Hello dear friends and family,
Some of you already know that I was dignosed with stage 2 breast cancer last Friday. I just created this email group of my family members and some dear friends so I could keep you all updated on what is going on. I know sometimes people want to know but don't want to bother me to ask, so here ya go!
Next week I go in for a minor surgery to remove a few lymph nodes and to insert a "port" where they will administer the chemo. This port will stay in for about a year, because I have HER2 positive. This supposedly is good and bad. Good because they have amazingly effective drugs that can fight it, bad because the cancer is agressive and I have to go in every 3 weekds for a year to get the drug squirted in to my port. ;)
So chemo will begin next week (I think) and last for 3-4 months. The doctors all say I'll lose my hair so I went with my mom to the cancer resource center yesterday to see what free wigs they had and we walked away with the one that I hated the least! I definitely think I'll be a scarf girl, not a wig girl. But Trevor said we should go and actaully BUY one at a nice wig store. (anybody know one?) When or if my hair starts to fall out, we'll be hosting a "head shaving/dying pink" party, and anyone is welcome to come and shave or dye! Sound fun?
After chemo, I'll undergo surgery. I guess that will be my Christmas present! The doctors recommend a mastectomy because I have 3 different cancers and they have spread out in to more than one quadrant of my breast. One of them is rather close to chest muscle, which is a reason they want to do chemo first. To shrink the cancer away from the muscle a little bit. Now, because I am so young and because my grandma was so young when she was diagnosed with breast cancer (she was 42), they think I might be a carrier of the BRCA gene. I was tested for it on Monday and will have the results in about a week. If I do carry that gene, I am highly likely to get breast cancer again and they would recommend a bilateral mastectomy.
Now you know what I know!
Love Lauren
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