1st Oncologist Appointment...

Today Greg and I went to see Dr. Gococo, the chemo oncologist. I have great faith in him- he is so knowledgeable and puts things in "simple" terms to understand. (Although he asked me if I was a nurse because all of my great questions using "their" lingo...haha!) He had my path report from surgery and he didn't like delivering the news. My good friend Julie works at the Cancer Center and told Dr. Go to treat me well because I was a good friend of hers. Dr. Go told Julie that he was afraid he didn't have the best news to share with me. I'm not much of a mathematician, but the statistics were kinda overwhelming! Let me back up a minute...I knew from surgery that there was cancer in one if not more lymph nodes. So today, Dr. Go told me there was 5 cancerous nodes out of 9. That was disturbing to him, as well as us, with me being only 31 years old. So back to the stat sheet he had...basically, he plugged in all my info and the program spits out numbers for recurrence rates based on different treatment methods. I guess I was expecting lower numbers, but based on those stats, with chemo and hormone therapy (which I am a candidate for) I have a 40% recurrence rate. Wow- I thought that was awfully high still, but, as my friend Shella said, we have to look at the 60% that don't have recurrence. And in reality, those are only numbers and God has the final count dealing with recurrence! So, once again, I need to turn it all over to Him to place in His massive hands. We also discussed the fact that my cancer is hormone receptive. They have a drug out called Tamoxifen, which aides as a hormone blocker. But the problem is, I am premenopausal and my ovaries are producing estrogen, which is fueling the cancer cells to grow and split. Dr. Gococo talked about "putting me in menopause" with an injection. Now, boy...I hope Greg is ready for this one because I remember my mother going through menopause...watch out! I'm not exactly sure when that would take place, but it was discussed. As far as a timeline goes- which all of you that know me know how much I like to have a plan of action- I am having a PET scan next Thursday along with an eckocardiogram. The PET scan is from skull to mid-thigh and is another radioactive test that looks for other "hot-spots" of cancer. Dr. Gococo hopes to see none. The eckocardiogram is being done to make sure my heart is in good condition because 1-2% of cancer patients have a heart reaction due to the chemo. I then have an appointment to see Dr. Go again on October 9th and start chemo either the 10th or the next week. He plans to be very aggressive and do 6 cycles every 21 days. Meantime, I also will meet with Dr. Wilcox- the radiation oncologist- on October 7th. We also are going for genetic testing to see if I carry the BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 gene. (I really don't know too much about that yet.) Is your head spinning yet, because mine is! I have a lot of decisions to make in the near future and need guidance from God with them. Please continue the prayers- and people have asked if they can put me on their prayer requests at church and the answer is ABSOLUTELY! The more people praying, the better! :)