I received a phone call this morning from my breast care nurse. Initially I panicked slightly, as they usually ring to impart bad news, but today was different.
My MRI results were reviewed this morning at the weekly meeting to discuss all the breast cancer patients, and apparently my response to the new treatment has been described as excellent. So the improvement in the lump that I felt wasn't just in my imagination and it appears that the lump is shrinking well. Better response = better prognosis, so I'm very happy.
On the other hand, my response has been so good that there's a concern that by the time I get to surgery there'll be no cancer cells left to test. As its not yet clear if I have an HER2+ cancer, this could cause an issue as they can't give Herceptin without a positive test. There is some debate as to how effective Herceptin is for my stage of cancer, but frankly I'll take any small statistical advantage that I can.
This means I have to go and speak to the head oncologist before my chemo tomorrow to discuss having a further biopsy. There were so few cancer cells (as opposed to pre-cancerous cells, of which there were a lot) that they simply weren't able to test. Now the chances of getting more cells are still pretty low, but it could be the only chance of getting the information. I'm quite happy to have another set of biospies provided that they can manage the pain for me - which most likely means being sedated rather than a local anasthetic. I'm not sure if I can cope with having it done like last time - especially as I know up front how painful it is. Something to discuss tomorrow...
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