MRI (and results)

Brian ended up with Covid the weekend I found out about my cancer(thanks Daytona Bike week🤣)…I wasn’t feeling the best so I had to reschedule my MRI for at least 10 days after my symptoms appeared(I ended up actually testing positive and I had been sick for several days before that…But honestly I was just glad that I got it out of the way and had some “acquired immunity” …It sure makes being in the hospital a little less frightening) So…March 31st was the day that I had my MRI at Mercy in Sioux City. Once again Brian accompanied me…I told him I felt bad I was being so “needy” by having him come to all my appointments with me… And that is not my usual MO, that’s when he told me I didn’t have a choice…he was going to be by my side for every second during this battle(Told y’all he was the most amazing man in the world😍 I am so blessed …and so grateful just thinking about it as I reflect back on that comment he said to me…because I know that there are many women hill go into this battle alone and it breaks my heart knowing that… I’ve always loved the song “Army” by Ellie Goulding… the chorus says “When I’m standing with you… I’m standing with an Army” and that’s how I feel about having my husband/soulmate /partner in life standing right beside me through everything.

My awesome rad-techs delivered me into my MRI…I had an IV placed for infusion of contrast dye (just at the end of the MRI) to illuminate any of the cells that were “greedy” …I guess cancer cells are “hangry” like that and soak up the contrast more than the healthy cells and illuminate brighter… those little p.i.t.a scene stealers…🙄 hmmmm…weird… I just had an “aha” moment… cancer cells are a lot like toxic people/emotional vampires…🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

After the MRI Brian and I headed up to Sioux Falls for my six month check up with my endocrinologist oh that’s right in case you didn’t know I’ve had type one diabetes for almost 30 years now. While en route to Sioux Falls, Dr. Qalbani called me…he already had my MRI results! I was not at all expecting to hear back so quickly…He said “soooo your right breast still looks fine, I think…But in the left breast, there were two areas of focal asymmetry not seen before that looked a lot more invasive”… Pardon my French but WTF!? My heart stopped right there I think…What!? How the heck did that get missed? TWO areas of possible invasive cancer!? If you’re following along by now you’re probably thinking oh my gosh what a roller coaster! Yep.., that’s pretty much the best way I could describe it… I’ve also equated it to surfing…one minute you’re just loving it …gaining confidence,you know riding those nice friendly waves, thinking hey! this isn’t so bad…I can do this… yeah life is good! …but next thing you know , the “Big Kahuna” comes out of nowhere…& before you know it, you’re underwater, struggling & not knowing which way is up or down… until you finally find yourself washed ashore …facedown on the beach…mouth and eyes full of sand and gasping for air wondering what the heck just happened…That’s pretty much how I was feeling at this time…I was hoping once I had my MRI behind me, I could FINALLY get an appointment to meet with my surgeon because that was the hold up …the surgeon needed to know what exactly we were dealing with when we met. Then Dr. Qalbani told me that now we would need ANOTHER biopsy because he needed to prove the existence of the DCIS in both quadrants of the lateral side of my left breast. Also, determining if the cancer is invasive or not is really of the utmost importance,because it would determine the reconstruction process… like if I could even do a direct-to-implant reconstruction during the same surgery after my mastectomy was completed …or would I need to wait…because if I’m going to need chemo therapy and/or radiation that all factors into the reconstruction process. So he told me the patient care coordinator would be calling me sometime that day with an appointment for the next stereotactic biopsy and possibly ultrasound guided biopsy as well if he found any associated masses. I should probably explain that I have extremely dense breasts so the sensitivity of mammography is very limited in my particular situation…Hooray for fibrocystic breasts ! Ha NOT!!

We proceeded to the endocrinologist and mainly focused on my newly diagnosed breast cancer and how things would look in the hospital (because she is an Avera provider but I am going with a Sanford surgeon…After talking to multiple women and hearing the same names“Dr. Jesse Dirksen” and “Dr. Heather Karu”, I finally decided on my “dream team”. Once I saw Dr. Dirksen’s “meet the provider video” in Sanford’s website, I just knew he was the one who was going to save my life… ) Anyways Dr. Abu-zaid, my endocrinologist, is an absolutely wonderful human and such a compassionate health care provider and together we made a plan to get me back onto my pump and try to get things more fine-tuned before I would be having major surgery. Obviously well controlled diabetes is the best way to ensure an optimal course of recovery from surgery and is paramount to healing well. If any of you reading this have diabetes yourself, or have experience with a close friend or family member who has diabetes you’ll know the impact of stress on blood sugars…It’s been pretty up and down….But all we can do, is do our best…

Right after that appointment my phone rang and it was the patient care coordinator , they could not get me in until the following Wednesday, And it was Wednesday so a whole week and another weekend of not knowing if I have invasive cancer? I started bawling right there on the spot. I asked her to have Dr. Qalbani call me back about a few things… Mainly I wanted to be sure it wasn’t going to make a difference with the progression of my cancer if I waited yet ANOTHER week …like he did realize it had already been 3 weeks since I found out right? He was wonderful and assured me that no it would not mean that all the sudden my cancer would be invasive( I mean, if it wasn’t already !😆😅) because I had to wait another week…So many stressful things…including the fact that I was still taking birth control pills…knowing that I couldn’t go off because of other health reasons and there I was “fertilizing” the cancer with hormones…how could it be another entire week? Long story short… I did end up stopping oral contraceptives that very day and after talking with my endocrinologist and my primary doctor up decided we would deal with any other issues as they arose…They both felt that cutting off as much “fuel” to this cancer was the best thing we could do while waiting. I think that was probably the longest week of my life…