Our First Oncology Appointment

We met with the Oncologist, Dr. Gray, for the first time today. He spent time going over the MRI scans with us and discussing the plan for surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone therapy. It was quite overwhelming for me. I can only imagine what Mary felt like. She has a 1.3 cm tumor just below the surface in her right breast that has been positively identified as cancer. She also has a 6 cm mass extending below the smaller one. Dr Gray felt strongly that this is also cancer, something that our surgeon, Dr Morrell and our radiologist, Dr Tamayo both were not as sure about. Needless to say, both Mary and I did not like that news. We both left his office a little more depressed then when we arrived. What does it mean if it is all cancer? Well, I'll explain a little of it as best I can. If it is only 1.3 cm, very likely it is in it's early stages and can be removed completely. With a little chemotherapy to follow it up, her survival rate would be in the high 90-98% (most likely) This would be called stage 1 cancer. (based upon size only, there would be other things they would have to consider) If it is all cancer, approximately 7 cm, then there is a great chance that it has also spread to some lymph nodes, although they all appeared normal on the MRI. This would be stage 2 or 3 cancer. (based on size only) Obviously her survival rate would go down. They won't be able  to tell us anything for sure until about 5 days after the surgery. The surgical plan would not change either way. She is having a complete mastectomy of the right breast with sentinal lymph node biopsy. (they will remove some of the lymph nodes to see if they have cancer) The only thing that may change is the type and amount of chemotherapy and the addition of radiation treatments. All that we can do at this point is hope and pray that it has not spread and that she makes it through surgery with no complications.