GREAT NEWS!!!!!!

Well, I probably gave it away in the title, but I have finally heard from the doc. Here goes:


*no more in any of the lymph nodes! What they found the day of surgery was it. The other three they took were clear. The one that had the 10 or so cells in it was so minimal that they call it something like "N zero", as in node zero. Essentially, it means there was less than .2 mm and it was so small they stopped counting. The doc was very happy that she did not decide to "take all" last Tuesday. As she put it: "a very good game day decision"! The doc also said this is not how it always goes... usually when they find even that little through that method (the frozen section during surgery, which is what she called a "quick and dirty" look), that it rarely comes back as clear in the rest of them. So yippee for me!!!!!!


*mine is what they call estrogen positive, which means that I can have hormone therapy like tamoxifen (spelling?). That is good because it is just one more way of treating it.


*the jury is still out on whether I am in line for radiation. The reason being that they think mine is what they call angio-lymphatic invasion or lympho-vascular invasion. I think this mainly refers to where it is found. This title means that it could be a more aggressive type of tumor, which would mean that the target specific radiation is a good idea. Dr. Kari said that since I am 37 and not over 40, this is the only reason she thinks they would even think about recommending it. I'll know more next week about that.

*Dr Kari said she would be surprised if the medical oncologist (Kari's the surgical oncologist) did not recommend chemo, only because of my age (young). I told her at this point I would feel strange NOT having it because I want to know that I did everything I could, and without it, I think I'd feel like I left a stone unturned. So, I meet with both of them next week, and more than likely will start chemo one to two weeks after that. If radiation were necessary, it would happen after chemo.

I probably forgot something, but I think you all get the picture. Life is good! I am so happy not to be looking another surgery in the eye. That one would have been way less fun than the one that is already a week behind me!!!!

Thank you everybody for being so wonderful and supportive to all of us. I really couldn't do this without you. Lots of love, Ash