Incoming call from Denver…

OK now we’re getting into the real deets… Friday the 19th I was just moving through my usual routine, not really even thinking about any “breast stuff”. Really I can’t say that I had any pain at all…maybe a little bit of tenderness and a sense of heaviness in that breast but nothing really uncomfortable.My phone rang …an incoming call from Denver Colorado…”Oh yeah that’s right! I’d better answer it…could be Dr. Veccio” I thought. Sure enough “Hi Carianne, I have your biopsy results…Is this a good time for you?” Obviously it didn’t matter if I was having tea with the Queen at the moment …I wanted to know what she had to say. She took a deep breath and sighed audibly & told me “you might want to get some paper and a pen or something to write with”…She started talking about what the biopsy showed …”you have something called DCIS… That stands for “Ductal Carcinoma in Situ” She explained that in situ translates to “in place” . I said “ OK so it’s like a pre-cancer?” She said “ No it IS cancer …it is breast cancer..you have breast cancer.” I’d gone out to our motorhome to talk to her …to avoid any interruptions & so I could focus on what she was about to tell me…Brian was in the house…He must’ve heard me leave the house because shortly after I started the conversation with her, Brian walked into the motorhome too…So I had her start all over and talk to us together …so she explained that I have breast cancer and the next step would be getting an MRI scheduled to make sure there is no invasive cancer alongside of the DCIS. They know that some invasive cancers start out as malignant cells in the ducts or lobules of the breast before breaking out/spreading and becoming invasive. Then she told me the next steps while I was waiting for my MRI…to decide on a surgeon and oncologist. She also told me that because of the “huge area”( her words) of DCIS they’d found …telling me it was a 5 x 7 x 7 cm area of my breast that was affected….that a mastectomy was probably what I would be looking at. My first thought was “take them both!!!”… I can’t explain the aversion to your own body once you know it can betray you like that…I wanted that cancer out of me… right now! She said she totally understood that reaction and shared that she’d actually had the same kind of breast cancer ten years ago. It really helped to be talking to her that day. She told me that the pathology showed this was a high-grade cancer, there were some moderate-grade cells, but they were largely high-grade and that they were estrogen and progesterone receptor positive as well. High-grade DCIS Is more likely to become invasive breast cancer and is the faster growing variety too. Dr. Veccio Said unfortunately, the clinics “patient care coordinator” was out of the office with Covid and so there was a pause on setting up my MRI and getting answers to all of the other questions I had pop up until the next week. Needless to say we spent the weekend in shock and disbelief… I made countless phone calls,sent countless messages, And spent a lot of time reading about DCIS and the different treatment options. I know “Googling” can be dangerous but as a nurse I figured I knew what to stay away from and what to cling to as factual as far as useful information was concerned. I already knew that “prognosis” and that type of search was a scary thing to Google (all though the five-year survival DCIS is like 98% or something…That’s pretty hopeful!). I had a “clear knowing” that those signs of Hope that I had been given , such as the survivors that kept popping up here and there along my journey already, meant that I was going to be okay… I was going to prevail and I was going to be cancer free (and carefree once again!) soon!