Diagnosis

January 30, 2013
Mary received a call from her OB-Gyn, Dr. JulieAnn Heathcott that the results from her Annual Mammogram and the follow-up biopsy that they asked she have done came back positive for cancer.
The "C" word.  Yeah, it's only Breast Cancer and so many women have had it and fought it, but when you hear that you have it, it's pretty overwhelming and devastating.
She was referred to her Breast Surgeon, Dr Linda Liu.
February 6, 2013
Visit with Dr. Liu.  She went over the mammogram x-rays with Rick, Mary, and me.  At that point she told us that the tumor itself was a Her2positive tumor.  She said that the type of tumor it is, is the best and easiest type to treat.  Everything we heard about the tumor was very positive.  There was a lymph node showing on the x-ray that looked very suspicious and when they did the biopsy, it came back clean.  However, because of the looks of it, Dr. Liu suspected they missed the node when they did the biopsy so she ordered a MRI.  She also had Mary do a BRCA test which is a test to see if she has the breast cancer gene.
February 15, 2013  This week she received the results of the BRCA test which came back negative.  The MRI that was to re-look at the lymph node came back inconclusive.
The assumed treatment plan at this point would be, surgery (a lumpectomy) with a sentinal node biopsy, radiation, and chemo being a possibility depending on what they find with the node biopsy during surgery.
February 25, 2013  Mary and Rick met with the Radiation Oncologist, Dr, Luci Chen, to go over her Radiation options.  They were 1 per day for a week or 5 a week for 6 weeks.  This would be after surgery.
February 25, 2013  Dr. Liu's assistant called to schedule surgery.  Surgery scheduled for March 22nd. Mary told her that Dr. Liu wanted them to meet with the Oncologist before scheduling surgery.
February 28, 2013  Mary and Rick met with Dr. Gerry Kato, Oncologist.  They were told that surgery would not be scheduled.  Mary would be having Chemo first due to the fact that the lymph node was definitely cancerous.

Week of March 3rd  PET Scan (came back clear), Port put in (she feels like there is an alien in her body), Chemo Class (she felt it was a waste of time).