The first slap

The first slap
This photo was taken the day after I was diagnosed, and it is my first bitch slap at cancer. I'm the one with the icepack symbolically placed on my boob. My teammates changed our team's uniform to pink at the last minute, and I came off the soccer field that night with one goal and a whole lot of love. Several of these women are my close friends, but they are all warriors, and they all helped me set the tone for this fight.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Ultrasound Results

Here is my promised update after my ultrasound this morning to measure the extent of tumor shrinkage: Both of the breast tumors are still there, but they are VERY small. Dr. Sussman (one of the awesome breast radiologists here at Mills Breast Cancer Institute) said that he could not detect anything in the lymph nodes, three of which were shown to have cancer in the PET CT I had in late November; however, the lymph nodes are more difficult to see on ultrasound. The doc did say that the reduction in tumor size is SIGNIFICANT. I asked him for exact measurements, but he wouldn't give them, as ultrasounds are just too fuzzy to really nail down a precise measurement. However, he did say that they are now measuring the tumors in millimeters rather than centimeters.

Apparently, the doctors look at two things when they're looking at the images: Size and conspicuousness. Conspicuousness refers to how well defined the tumors are, or how much, regardless of the size, the tumors pop out on imaging. Importantly, my tumors are not only significantly smaller, but also significantly less conspicuous. They are just plain harder to see. This is very good news, as I am only seven treatments into the first twelve week course of chemotherapy. Hoping for continued shrinkage to the point of disappearance come March 5th!

4 comments:

  1. Wonderful news! Crossing all crossables for March! Pam and Scott

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awesome, awesome news! March 5 isn't that far away now, either. What a journey you've covered so far. And, I might add, with abundant grace!

    ReplyDelete

To comment, be sure to select an ID under "comment as." Anonymous works for those who don't want to comment using their Google, Yahoo, or other ID.