Monday, March 23, 2009

Prologue

On March 23rd, my Doctor found a lump in my right breast. A mammogram and ultrasound revealed a "hyper-echoic" mass about 2.5 cm in diameter. Since breast cancer is hypoechoic, the chance that this was not cancer was about 99.999%. We scheduled a lumpectomy since the lump was large and "probably the kind of benign mass that would get larger and more uncomfortable". I had my lumpectomy on May 12th, 2009. The lump was sent to pathology. I got a call from my surgeon saying that the results of the path were unusual, and that it had been sent to another lab for further testing. At my follow-up appointment on Friday May 22,2009, Colin and I met the Dr. who said that the Lahey pathologist had found cells indicating that this was angiosarcoma. The results of the follow-up path report from Dana Farber had not yet come back, but we discussed what this meant, but we were on hold until the confirmation came back yes or no. He was not willing to write angiosarcoma in my chart unless it was certain. Not only were we stunned by this, but I think my breast surgeon was too. He has only seen this a couple of times, and then in women who have had prior cancer and lymphedema, never as a primary cancer like I have. We were in the process of giving him the numbers to contact us over the weekend as soon as he got the confirmation from Dana Farber when the call came in confirming the diagnosis. There was a flurry of activity getting me scheduled for an MRI, a PET/CT scan, Chest Xray, and blood work. We went home in a state of shock, called our parents, and then tried to act like nothing was wrong until we decided who we were going to tell and when. I had a mess in my office to clean up, so went back to work to keep my mind busy for a few hours until it was time to pick up Noelle from Daycare.