B Cup Begone! -- Andrea's Story

Andrea had her port installed on Tuesday this past week so we were at the hospital for an operation once again.  This one was much shorter, but I'm a pro now at the whole sit and wait game.  After getting Andrea all prepped up and covered in her favorite warm blankets, the doctors started to come in to do their pre-surgery checks and explanations.  Come to find out, the nurse anesthetist who was going to care for Andrea was a man I grew up with.  It was an awesome comfort to know that she was going to be in such good hands.  The surgery went well and since it was far less invasive than her past operation, we were able to head home soon after she came back to the recovery room. This week was also full of different tests and scans.  We ran into our first hiccup with the insurance company as they would not approve one of the tests the oncologist ordered.  Andrea called the doctor's office and he said that it will now go into a process where he has to ca...

As a football fan I've heard all my life that it is a game of inches.  An inch gained here, an inch lost there can be the difference between wining and losing.  Cancer must be a game of millimeters then and we're hoping this week we got information that will find us on the winning side of the line.  Since the surgery last week we have been waiting for the pathology to get back and on Wednesday we finally found out some more about the tumor that was removed and the tissue surrounding it.  The big news that we've been waiting on has been whether or not the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.  According to the pathology report there were no cancer cells present in the lymph nodes.  We were also anxious to find out about the margins, the distance between the cancer cells and the edge of the tissue sample, and found out that the closest margin was 1 mm between the breast tissue and where it was taken off the muscle wall.  The overall tumor was 3.5 x 3.0...

The sun was just peeking over the mountains Wednesday morning when Andrea and I arrived at the hospital.  It was a cool morning with a calmness that belied the nerves I was feeling.  Andrea was ready to move forward.  With her quiet confidence and strength, we walked through the doors into what would be one of the longest days of my life.  If you have never been the one waiting around to hear how a surgery has gone, let me tell you it is a nerve wracking experience.  Lucky for me, my father-in-law arrived to keep me company just as Andrea rolled down the hall into the operating room.  Four hours later the doctor came into our room to let us know that the surgery had gone as well as it could have.  There were some good signs for us that day.  For one, the lymph nodes were not the worst the doctor had ever seen.  Cancer is hard, and when it has spread to the lymph nodes they are usually enlarged.  Andrea's were small and soft, so if the ...

Andrea is out of surgery and everything went as well as it could.  The doctor said that the lymph nodes looked pretty good compared to what he has seen in the past.  We are hopeful that they were able to get all of the cancer but we will not know until we get the pathology reports back in a few days.  She is resting and there is a good chance she will be able to go home tonight.  Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts and prayers. It really is amazing how much support we have felt these past couple of weeks. 

We got the confirmation that Andrea's surgery will be Wednesday.  I will post something after to let everyone know how it went.  In our consultation with the surgeon he went over the surgery and some of the things that will happen after.  We won't know a lot more until the pathology on the lymph nodes comes back but at least the cancer will be out of where we know it is.  Thanks for the prayers.

It's only going to be a short post this week since we're still waiting to find out when Andrea will go in for surgery.  She was able to meet with the geneticist on Monday and those tests were run, but we haven't found out the results yet.  They told Andrea that it usually takes five to twelve days to get the results, so for now we just wait.  We are still expecting to find out soon what she will have removed and when it will happen. During the wait time, it has been interesting to find out more about breast cancer and the support community that surrounds it.  Andrea met with a nurse navigator that gave her a lot of great information and the radiologist technician that performed her mammogram gave her a binder full of resources.  We found out there is a store that caters to the specialty clothing needs of women who have had breast cancer, like swimsuits with pockets for prostheses, and were introduced to "knitted knockers."  We were given a gas card to he...

It has been a wild ride the past few days, and there have been a lot of people to tell about Andrea's diagnosis.  Some friends who went through this several years ago said that it was a big help to have a blog to keep people informed on how things were going instead of trying to text everyone individually.  Frankly, I had no idea how hard it would be to try to tell everyone we are close to about what we're going through.  Everyone is concerned and everyone wants to know how they can help.  We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support.  True to what we were told, it is too difficult to tell everyone everything we'd like.  You know I'm not a social media guy, and since Andrea appointed me the spokesman, I'm going with a blog.  We wanted a title that was us, and so starts the B Cup Begone! blog.  This is Andrea's story for the next little while.  This is a story I never wanted to write, but since it needs to be told, I'll do my best...