More Information, Increased Hope

     Hi all, sorry for the delay, but I hope this post brings some light to your day. On January 10, 2011 she met with her Oncologist Dr. Lee (such an original name for a doctor these days lol). After reviewing her chest MRI, he was able to determine that the tumor in her breast is 3.7 centimeters, or about 1.5 inches. There are four stages of cancer and do the size of her tumor is was determined that her breast cancer is in Stage 2A. This is because any tumor larger than two centimeters is beyond Stage 1. Some other news that came from the MRI is that there is no cancer detected anywhere else in the breast and there is no cancer present in the other breast. WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!! Sorry about writing in all caps, I just needed a way to express my excitement. Some other good news is that via the MRI and also a physical exam, it does not look like the lymph nodes are enlarged, meaning the cancer has not affected them. This is not definite though, until the sentinel node is examined during surgery. The sentinel node is hypothetically the first node that is reached by metastasizing (growing/moving) cancer cells from a primary tumor. Lastly, her estrogen tests came back positive, so she will have to take hormone therapy for the next five years in order to help stop the recurrence of any cancer.
     Her next appointment is on January 13, 2011 and at this appointment she will be meeting with a surgeon to receive his recommendation on what type of surgery she will benefit most from and which will be the most successful. I hope this post have given you as much optimism as it has done for me. Please continue to keep grandma in your thoughts and prayers. She seems to be in good spirits about the process, so the more positive comments you send her way the better!

-Brett