Walking With Brenda

From the beginning, we were a bit concerned that the cancer first detected in Brenda’s lymph node may also be in other parts of her body — and that can be really terrible and frightening news. Breast cancer can often spread to bones, liver, lungs, and brain. Yeesh! But in Brenda’s case, a bunch of scans (including a CT scan) verified that these areas show no signs of cancer or lesions, etc. So we can be pretty sure that what was found in her lymph node has not travelled to other regions. That’s very good news. (I admit we were a little nervous waiting for that news.)

The difficulty is that they still haven’t definitively found it. The pathology report on her lymph node biopsy said the result was “consistent with a breast primary”. So we all expect there is something there, but they haven’t found it yet. A recent ultrasound and another mammogram turned up zilch. A recent CT scan turned up an “abnormality” — maybe that’s it, but maybe it isn’t. Brenda had an MRI on Saturday February 14. MRI scans are the gold standard scans for breast cancer but they’re also the scans with notorious wait times in BC and I think in most of Canada. So we wait.

The fact that it’s apparently tough to find probably means that it’s pretty small, and that’s probably good news. The oncologist seems to think that, in any case, treatment would likely involve surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. But I find it tough to understand how something is treated if you can’t find it. Maybe the MRI will shed some light. We’ll know soon.