The scoop on my cancer

March 14, 2010
Dr Z. got down to the hard facts quickly. I have stage 2 invasive lobular carcinoma. Stage 2 is an early stage cancer and the mass was only about 2cm square, about the size of a peanut. In an earlier post I talked about the LCIS diagnosis I'd been given 15 years ago, which gave me a 1 in 5 chance of developing full-blown lobular carcinoma. Guess what!! I was the one in the group of five. Shoot!

Here's what I learned about my cancer on the Mayo Clinic website. "At some point, abnormal cells may break out of the lobules and invade or "infiltrate" the surrounding tissue, becoming invasive lobular carcinoma. Lobular carcinoma cells tend to break out of the lobule in single file, then invade surrounding breast tissue in a web-like manner. The affected area may have a different feel from normal breast tissue, but it is unlikely to feel like a lump."

I also learned that lobular carcinoma is less common than ductal carcinoma, but that it can metastasize to other parts of the body. PLUS.... it doesn't show up on mammograms, and that's a very worrisome thing.

Patients with the invasive lobular, like mine, all need radiation to kill any of the little buggers still hiding in the lobules, waiting to march off in single file, so "Make an appointment to see Dr Pathare', the radiation oncologist", was first on my To Do list.

Next up was a discussion of my lymph nodes, two of which had turned up positive for cancer. This didn't seem to be much of a good thing in anyone's opinion. Without beating about the bush, what it means is that those pesky little buggers have not only marched, in single file, out of the lobules, but right out of the breast.

There's only one way to deal with marching cancer cells and that's to zap them to kingdom come with chemotherapy. Dr Z. had no doubts at all about this. "Make an appointment to see Val, the vein nurse". Okay. "You'll need a bone scan - I'll set that up for you". Thanks. "When was your last colonoscopy? Book one now". Alrighty. "And have an endoscopy at the same time". "You're going to need an echocardiogram". "Have you had a chest x-ray?". "And you'll need to get your teeth cleaned and checked before you start treatment".

Thank goodness L was keeping track of all this because I was started to feel like a car having one of those really expensive services!