Ok, so we have a plan

We met today with Dr. Q and he brought in an associate that he thinks very highly of. Dr. R is affiliated with MD Anderson and has been around for decades. He examined me and then the two of them formulated our attack plan.

I will be going in the first part of next week to have a Port-a-Cath placed in my chest. This will be to administer the chemo through so they don't have to find a vein each time. They will also be placing a marker on the tumor. This will help to show us the area of the tumor in case the chemo destroys the tumor totally. I will begin chemo after Thanksgiving. I will have 2 or 3 rounds of chemo at first. If the tumor responds well and shrinks we will then do surgery to remove the rest of it. If it doesn't respond well to the chemo then a mastectomy will still be on the agenda. I am scheduled to have a total of 6 rounds of chemo--1 every 21 days or so. I will have the first 2 or 3 prior to surgery and the remaining treatments after surgery. I will still have radiation after chemo unless I have a mastectomy.

We feel good with the plan. Dr. Q said he would administer chemo as a systemic treatment regardless of our surgery options due to my age. It just makes sense to try to shrink the tumor and remove a small part of the breast as opposed to just going in and removing the breast entirely in the beginning.

Thanks to everyone for your love and support. We appreciate the phone calls and cards. We are doing well with all of this so far. We are just ready to get the show on the road. The sooner they cure me the sooner we can get our lives back in order.

Oh and the good news for today is that all of my scans came back normal. As of right now the cancer is still contained in the breast. We won't know if it's in the lymph nodes until surgery, but we are encouraged that we did catch it early and I will make a complete recovery!