About a month ago, Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. I've created this group as a clearing house of information and ideas regarding Kate's progress in her fight against breast cancer.
We are truly grateful for all our caring friends and want to keep everyone up to date on what's going on. However,it can be a little daunting to make sure that all of our friends are caught up on where she's at, so I decided it would be a good idea to just update in one place. Everything is developing so quickly that it's hard to answer everyone's questions, so hopefully this will be a good resource for our friends to check in and see how things are going.
I'm also fielding some of the discussion to give Kate a break from having to think her situation all the time. This doesn't mean she doesn't want to hear from everyone, because she does. The warm wishes and good energy's really been incredible. It. just helps cut down on the repetition.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Kate's Cancer II

Just the Facts
I'm working on the lead up to where we're at now, but I'll spare everyone the narrative for now and tell you where we're at:
Kate's cancer is Invasive Ductile Carcinoma in her right breast, non-genetic based, Estrogen Response Positive. The tumor was right at about 1 in or 22mm. She has had a lumpectomy which required day surgery so far, but it looks as if there is two little arms of the thing left which we're waiting to hear if she'll now need a mastectomy.
They found some cells in her sentinel lymph node near the site which means that some cells have broken away. These cells are not metastatic, which is very good news. However, finding them elsewhere means she will have to have 8 weeks of bi-weekly chemo and will probably lose her hair (it'll grow back).
If she needs a mastectomy, she has to decide weather she will have reconstructive surgery. If she doesn't now, she probably won't be able to in the future. She will have 6 weeks of radiation after the chemo which in a fraction of patients can have complications with saline implants.
She was quite worried that she would have to have more lymph nodes removed, putting her at risk for stiffness and pain in the area and her arm known as lymphedema. This could have hindered her work as a photographer. However, now that she's guaranteed to be receiving chemo, they do not need to take anymore lymphs.
After all is said and done, 6-8 months and she'll be done with this BS.
Kate's currently looking for a cool hat.

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