The Quick Version

I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34 while breastfeeding. Over the course of a year I underwent two surgeries, twelve weeks of the chemotherapy Taxol and one year of a targeted treatment, Herceptin.

Fast forward to the present and I now have a two year old post cancer baby who has been successfully breastfed on my one remaining breast.

I am offering this blog of my journey with cancer for others who may have similar experiences. We premenopausal women are a minority and then add hormone receptor negative cancer and it is even more rare.  Even if one woman benefits from reading of my experience, I am happy to pass it on.

Statistics

• 12/29/06 dx DCIS grade 2-3 with necrosis & focal early microinvasion

• 2/7/07 Partial Mastectomy and Sentinel Node Biopsy

• 2/18/07 dx .6cm Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) grade 2 with DCIS 1.4cm grade 3, HER2+++ ER-PR-, negative nodes (3 taken), clean margins

• 3/20/07 Begin weekly Taxol & Herceptin 12 weeks

• Herceptin to continue for 12 months to end March 2008

• BRCA 1/2 negative

• 9/10/07 Right Mastectomy with Thigh (gracilis muscle) flap reconstruction in lieu of radiation treatments

• 3/6/08 - Final Herceptin