Scan Results

I'll start this blog by thanking you guys for your support. I appreciate each of you that has reached out to me and expressed your love, concern, and prayers for my family and me. This season of life is a tough one and I could not do it without the amazing support system that I have. Again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Since I last updated, I've done my bone scan, an MRI, and a CT scan, which were scheduled to determine if the cancer has spread anywhere else in my body, besides my breast and lymph nodes. I went in for my MRI on Thursday, the 25th. It lasted about 30 minutes and wasn't too terribly bad. I am claustrophobic, so I was really anxious about this test. It ended up being fine. The lady that administered the test noticed my "Pray First" bracelet that Pastor Chris gives out during 21 days of prayer and told me that she also attends COTH. She was super sweet and I felt like we had a little bond :) After the test, she let me look at the screen to see the scan, which basically meant nothing to me, but it was neat, nonetheless. The bone scan was really interesting. I went in after my MRI and they injected me with a tracer that would help them see my bones and detect cancer more clearly on the scan. I got a 2 hour break for lunch and then had to come back for the actual scan. This day I was accompanied by my entourage...mom, my sister Carly, my brother Shannon, and his girlfriend, Justine. I felt like a celebrity. I snapped these pics of our day.

I went back for the bone test and was amazed. I was able to look at my skeletal system on the screen the whole time and now know what I look like underneath it all! I kept staring at this huge white blob on the screen that was located near my pelvis. I just knew it was a tumor. Shut up, devil! David, the nice man handling the test let me know it was just my bladder. Hehe. I finished the tests and headed off to watch sweet Alaina at gymnastics. I was grateful to be done that day.

On Monday, the 29th, I had my CT scan. I was most nervous about this one, as I knew it would be the final test that determined how much spreading, if any, had occurred. I showed up at 3:55 pm and was gone by 4:30. It was really simple and other than the warm contrast that they injected, I didn't have any discomfort.

Yesterday, the 30th, I spoke with my clinical coordinator, Alma, who is such a blessing. She let me know that my bone test, MRI, and CT scan were back and they were all CLEAN! No sign of metastasis was found on any of the tests, besides what we already knew about in my lymph nodes. Also, I am Her2 NEGATIVE! Praise Jesus and thank YOU for all of the prayers. I know Heaven was flooded with prayers on my behalf from all of my prayer warriors and they were answered. God is so good.

Next Steps:

Ben and I will meet with my oncologist on Tuesday and then the fertility doctors right after that. I am having a really hard time with the fertility side of this and since I'm being honest, I'll say that this is personally the hardest decision I have faced during this process. I long for another baby. My heart desires more children and I truly believe that is God's plan for our family. With that being said, we are having to make decisions about whether or not to freeze eggs, go with injections during chemo to protect my ovaries, or do nothing at all and just hope for the best. Each of these options come with pros and cons and unfortunately, none of them are cut and dry. I wish they were. It's very difficult to have to make these decisions in a few days time. When you have dreams that you just knew would come true and then have to face the reality that they might not, it's tough. Cancer sucks. I love being pregnant and being a mommy. That's what makes me happy and I feel like that's my purpose in life. Alaina, Madeline, and Ben are my focus, however, and I have to be here for them. As I said in my last post, my number 1 priority is fighting this so that I can be alive to raise our daughters and grow old with Ben. I am trusting that God will give us peace about our decision and will lead us down the path that He has laid out for us.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

Chemo will start the week of the 12th. Keeping with the theme of honesty, I am terrified. I just can't comprehend how I can feel so normal right now, like 100%, and know that in 2 weeks, I will likely be experiencing the most uncomfortable pain of my life. I am scared. I want to be the mom that our girls need and I burst into tears every time I think of possibly not having enough energy to play with them. I don't want to tell them "no". I want to cook for them, give them baths, take Alaina to 4K, play outside. I'm worried that I won't be able to do that once I begin chemo and that breaks my heart. I am also really struggling with losing my hair. In the beginning, I thought I would be fine with that, as long as I lived. That's still true, but like I've said before, you don't realize you're vain, until you're vain. I am so concerned with how Alaina will handle me not having hair. Anyone that knows her, knows that she "is" Rapunzel. She loves long hair and cries when I even mention trimming MY hair. How will she react when I don't have hair? Will she be scared of me? Will she think I did it to upset her? How do you explain cancer to a 4 year old? How do you explain that you HAD to do it for your health, without making her worry? Will Ben still find me attractive with a shaved head? That has to be odd for a husband. Will I look in the mirror and recognize myself? Oh how I wish this was just a bad dream.

On a positive note, our church starts small groups this week. I had considered not doing one because I just didn't think I would find a group that I could attend regularly or that I would feel comfortable with, since there were so many changes taking place in my life. Silly Heather. Don't doubt God's ability to provide. A sweet lady is hosting a group called "Young Women Beating Breast Cancer Together". I mean...how perfect! I reached out to the leader and she is such a blessing. She had the same type cancer as me, almost exact same journey, 2 young kids, etc. and even had the same team of doctors. She has helped me so much and I know God put her in my life for a reason.

I went shopping for a journal today and as I was strolling the "inspiration aisle", I found a new life verse:

Specific prayer requests:

For guidance as we make decisions about fertility

God will prepare my heart for His will as far as the future of our family goes

I don't carry the gene that can be passed onto our girls

My anxiety will lessen as I prepare to lose my hair

My body will respond well to chemo

With love,

Heather

My Journey

I've always wanted to write a blog. I really enjoy using words and sentiments to express how I'm feeling. I had a vision of a cute family blog that told all about the wonderful adventures we experience with our kids, pictures of their sweet faces, and memories that I could keep for a lifetime. I will get to that one day. For now, I am writing a different blog. This one won't be near as exciting, but I need to do it, for my sanity, and so I can daily reflect on the goodness of my God. I want to be able to look back and remember how He worked in my life and how He grew my faith through a season of life that I never expected to experience. Ok. I know you're all (assuming anyone is reading this) wondering what in the world I'm talking about, so I'll start from the beginning.

Warning: This entry will be long! 

April 1, 2016 (Friday night)

I had just finished nursing my sweet Madeline and was getting ready to go to bed. I felt a lump in my right breast and immediately fell to my knees. The devil took control immediately, as he always does, in our moments of weakness. He began to whisper thoughts in my head that spoke of death, leaving my girls without a mom, and how I was going to abandon my precious husband. I will stop here and say that I am a believer in Jesus. He is my hope and my salvation. At that moment, everything I knew about praying and calling on God, escaped me. I was listening to the devil's lies and they consumed me. We had a wedding to go to the next day and Ben and I were leaving the girls with my mom so we could enjoy a night away. I tried so hard to focus on our time together and the beautiful wedding that we were attending, but I couldn't stop the thoughts that were running through my head. Fast forward to Monday morning. I called the doctor at 8:00 on the dot to schedule an appointment. They could get me in that day. Praise Jesus! Ben and I went to St. Vincent's for the appointment. My doctor felt the lump and was pretty confident that I had an unharmful, swollen lymph node. No worries. She sent me to get an ultrasound, to confirm. At this point, I was at ease. As I mentioned before, I was still nursing M, so I found peace in her diagnosis. I got the ultrasound and they confirmed that it was a lactating adenoma, which is a non-cancerous breast tumor commonly seen is lactating women. Great! It's benign and nothing to worry about. Come back in 6 months to check in on this harmless, yet annoying, mass on my chest. I kept thinking I should possibly get a biopsy, but with the confidence of my doctor, the nurses, and the radiology team, I decided to trust them.

August 1, 2016

Over the past 4 months, I've had a couple tugs on my heart to get the lump biopsied, but I didn't, mainly because I didn't notice any changes and I trusted what the doctors told me in April. I finally decided to follow my gut and called my doctor to find out the next step. They referred me to a surgeon for a biopsy to confirm their previous diagnosis and I scheduled an appointment for August 8.

August 8, 2016

Ben, my incredibly supportive husband, went with me to get the biopsy. We met with the surgeon and she said that from evaluating the images (from my previous u/s), she thinks they were right....either a fibroadenoma or a lactating adenoma. They prepped me for the biopsy and then pulled out what they call the "biopsy gun" which resembled a basketball pump. She "fired" the gun and it sounded like they were using a commercial grade staple gun on my lump. Yikes. It was loud, but didn't hurt, thanks to the local anesthetic :) After we finished, my doctor assured me that she thought everything would be ok and come back normal. It was Monday, and she expected to call me by Thursday with the results. I left the appointment feeling very confident that everything was good.

August 11, 2016

I went to work, as usual, and had a full day of meetings. I expected to get some results of the tests today and honestly, wasn't at all nervous that I would hear anything other than confirmation of what the first ultrasound showed. Around 1:45, my doctor called and left me a voicemail asking for a returned call. I called her back and my life changed. "Heather, I got your results. I didn't expect this, but you have breast cancer. I'm sorry. I have pushed your file to the side of my desk all day because I didn't want to call you." Wow. Cancer. I sat there, in silence, for at least 30 seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. I didn't have words. Cancer? I'm only 32. I have 2 young children. I'm healthy. I workout. I breastfed my children. I thought I was doing everything right. Cancer doesn't discriminate, apparently. My doctor rambled off a bunch of medical terms that I tried to jot down and she told me she'd be in touch to set up an appointment for a gene test and a meeting with an oncologist. I said oncologist over and over again in my head. Wait, that's a cancer doctor. Oh that's right. I have cancer. I'm sure you can sense the shock and disbelief that I was experiencing. We got off the phone and I parked my car in an abandoned church parking lot in Montgomery. Not the safest, I know, but I didn't think driving was much safer at the moment. I called Ben and between my hyperventilating and sobbing, I told him that I had cancer. I keep thinking that the more I say it (or write it), the easier it will get, but it's still tough.

I didn't hear from my doctor on Friday, so I spent the weekend wondering what was next. I did get to hangout with some of my closest friends that weekend, so that made me feel really good. It was nice to somewhat take my mind off of what was going on. Over the weekend, I spoke with Ben, my mom, and a few others that I highly trust, and decided to reach out to UAB. This is one of the top hospitals in the country and is the ONLY National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the Southeast. I thought I would be doing my health and myself a disservice to not reach out to them, since they're basically in my backyard, so to speak. I didn't know who to call, so I found an appointment request link online. My request was something to the effect of, "Hi. I was diagnosed with breast cancer last week and am looking to get an appointment with one of your oncologists. I am 32 and have a husband and 2 babies that I cannot leave behind. Please have someone contact me ASAP."

In the attempt to keep this blog from being entirely too long, I'll spare you some details. Fast forward a couple days and I had appointments set with both St. Vincent's and UAB. I do have to mention that UAB had the absolute best communication and organizational processes that I've ever experienced.

August 18, 2016

Appointment day with St. Vincent's. Ben and my mom, who have been by my side the whole time, went with me to the appointment. The doctor's wife had to have emergency surgery, so he wasn't able to meet with me. At first I was bummed, but then remembered that Ben was missing work to sit right beside me, so how could I expect the doctor to do anything different for his wife. Doctors are still people and they have families that should come before work. I met with the wonderful Nurse Practitioner, Melissa. She was so sweet. We were still waiting on one component of my biopsy to come back, which is apparently a pretty important part of the test. She examined me and said she didn't feel any swelling in my lymph nodes (yay!) and that the doctor feels confident that I caught this at the very beginning and at the best time. They wanted to wait for the Her2 test to come back, but felt that I would only have to have the lump removed and do radiation for maybe 12 weeks. I left that appointment hopeful and relieved.

August 23, 2016

Appointment day with UAB. I was very optimistic and expected to hear basically the same thing that I had heard at St. Vincent's on Thursday. Surgery, radiation, goodbye cancer. Mom went with me to the appointment. Ben has recently gotten a promotion at work and has a lot more responsibility. He needed to get some stuff done and I didn't want him just sitting in a room waiting on me when he could be finishing up some work. Ben is such a hard worker and does so much for our family. I hate that he's having to take on any extra stress with my diagnosis, but he's handling it so well. Ok. So I started out with a mammogram, which was new to me. After that, I went to get another ultrasound. They wanted to look at the lump and compare it to what they saw on the u/s that I did at St. Vincent's. Back in April, the lump was 2-2.5 cm. The surgeon confirmed that it felt roughly the same size when she felt it on August 11. Today, it was 3.8 cm. So, yeah, that's definitely growing. They checked my left breast (the good one) and everything looked normal. They looked at my lymph nodes on the left side and showed me what normal nodes look like. She then went to my right breast (cancer side) and checked out my nodes. I quickly noticed that these did not look like the "normal" ones she had just shown me. She immediately ordered a biopsy of the nodes. Long story short, within 15 minutes, I found out that my cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. Bummer.

They took me over to the breast center, where I was scheduled to meet with my team of doctors to come up with a treatment plan. While I was in the waiting room, they brought in a nice lady from the American Cancer Society. She started giving me pamphlets on their organization. A few of the many things that they do are help with transportation, hotel stays, and makeovers for women who end up losing their hair. What? That's not going to be me, is it? At about that time, when my mind started racing, they called me back.

I sent Ben a text to let him know that I was going to meet with my team of doctors and would be in the meeting for about 2 hours. Next thing I know, he's there. Have I mentioned how wonderful and supportive my husband is? ;) UAB is so thorough. They assign you a team of doctors that will be with you the entire time. I have a radiology oncologist, surgical oncologist, a hematologist, and a resident doctor. They all came in (picture 4 doctors and the 3 of us crammed in an exam room!), gave me a bunch of medical info that my secretary (mom) wrote down. Haha. She's so great. You'll hear much more about what a rock she is for me throughout this process, I'm sure of it. I was told that we're still waiting on the results from the Her2 test, which like I mentioned above, is very important because if it's positive, that means my cancer is more aggressive and grows at a faster rate. They addressed that my cancer is obviously spreading, which I knew from the ultrasound, and said I needed to start chemotherapy ASAP. So to answer my own question from above, yes, I will lose my hair. They need me to do some additional tests before we get started: MRI, CT scan, bone scan, genetic testing to see if I have a gene that I might have passed on to my girls, and a meeting with the fertility doctor to discuss options of preserving my eggs, in case Ben and I want to have more children in the future.

Basically, this is what I'm facing. They said, from what they know so far, I have Stage 2b-Stage 3 cancer. When I heard that, tears started flowing. I've always known that Stage 4 is bad. If i'm close to 3, that's close to 4. The doctors assured me that it's not as cut and dry as that. They believe I have a much better chance of surviving this than not and feel that being young, my odds are even higher.

I will likely do chemo for 6 months. Hopefully the chemo will shrink the lump and kill the cancer in my lymph nodes and anywhere else it has spread in my body. Next, I will have surgery to remove the lump and then radiation for a set amount of time, likely close to 12 weeks.

This is what I know. My God is GOOD. He loves me and has a plan for my life. This was not my plan, but I have such a peace about it. Cancer will not kill me. God has something so much bigger in store for me. I want to come out of this, on the other side, ALIVE, and know that I'm changed. Not on the outside, not just physically on the inside, but completely changed at my core, in my soul. The way that only He can change me. I am grateful that He has me here now, at this season of my life. If I would have experienced this 5 years ago, or goodness, even in April, my faith wouldn't be as strong as it is now. I am standing firm on His promises and believing in complete healing. I know there's a purpose for this and He will carry me through this process.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10                                 

I would appreciate your prayers during this time. Please pray for Ben, my babies, my family, my friends, my doctors, and my healing.

Specific prayer requests:

Cancer hasn't spread anywhere else in my body.
Upcoming scans come back clear.
My Her2 test comes back negative.
My body handles the chemo well.
I don't carry a gene that could be passed on to our girls.
Ben and I will make an educated decision on whether or not to invest in the fertility side.

Thank you for reading. This is an outlet for me to express the desires of my heart and to keep everyone that I love up to date on my journey. I am blessed with the absolute best husband, family, and friends and I just can't put into words (believe it or not) how full my heart is at this moment. I am hopeful, grateful, and blessed.

"I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future." - Ralph Abernathy

With love,

Heather