Our First Team Member - Dr. Jennifer O'Neill

Corey and I chose our first team member. This is a key person because they essentially follow me for the rest of my life although hopefully she will retire first! Dr. O'Neill is a hugger (which I am not) but I liked her anyway.

There were five spots of cancer. The cancer appears to be "in situ" which means that none of the cancer cells have leaked from those spots into the surrounding tissue. That will be confirmed in several ways. Yesterday, I had an MRI which measures the blood flow to the cells. The idea is that rapidly growing cells need more oxygen so there should be more blood flow to any spots of cancer that are active. The second way to confirm that the cancer has not spread is through pathology tests. This is actual samples of the tissue that are looked at under a microscope and abnormal cells are identified.

The first pathology report did not reveal any cancer cells in the surrounding tissue that they took from my breast during the biopsy. This makes the cancer "Stage 1" which means the cancer has not spread anywhere else.

Stage 1 is a good thing but the cancer is "high grade" which means that the cancer cells are rapidly growing. I think they can tell this by the amount of mitochondria in the cancer cells that they tested. I wish now I had paid more attention in biology class.

There is no survival advantage in having a mastectomy versus having the cancer cells and an extra 2 centimeters all around the cancer areas removed so we decided on the second option. We then headed to the Good Sam Breast Center for an MRI and hopefully will hear about that later today.

Corey headed to California this morning and will be back tomorrow night. We will then interview radiologists and oncologists and make plans for the next step in treatment.