A Lot More Information

We visited the Surrey Cancer Clinic today to meet with Holly's oncologist and got a lot more information, and decided on a treatment path.

The CT scan yesterday along with the MRI and bone scan indicate that the cancer has not spread, but the final step to determine if it has spread is a sentinel node biopsy. The scan did show very small spots on her lungs that may not be a concern, but this needs to be investigated further with another CT scan in 3 months. We also now know that her cancer is hormone receptor-positive (both ER/PR-positive), which means it is more likely to respond well to hormone therapy. This is good news as it may mean she won't need chemotherapy at all.

Based on this our path forward is going to be surgery as soon as possible to remove the cancer and do the sentinel node biopsy to confirm whether it has spread to the lymph nodes. Following the surgery they need to examine the cancer cells and lymph nodes to conclusively determine whether chemo is needed or if Holly can just do hormone therapy.

The biopsy results indicated that the cancer cells are grade 1 which means not aggressively growing, which is also good news but conflicts with the rapid growth that the doctors initially saw between her mammogram and the MRI last week (first measurement was 2.4cm, then 6.2cm a month later). The oncologist explained that it's possible the mammogram may not have captured the entire tumor accurately, so hopefully that's the case.

We have another phone appointment with the surgeon tomorrow, where we'll figure out the surgery details and plan the first part of Holly's treatment schedule. Surgery could happen as soon as next week.

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