Milestone

I don't want to jinx anything, but I am now officially a 20-year breast cancer survivor. Yay!

Ten years ago I was oh-so-thrilled to be a ten-year survivor. I asked my oncologist the longest latency period he's personally observed before a breast cancer recurrence. He told me 30 years. THANKS. No, he's fantastic. Just too honest. (Unlike many other cancers, like Hodgkins, where recurrence after five years is extremely rare, 25% of breast cancer recurrences occur after the five-year mark. The absolute probability of recurrence decreases each year to some fairly constant, minimal number after about 10 years.)

My breast cancer was discovered in 1992, when my OB/GYN found a lump during a pre-pregnancy checkup, which until that moment had been the giddiest, most joyous gynecological exam I ever had. "You guys are going to start a family? That's fantastic!... Oh, what's this..." We waited a month to see if it would go away, but it didn't, so off I was to my oncologist.

I had already been seeing the oncologist for checkups for Hodgkins lymphoma I'd had four years prior. I've been a patient of his as long as I've been married. Wow! I'll have to remind him it's our 22nd anniversary when I see him this fall. For doctors and patients, I think that's the Lollipop Anniversary.

There are many breast cancer (and lung cancer, bone cancer...) cases in patients treated with chest radiation for Hodgkins. Since the 80's, they've reduced the radiation dosage for Hodgkins by about half, and have better defined fields of treatment, so hopefully they don't see as many secondary cancers now.

I had a Stage I localized breast tumor, just larger than 1cm. It was hormone-negative, which is a "bad" prognosis indicator, but it was the factor that allowed me to safely get pregnant later, so I think that worked out for me. :)

They would typically do lumpectomy and radiation, but they didn't want me to have radiation treatments, because of the high likelihood that it had caused the tumor in the first place. They said I should have a mastectomy instead. The doc additionally suggested the possibility of a post-mastectomy chemo option- six months worth- but it only raised my 85% survival odds to 90%. That sort of modest increase, especially after considering the side effects and long-term effects of the chemo itself, along with having already had chemo treatments a few years before, made it a pretty clear choice to me. To each her own, but I chose not to have the chemo.

So woohoo! 20 years later and all is well on that front. Thinking about those who are fighting it today, praying and wishing you all strength and remission. For those women, including Lauren's friend's mom, who are newly diagnosed, hang in there. The fight sure feels far worse than the disease ever did, but each day is one step closer to the cure.