The biopsy was on Monday afternoon. The nurse called with the pathology results on Wednesday, March 25, at about 1:00 pm. The lymph node was clear. Both tiny masses were found to be invasive ductal carcinoma, abbreviated as IDC. This is a cancer that starts in a milk duct and then gets outside of it. The biggest one is 1.5 cm. IDC is about 75% of all breast cancers and, she told me, they have tons of experience treating it.

She told me that there was additional testing for hormone receptor sites, that would take another few days. But those results would give us more information about what kind of treatment to do.

The next step would be to go to the Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic at the central hospital. I would meet with the surgeon first, and then meet with a bunch of other specialists throughout the day. Because of COVID-19, I would only meet on-site with the general surgeon. The rest of the appointments would be by phone.

They hold the Multidisciplinary Clinic appointments every Thursday. The Mighty Sam asked me if it was more often before COVID-19, but I haven’t remembered to ask. It sounded to me like it was just every Thursday. My appointment would be Thursday, April 2. So I had a week to wait.

Ellen the nurse told me I would be getting a call from a Nurse Navigator who would help me, well, navigate the process. She also told me that I should watch a video on the clinic’s web site about surgery options.

So, that was pretty fucked up. First mammogram. Cancer. I don’t know if it would have helped if the radiologist had told me that it looked like cancer right away.

The Mighty Sam was here when I got the call of course – we were both working from home. He got the gist of the conversation from my side of it, and I gave him a summary. I called my mom and let her know. I took the rest of the day off – I called my boss since obviously this was going to impact my work significantly for quite a while. I can’t remember who else I told. I asked my mom to tell the rest of the fam so I wouldn’t have to. I let Vic and Christi know. My sister called me later.

The Mighty Sam and i watched the breast surgery video. That was probably the only time I did real crying, at least so far. But I also felt like I had a huge cry building up from the whole COVID-19 pandemic. I think it was a combination of both.

I also got a call from a scheduler, who gave me the rundown of everyone I would meet on the 2nd. The initial schedule was as follows:

  • General Surgeon
  • Social Worker
  • Radiation Oncologist
  • Medical Oncologist
  • Nurse Navigator
  • Plastic Surgeon

Later they would add a genetic counselor to the schedule and the order would get switched around a little.

The next day I got a call from Lizzy, the nurse navigator. She introduced herself and her role. That does seem really nice, that they have someone like that just to help you through it.

I had a couple of questions. First, I wanted to know how soon the surgery would be. She said they usually do it within 3 weeks of the initial appointment. However, with COVID-19 things are up in the air.

My other question was about working from home. I really do not want to get sick when I am getting ready to have cancer treatment. I asked if they would be able to recommend working from home and she said they could give me a doctor’s letter to that effect if I need one. She told me that I am not high-risk per se, but that it’s definitely best for me not to get sick. This was when she let me know about the genetic counselor. She thought it was a good idea to do a consult since I am so young (relatively speaking) and because I have an aunt who had breast cancer.

Then, on the Friday of that week, March 27, the nurse called me again with results from the hormone receptor testing. She said the results very good and she wanted to let me know right away: I had positive results for both estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors. This is very good because it means I’m eligible for hormone therapy. I also tested negative for a protein called Her-2-Neu, which is also a good thing.

The next day I woke up with a terrible migraine. I threw up several times and spent all morning and most of the afternoon in bed, writhing in pain. But that’s par for the course after a stressful week, and that week was pretty fucking stressful.