get back to treatment - either radiation or more chemo and drug treatment and delay any additional surgery. I’ll also have a PET scan within the next week or two. 

A little surprise popped up in the pathology from my surgery. We’re still waiting on final results but it seems my cancer has morphed to HER2+. Meaning, it may not be triple negative and the targeted therapies I was on wouldn’t work because of this. Once we get the final pathology results on if it is HER2+ or not we’ll plan next steps. There are great targeted drug therapies for HER2+ breast cancer - and I would likely continue this great hair growth. 

This week I will focus on healing from surgery, wrapping my head around this ever changing path, and hope with my deepest hopes that an upcoming PET scan shows no metastasis. 

I want to thank everyone who has supported me with donations. This has been a huge burden and one less thing to worry about - especially as treatment seems to be continuing.