Playing the Odds

I was at the women’s breast health centre yesterday for some additional imaging and I couldn’t help but look around the waiting room at all the women in their hospital gowns, wondering how many of them would receive good news and how many of them would receive bad news. The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation says that 1 in 9 Canadian women will be affected by breast cancer in their lifetime so I guess my being there helped their odds! You’re welcome, strangers in the waiting room.

My imaging was clear, but I haven’t responded to any of the antibiotics that have been prescribed to rule out an infection, so just to be safe, my breast surgeon took another tissue biopsy today. This entailed three needles for freezing and three punch biopsy samples taken. She said there is a 60% chance it is nothing and apologized that these were maybe not the odds I was hoping for. I told her that having already been recently diagnosed with breast cancer tends to take the fear out of breast biopsies. I should receive the results by next Thursday.

Truth be told, I am more worried that she won’t be able to tell me what is causing my physical symptoms (which she says she has never seen before), how to treat them, how long I can expect them to remain, how much worse they might get, and what to do with them going forward than I am about an additional cancer diagnosis. At least with a cancer diagnosis, it is pretty clear how to treat it and I am already in the throes of treatment anyway…

So my busy week of appointments concludes tomorrow with my third round of chemotherapy (assuming all of my blood counts are all ok!)  I am very tired and not looking forward to how I will feel post-chemo.

Thank you to all of you for the beautiful cards and treats, and for checking in on me and movo! I am so thankful for all of the wonderful friends I have in my life.

xxoo