Mayo's Take On Things

Our Mayo trip was not very eventful, which is a good thing.  I have always been incredibly impressed with how efficiently the medical process runs at the Mayo facility.  Our first appointment was at 7:00 a.m. and by 2:00 we had completed two consults, labs with the results,  we were set up for our next two appointments in April and surgery was penciled in.  We also had time to enjoy a delicious sit down brunch in that time frame as well.

One of the new things I learned while down at Mayo was the cancer I am dealing with is hormone negative and Her2 positive.  This makes sense, because I am currently taking Tamoxifen which should prevent any hormone positive cancers from growing.  I stopped my Her2 targeted treatment in April of 2011 because standard protocol for treatment for that drug was one year.

No official decisions have been made on post surgery treatment.  We will wait until final pathology is completed after surgery and then I will be referred to a medical oncologist to see what, if any, post surgery treatment is needed.  They did make me aware that chemotherapy is still on the table as a possible treatment option.  However, one of the toughest drugs I completed last time, Adriamycin, will not be an option since I received my maximum life time dose last time.  I was relieved to hear that.  They were also reassuring in the fact that while one of the toughest drugs to tolerate (Adriamycin) is out of the question for me this time, there are a lot of other options out there to effectively treat breast cancer in my situation.

Mayo did not even mention the possibility of radiation to me.  I would be OK with keeping radiation as one of the breast cancer treatments I have not experienced.  However, I am still keeping it in the back of my mind as a possibility, just because I know from experience that surgery can lead to unexpected findings.

The pathologist at Mayo retested my biopsy sample and confirmed that we are indeed dealing with a Paget's disease breast cancer.  I was led to believe by the professionals I saw at Mayo that, while any cancer recurrence is definitely concerning, Paget's disease is one of the most treatable breast cancer recurrences to deal with.

Tentatively, surgery is penciled in for sometime during the week after Easter.  We will know more by next week.  I feel so much better just having a rough idea as to when surgery will take place.