In January of 2020, I went to the Dr, for him to diagnose me that I had shingles. While I was there I mention about a lump I felt in my breast and armpit and how painful they really hurt. He said it’s probably from the shingles. He scheduled me for a mammogram and an ultrasound a few weeks later after my shingles calmed down. When I had the imagining the Dr came in and said he wanted to do a biopsy because some of the cells looked suspicious or abnormal. I came back in a couple days for the biopsies and they said I would know in a few days. I got a call the next day saying I needed to come in right away. I immediately called my husband and said we needed to go in and I didn’t think it was good news. My heart just sank to the floor and I couldn’t stop shaking. I did find out I had breast cancer and that it was in my a lymph node.
I was diagnosed with IDC and DCIS grade 2 triple positive in Feb 2020. Being triple positive I had to start with chemo right away. Things moved so fast once I found out, it was hard for the diagnosis to even really sink in. Before chemo started I had genetic testing, a CAT scan, port placement surgery, an echo of my heart, bone scan, x-ray, more mammograms, and a breast MRI, along with surgeon and plastic surgeon appts.
Finally, I started chemo. I had my mom and husband with me at my first one. Then COVID hit and I couldn’t have anyone with me for the rest of my treatments. I had a total of 6, every 3 weeks. It was like being on a roller coaster. I felt good, then horrible and then I started to feel better and it started all over again. Then I had a bilateral mastectomy with expanders in July. I became cancer free. Because I had lymph node involvement, I needed to have 25 rounds of radiation. At 15 rounds in I came down with an infection and ended up in the hospital with 4 surgeries in 5 days and lost my expander on the side that was being radiated. I wasn’t able to get an expander put back in because of the type of infection I had, so my surgeon put an antibiotic spacer in to be able to stretch my skin a little bit and to heal the infection. I healed for a couple of weeks and then continued my radiation.
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