Wife. Mother. Daughter. Friend.
Runner. Lipstick addict.
This blog began simply to keep far away friends and family in the loop when
I was diagnosed with breast cancer just two months shy of my 36th birthday. I’d
been to a breast surgeon for what I was sure was a cyst, and after she aspirated
the cyst (I was right!) she sent the fluid to pathology, reassuring me that she would be shocked if it didn't come back perfectly normal. I
didn’t even think about the pathology report again until my surgeon called to
tell me that there was “an abnormality.” Oh, the bitter irony. The PhD I’d
earned nearly ten years prior focused on breast cancer.
In graduate school, my favorite meeting of the week was the Clinical Breast
Conference where oncologists, surgeons, radiation oncologists, pathologists, and
even researchers discussed particularly unique breast cancer cases. Quickly, I
realized that my passion lay more in the clinical aspects of breast cancer than
at the bench in the lab. As I finished my dissertation, I made the decision to
stay at home with my new baby, and after her little brother started
kindergarten, my own breast cancer diagnosis led me to rely on the things I
had learned ten years prior.
And so here I share my experiences, sometimes merely personal reflections,
and sometimes as seen through the eyes of a scientist.
Cheers,
Jamie
My Stats:
Stage IIB, 2cm complex cyst, triple negative (ER-/PR-/HER2-) invasive
ductal carcinoma. I went through four cycles each AC followed by T, then a
double mastectomy. No residual disease was found in the tissue removed, and all
eight nodes removed were negative. Reconstruction began at the time of
mastectomy with placement of tissue expanders.
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