Jan 2 – Not a Happy New Year

My year got off to a bum start when I was diagnosed out of the blue with breast cancer Jan 2. On Jan 8, six days later, I had a mastectomy of my right breast and 12 lymph nodes removed, and was home from hospital in two days. As I had a ski trip organized in those 6 days, I went to Lake Louise with 15 others from my ski club (Ted wasn’t scheduled to come) and skied for three days. This got my body in shape for the big chop and I have bounced back really well from the surgery. My right arm has almost full range of motion and I am having physiotherapy once a week to get it back to normal.
I am also having lymph therapy as my right arm is marginally swollen, hopefully just from surgery, and I wear a pressure sleeve for a while each day to help that along. Hopefully this will resolve on its own with regular exercise.

My Care Team
I have had the most amazing care from my doctors and health professionals and we have one of the most advance breast cancer centres in the world here in Calgary. My oncology doc is a Scotsman, Dr. Sandy Paterson, trained in Edinburgh and Barts in London, who is a world expert on the treatment I am receiving. I feel very fortunate to have hit this hurdle at this point in my life, when we are retired and can spend the time to recover.

New Immunotherapy
I have a fairly unusual form of cancer (20-30% of women) which is HER2 receptive which means I will have immunotherapy to eradicate the cancer and give me another 30 years to live! The immunotherapy drug will be a shot every 3 weeks for a year, with little downtime or side effects expected. A slight risk is heart failure but I aced my cardiac test and they will test every 3 months to monitor me. The cost of this drug is $54,000 so we are fortunate to live in a country and province where it is part of our health system.

Where did it come from?
Like many women, my breast cancer developed without any signs – no lumps and only tracked once it had hit lymph nodes and was more like a muscle swelling than a lump. Regular mammograms since age 40 did not track it, including one in June 2006. In a family with two sisters, 3 aunts one side, 4 the other and 26 first cousins, we know of no breast cancer in the family at all. The diagnosis was made only after ultrasound found messy growths all over the breast, and core biopsies found the rather aggressive cancer itself, already metastasized into the lymph nodes. Fortunately, these tests - started Dec 14 and culminating in surgery Jan 8 - were done very fast before any further spread. I have to credit my GP Paty Waymouth and my surgeon she referred me to for fast work – Dr.Robert Lui.