I remember getting the call from my dad just a few weeks ago, "Your mom has breast cancer." Drawing on my vast knowledge of medicine and doctorly ways, I knew just what to do. I got on Google. Okay, that's not entirely true, I first got out all my medical text books, skimmed half a dozen pages of notes and realized, Google is easier.
The initial diagnosis was DCIS - ductal carcinoma in citu. It's a very treatable cancer in the breast that has a good prognosis. If you have to have a breast cancer, that's the one to have. Or so I thought.
My mom just got done with her first surgery and the new pathology report came back a little differently from the first. According to the biopsy sent for review, my mom actually had Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. "Eek." I thought when I first heard the new diagnosis. That sounds bad. And it is. Unless it's in the breast. You see, normally it affects the salivary glands and when that happens, it is bad news bears. But when it is found in only the breast, then it has an excellent prognosis. In fact, there is no medical literature that records any deaths from ACC. So we went from DCIS, which is pretty good to have, to ACC which is really good to have.
My mom's doctor is excellent. She is a sturdy, hold nothing back, Scottish woman who eats cancer for breakfast. Actually, that's a little weird. I doubt she actually eats cancer with her eggs and toast. But when I saw her, I was reminded of Mel Gibson with his face painted blue, riding a horse towards the English army and calling over his shoulder in his thick accent, "I'm off to pick a fight." I think she hates cancer as much as she hates the English. So I'm glad she's on our side.
However, we aren't in the clear yet. She still has another surgery and then radiation to follow. Just because there are no recorded deaths, we don't want to mess with cancer.
If you want to follow along with my mom's story, she recently started a blog. She hasn't put a lot up yet, but she plans to chronicle her journey there. I'll continue to post updates on here as events warrant.
No comments:
Post a Comment