I just wanted to give y’all a quick update since so many of you are asking about my mama today. Unfortunately, I don’t have a whole lot of an update to give you!

We went to the MRI appointment this morning. The poor nurse had to stick my mom three different times trying to get a good vein for the IV. While my mom was being imaged for what seemed like days, I went to the pharmacy and got her barium sulfate smoothie that she will have to drink before her CT scan in the morning (it’s a contrast so things show up on the CT better). The “vanilla smoothie” flavored drink looks gross. So glad I’m not the one who has to drink it at 5 AM. 😉

After the MRI, we went to the cancer center in the hospital, where we learned that there is a perk to having cancer: awesome parking!

At the cancer center, we met with Kathy, our Nurse Navigator. She’s been an oncology nurse for 40 years, and she gave us a ton of booklets and a great cookbook and answered several questions we’ve had.

Here’s some information that will hopefully answer some of your questions:

What type of cancer does she have?

Mom’s cancer is invasive ductile breast cancer, which is the most common type of breast cancer. This means the cancer started in the ducts and crossed over into other parts of the tissue, making it invasive. She also tested positive for the Her2 protein, which is a protein that tells multiplies quickly. Her2 positive cancer is not very common and only makes up about 20% of cases. It is an aggressive cancer, but there are chemotherapy drugs that target Her2 positive specifically.

Why is she having chemotherapy before surgery?

Herceptin and Perjeta, the two Her2 positive chemo meds are extremely targeted to the Her2 protein (which makes the cancer spread) and can be very effective. Perjeta has only been recently approved by the FDA in the last couple of years, and in clinical trials it was administered before surgery. Because it’s still in the early stages of this drug, insurance companies only pay for it if it’s done before surgery as it was administered in the clinical trial stage.

When will you get the results of the scans and know what stage the cancer is?

We’ll get a call with results of the MRI and other scans by Tuesday. Then we will finally know what stage the cancer is! I’ll post as soon as we find out, I promise! No need to ask my mom as we will put it on here and you’ll be notified via email if you’ve subscribed.

When are you meeting with an oncologist, and who is your doctor?

We have an appointment with the Medical Oncologist, Dr. Juvvadi (Let’s just call her Dr. J …) tomorrow right after the CT and bone scans. Mom’s done all of her imaging at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Irving. We’ll talk about when mom is starting chemo and what the recommendations for treatment with the oncologist tomorrow.

When is she starting chemotherapy?

Mom’s scheduled to have her surgery to put in the port for chemo on Wednesday at 8:30 AM. This should be a pretty easy and quick surgery. We’re hoping she’ll start chemo next week on Thursday or Friday.

I’ll post again as soon as we get the staging test results on Monday or Tuesday. I promise you’ll know when we know!

Can I visit Suzi?

We’re still not sure when everything is happening, and we’ve been so busy with doctor appointments. Kathy told us that once chemo starts, we need to keep visitors low because of risk of infection. With that being said, I know my mom would love to see some of her family and friends. We’ll know more of when soon. Reach out to me or my mom if you’d like to visit at some point. If you are planning on visiting my mom – PLEASE GO GET YOUR FLU SHOT. You will not be admitted anywhere close to her without a flu shot. She’s got a pretty protective body guard. 😉 Also, use hand sanitizer regularly, and stay healthy!. She’ll be very susceptible to germs once treatment begins.

Will you ever stop sending me email notifications?

Okay, so nobody has actually asked that, but I realize I’ve posted pretty frequently the last few days. If you’ve signed up for the email notifications (in the right sidebar of this page), you may be annoyed at the couple of emails you’ve gotten. If you want to unsubscribe, you can on those emails. I’m hoping that once we get through the initial scans, updates won’t happen quite as often. I just want to make sure we’re posting any info we have since my mom is receiving so many texts.

I think mom’s kind of liking this newfound popularity. Here’s hoping it doesn’t go to her head. I feel like the larger your head is, the less of a chance you have to actually look good bald. 🙂

Thanks for all of your love and support! We’ve loved reading all of your sweet comments. Keep them coming!

Love y’all,

Sydnie

Mom will be having an MRI tomorrow at 10 AM. That will take 2 hours.

On Friday at 6:30 AM we will go in for her CT and bone scan. That should take 4 hours.

Everyone PLEASE pray that the scans come back clear and that this stupid, stupid cancer has not spread past the lymph nodes. This is extremely important.

Also say a special prayer for me as I will will be the one going with my mother, who is in no way a morning person, to that 6:30 AM appointment on Friday. Yikes. 😉

We should know when she’s scheduled for her port surgery by the end of the day today.

Thank you so much!

Love y’all,

Sydnie

We met with the surgeon today and were hoping to get a lot of questions answered. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get many answers. We still only know that she has cancer. We don’t know what stage it is or what is going to happen. The clinic that did the initial scans and biopsies gave my mom an envelope with her test results in it. They failed to put tumor marker information in that envelope, so the surgeon does not know the hormone receptor status yet.

Here’s what Dr. Clifford (the surgeon) did tell us:

Staging Studies

She has to do the “staging studies” which means doing the following additional scans this week to help determine what stage the cancer is.

• CT scan of her chest, abdomen, and pelvis
• Bone scan
• Breast MRI
  • Chances of finding cancer in her left breast (currently it is only confirmed in her right) is 2.5%

These scans will help determine how extensive the spread of the cancer is. We’re hoping it’s only spread to one of her lymph nodes.

Hormone Receptors

There are three hormones we’re dealing with: Estrogen, Progesterone, and Her2.

What we would like to see from her tumor markers:

Estrogen – positive

Progesterone – positive

Her2 – negative

Here’s what we’ll know after that:

If E+, P+, Her2-, then they will determine whether she will have chemotherapy or surgery first. Starting next week. This will depend on the scan results as well.

If E+, P+, Her2+, then they will definitely start with chemo first.

What we don’t want:

Triple Negatives – That is harder to treat, but there’s still treatment.

Chemo and Radiation

She will definitely do chemo, and will possibly do radiation as well. It all depends on those dang receptors and what they find in the scans.

Surgery

There are a few options (lumpectomy, single mastectomy, double mastectomy). Mom wants to do a double mastectomy to be the most aggressive. The surgeon said that if she were to do a lumpectomy or single mastectomy, the chance of finding cancer in the breast that was left would be 15-20%. That’s a higher number than we’d like to deal with, so mom says “just lob them off”. She’s convinced she’s walking away from this with a new rack no matter what, haha.

Also – They’ll definitely remove at least one, if not more lymph nodes.

Hopefully she’ll get all three scans done this week so we can get those results and know what we’re dealing with. I’ll keep you posted! We should receive the hormone receptor info tomorrow, so I’ll do another post when we have that info.

In the meantime, I’m stocking her fridge with actual food (a foreign concept in this house). Healthy eating starts tomorrow. Tonight we’re eating pizza and watching the debate, completely “unplugging” from cancer stuff as my mom says. 🙂

Thank you always for your support!

Love y’all,

Sydnie