Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog

...it' s a tumor.       The thought of cancer spreading to my brain has been my worst fear...the kind of fear that brings tears to my eyes whenever I think or talk about the possibility.  Before my cancer diagnosis, I took my brain for granted.  Since my diagnosis, I was grateful everyday that my brain was cancer-free.        So now the thing that I feared the most has happened and surprisingly, I'm not freaking out.  I had two MRI studies and an MR spectroscopy .  I nitially, the lesion did not loo k like a classic metastatic tumor.  I sent my images for second and third opinions and now my case has been reviewed by several oncologists, several neuroradiologists , a radiation oncologist and a neurosurgeon at five institutions, in two states.  After some back-and-forth, my oncologist and the experts are all on board with call ing my lesion a metastat ic tumor.      In me eting with t...

     The story I'm writing about today happened a month ago.  For some reason, I have been hesitant to blog about what transpired on February 4th when my husband and I got in our car with the intention of attending a meeting with our U.S. House of Representative, Congressman Peter Roskam, of the Illinois 6th district.  Mr. Roskam was in our town to speak about the Affordable Care Act and we wanted to hear what he had to say and try to let him know why we feel that repealing it without a sound replacement plan could really hurt us, and many people we care about.         This is my husband, Wynn.  He is the father of our two children and a pediatrician.  He has been in private practice for over 30 years and through the 90's and early 2000's, he also volunteered at a clinic that offered free and low cost health care to children that didn't otherwise have access to it.  For over a decade, he served as the clinic's me...

     Last Thursday I had an MR spectroscopy.  This is a more sophisticated and expensive MRI, which was supposed to give me additional information about the lesion in my brain.  Unfortunately, following the spectroscopy, the neuroradiologist was unable to better characterize the lesion and still cannot definitively report it as a metastatic tumor, or not.  It is "atypical" of what he would expect a metastatic tumor to look like given the type of cancer I have.  (Although it was a short time interval since my last MRI, I'm happy to report that the lesion did not grow in the past two weeks.)      My first inclination was to say..."OK - so let's zap it anyway." The stress and frustration of this uncertainty is getting to me.  Thank goodness for the cool head of my oncologist.  Focused radiation treatments, (stereotactic radiosurgery -SRS), is not without side effects, so it's important not to do it unnecessarily. My opti...

     Last week I had another brain MRI in follow-up to one I had in December which found a small lesion that the neuroradiologist was not able to characterize.  Unfortunately, the second MRI found that the lesion has grown a bit, (1.3 mm), and its appearance is atypical.  Further testing by an MR spectroscopy is recommended.   MRI room      In all likelihood, this is a small tumor. The good news is that there is a treatment - focused, high-dose radiation to the lesion.  This treatment goes by various names:  stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), gamma knife, cyberknife.  There are no knives involved, just highly focused radiation which, essentially, will zap the tumor to smithereens.      The next step is to get the MR spectroscopy - actually the next step is to secure insurance approval, then schedule an MR spectroscopy.  If all goes as I suspect it will, I'll be blogging about my experienc...

                   ...Be prepared.            About a year ago, I came home and surprised a burglar. I posted my experience on Facebook an d o ne of my fellow lung cancer ninja friends, Lisa Goldman, commented:  " Oy. I'm sorry Luna . I'm always kind of taken aback when regular crappy stuff happens to us. It feels like a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis should render us immune to any other shit. "   I know Lisa knows how it feels to juggle the ups and downs of life while dealing with serious cancer.  At that time, I couldn't have agreed with her more, but now...at least for today, I feel differently.       Two years ago I had a downhill skiing accident and partially tore my right anterior cruciate ligament, (ACL).  I realized after the accident that I hadn't prepared myself for skiing that year.  In th...

     Since being diagnosed with cancer, (over 4 years ago), I've had follow-up CT scans and brain MRIs on a regular schedule.  Initially, the CT scans were every 3 months.  Overtime, as we (my oncologist and I) gained confidence in my targeted chemotherapy's ability to control my cancer, we extended the time interval between scans. At first I was able to talk my oncologist into spacing scans 4 months a part , and eventually to every 6 months .   Managing cancer means being exposed to agents I hadn't had in the past - chemicals, radiation, radioactive materials, and magnetic fields.  There's no way around it.  So, I really appreciate being exposed to 50% less radiation with CT scans every 6 months instead of every 3.        There are, however , negatives to less frequent scanning.  As confident as I want to be in the ability of my targeted chemotherapy to continue to keep my cancer suppressed, whenever I fee...