What Lies Ahead

I have been reluctant to write about this because I really wasn't sure of what I would say, where to begin and express my feelings about it.

We found out that my mother-in-law has breast cancer.  She had a very large lump in her breast and went for a biopsy.  It was bad news.  The doctor told her that it was either stage 3 or if it had spread (which was his strong suspicion) it was stage 4. They did the PET scan to find out for sure whether or not it had spread.  If so, the doctor said that there may not be much they could do because it was a very aggressive cancer.

I am the type of person that wants to know the facts before I react and go crazy with all sorts of feelings but this time, I was scared. Really, really scared.  I wanted to know the prognosis, the course of treatments, the everything about what is happening, what is going to happen, etc. I needed to know.

The PET scan came back and thank the sweet Lord above, it had not spread.  She now has the label of Stage 3 breast cancer.  Now some people may think that is horrible news and we should not be celebrating this "good news" but I am. We all are, her chances of survival with that news is far greater than if it had spread.  She has a fighting chance to survive and although she is in for the fight of her life, the frame of mind is much better.  She hates that she will lose her hair, she hates that she is going to be very sick from the chemo, she fears that she is going to act like a baby through it and also fears that depression will kick in.  I think that these are normal fears, normal reactions.

She is going today to meet with the oncologist to find out the course of treatments.  She has heart conditions so they are being very cautious and very mindful of what they can do to best treat her.  She will be going in for chemo, then she will have a double mastectomy and then radiation.

 It is not going to be easy.  

We are all in her corner, cheering her on and it will be so hard to see her go through this fight.  If I could take some of the burden off of her I would.  I feel sort of helpless in not knowing quite how to help.