Breast Cancer Story - Invasive Lobular Carcinoma

Summary of diagnosis: stage 2 breast cancer, invasive lobular carcinoma, one tumor 1.8cm, four lymph nodes positive, hormone receptive, and favorable pathology.

Summary of treatment: lumpectomy, six-months of chemotherapy (four treatments of Andriamycin / Cytoxin and four of Taxol), 28 treatments of radiation followed by Tamoxifen taken daily for 5 years.

Introduction:
First, Rosemary is doing well. This is a record of updates provided to family and friends regarding Rosemary's treatment for Breast Cancer in 2000. As a way of coping with this difficult time, we decided to communicate regularly with all our family and friends including detailed e-mail reports with photos. This web site is an archive of these reports. We found these reports generated a lot of positive communication and visits at the right time that helped both of us in many practical and emotional ways.

Rosemary and I live in the western suburbs of Chicago. We do not have children but are blessed with a large group of caring family and friends. Up until January of 2000, we lived a comfortable and uncomplicated life. Rosemary found a lump through self-exam during the holidays of 1999. We were stunned to learn it was stage 2 breast cancer. Rosemary had a mammogram the first week of January and after looking at the film, the doctor immediately referred Rosemary to a surgeon. Rosemary called me at work with great emotion and fear in her voice after talking to the doctor about the mammogram. For the next two month, I had a constant, sick feeling in my stomach. Back at work during these early weeks, I would always fear seeing the voice mail light on my phone - fearing it was a new report from home that the latest test results were bad.

The first two weeks following the mammogram were the most difficult time emotionally. When we got home after the surgeon told us he was certain it was breast cancer, I cried uncontrollably for an hour, the first time I have cried as an adult. As you can tell from these reports, Rosemary is blessed with a positive spirit that helped her cope with amazing strength. Our family and friends are continually amazed by Rosemary's attitude and humor.

Hey Art, Feeling better today. We had long talk with the Doctor and he described the whole deal and this seems doable.

Ro is having a formal biopsy tomorrow at Central DuPage Hospital. This is about a 30 minute procedure and Ro comes home after it is done.

Results of this needle aspiration he did yesterday was non-conclusive for cancer. But he said don't get your hopes up about this, that this happens sometimes with this needle thing and he is still certain it is cancer and Ro will probably need lumpectomy. Ro will probably have the surgery on Monday assuming the biopsy confirms what he thinks.

We still have a high regard for this Doctor. We hit him with a lot of questions and he seemed to have very honest, good answers. He said the emotional low point in most of these cases is the first day when you are told, that was yesterday and usually each step of the process results in a little better emotional level. He went through the possible treatments of radiation and chemo and these alleviated some of my fears and imagination of what this would be like.

This afternoon is the first time since Monday I have not had that sick feeling in my stomach and lump in my throat.

Ro's spirits are good. Mark

Hey Art, There may be hope. Today Ro had a core biopsy of the lump at Central DuPage Hospital. We don't get the pathologist report until tomorrow afternoon, but the Doctor was somewhat surprised when he looked at the tissue ...that it looked normal. Usually when he takes a core sample from a lump he is very certain is breast cancer, the sample looks a little whitish to the eye. Ro's tissue looked sort of normal.

Based on this little surprise, he asked for a quick look again at the lump using a ultrasound machine (this was not planned). They wheeled Ro to the ultrasound person (I was allowed in the room) and he looked at the lump by using this and could not find any clear indication of cancer. The lump is there, but there is now a chance it is not cancer or early, not real bad cancer. pre-meeting doctor notes

But he said too early to tell, don't get your hopes up and he does not want us to go on this big emotional ups and downs. He said you cannot tell from visual look at breast tissue if it has cancer cells.....still a good chance it is cancer. But at least there is a chance it is not cancer or maybe not real bad cancer.

So we call tomorrow to get the results and even if he says the biopsy was negative for cancer, Ro will probably still have surgery on Monday to remove the lump. It is possible we get good report tomorrow and then they do biopsy (removal) of the entire lump on Monday and find cancer cells in other parts of the lump and then Ro needs some radiation and chemo.

But we have hope that it may not be really bad cancer requiring the more extreme treatments. And there is small chance for a miracle - just a pre-cancerous or benign lump (that looks real bad on a mammogram) that will be removed and then not-so-bad follow-up treatment.

But if we get a bad report tomorrow or on Monday, we are prepared for that too.

The people at the hospital were very good and we still have confidence in this Doctor.

That's the report. I plan to go to work tomorrow.

Later my man. Mark

Hi Art, Well we did not get the miracle, but this was expected and we are dealing with this OK. The biopsy from yesterday showed a little cancer on the edge of the tissue. That tells him there is a cancerous tumor, as he expected from the beginning, but probably smaller than he first thought. He said based on biopsy, much of the lump may be "reactive" tissue and the tumor is small. Based on the size of the lump he thought the cancer was two centimeters. Now he says it will probably be less. If under 1 centimeter, some of the follow-up treatments are reduced a little. So that sounds sort of good.

So Ro has lumpectomy on Monday at Central DuPage Hospital, probably stays one night in hospital and comes home on Tuesday. Then she probably gets radiation and chemo treatments.

We are going out to dinner tonight to our favorite place - Outback.

Spirits generally pretty positive.

Talk more this weekend, Mark

Ro after surgery in Central DuPage Hospital

Hi Mary, Ro was diagnosed with breast cancer last week and had a lumpectomy and removal of some lymph nodes yesterday. Ro felt a lump in her breast just before the holidays and had this checked out just after the holidays and the mammogram looked bad from the beginning. Only one smallish lump but the first Doctor that looked at it last Tuesday said he was certain it was breast cancer. Several tests later and a core biopsy proved it.

Last Tuesday was the worst when we looked at the mammogram and he told us what he saw. We were both devastated by this news. Did not see this coming at all. I cried for two hours after we got home. Later in the week, as we learned more about this, we recovered from that sick feeling of dread and fear (actually Ro recovered emotionally pretty quickly).

Ro is home today and came through the surgery very well. So far very little pain. We are still waiting for some of the pathology reports from the surgery, but the surgeon told us yesterday, just after the surgery that some of the lymph nodes also have some evidence of cancer. The extent of that we will get more details on probably tomorrow (wed). This was another disappointment among many in the last week. We have good doctors and the Central DuPage Hospital is very good, but until we get more pathology reports and perhaps some more tests, we don't know yet what the full story is.

We meet with a team of Doctors probably next week to put together a treatment plan for Ro. It will most likely involve chemotherapy and later some radiation. We were hoping for radiation only and maybe the easier form of chemo, but the lymph node results probably mean Ro gets four to six months of the full chemo. Ro will probably start this in about two weeks. We just learned these words in the past week.

Ro is doing amazingly well. Spirits are high. She displayed no fear going into surgery and handled this with humor and enjoyed about 12 of her family members showing up at the hospital. Ro stayed in the hospital one night (last night) and I spent the night next to her in a reclining chair. We got home about 11a this morning.

Ro spends all of her time on the phone with family and friends and now that she is home will be doing a lot of e-mail. Ro's sister Jane, a nurse, is spending this week at our house. Feel free to give Ro a call. Ro seems to get great strength from talking to friends on the phone. Sometimes she is on the phone all day and I worry she is not getting enough rest or an important call from the Doctor cannot get into us. But Ro says she wants no limits on any contact from friends and family.....it's clear she gets great strength from this. So feel free to send her a note or call her in the next couple days.

Events seemed to have gone very quickly and we have not communicated very
well with all our friends.

I am doing OK and get a lot of family support.

That's the report.

Love to you, Larry and Erin,

Mark

Hey Gallaghers, Just a quick report from Wheaton. Ro seemed to recover quickly from the surgery last Monday, but this weekend did not feel very good. Had some discomfort and did not sleep very well Saturday night and ran a little temperature this afternoon. The temperature now seems to be down this evening and Ro's spirits are still very good. carry key phone numbers with you

Ro is going to the Doctor tomorrow for a quick check to discuss why she did not feel very good over the weekend. Ro has a quick, follow-up test at the hospital on Tuesday and Wed morning we have a conference with a team of Doctors to review Ro's case and agree on a gameplan. I need to study a little to get ready for this.

Mom and Dad came by on Saturday and Mom brought over a pot roast dinner - Ro's favorite and this was a big hit. Lisa and Tom drove up this afternoon from Bloomington to pay a visit and we watched some football on TV and had some laughs.

Overall, things are OK. Thanks a lot for all your calls, e-mail and flowers. Ro loves to get any type of communication from family and friends. Never hesitate to send a note, e-mail or call. I really appreciated Kevin stopping by at the hospital on Monday, he got along really well with Ro's side of the family and we had a few laughs during a pretty long day.

Talk soon.

Love,

Mark William

Ro is doing better (recovering from a bad staph infection around the location of her surgery of a week ago that made Ro very sick this past weekend) and we are hoping she may be released from the hospital later today. The Doctor will make that decision sometime this afternoon (Thursday). Ro is eating again and walking around and talking on the phone a lot (shocking, eh?).

Ro has met twice with Dr Cohen, the oncologist, and we are encouraged by these meetings. We got a little bit of good news today from Dr Cohen on the pathology report. We will get more details next week when we conference with all of the Doctors, but he said the type of cancer Ro has is receptive to some of the latest hormone treatments, so this is a good thing. Ro will have six months of chemotherapy, but as we are learning more about this and some of the newest medicines to counter some of the bad effects of this, we are thinking this is doable. Ro met today with Carol at the hospital that runs the breast cancer program and Ro was encouraged by this meeting. She said that Ro has very good doctors, with good reputations including good communication and comforting people skills and she gave Ro some encouraging views on the treatments Ro will be facing over the next several months. Ro's spirits are still amazingly good.

Thanks to all for the calls, cards and visits.

I was feeling emotionally drained the last two days, but am feeling much better today about things.

That's the report.

Love,

Mark

11:00a Thursday

Ro and I had a very good week. Ro is recovering well from the infection, eating well and getting stronger. I have been back at work and we have enjoyed several normal days.

We had our conference with all the doctors working on Ro's case on Wednesday morning. It was really quite impressive. There were four MD specialists - the surgeon, oncologist, radiologist and pathologist. The surgeon summarized Ro's history from the point he looked at the first mammogram to recent days recovering from the infection. The pathologist came to the meeting with an impressive looking microscope connected to a projector and she showed us a slide projected on a large screen in the conference room of a tissue sample from Rosemary with the cancer cells.

They discussed the diagnosis - stage 2 breast cancer and the prognosis - after completion of combination therapy of chemotherapy and radiation over next six months, about two-thirds of patients are successful in avoiding a recurrence of cancer. After living through the past three weeks, we are thinking this sounds pretty good. Ro and I asked several questions and it is clear that Ro's diagnosis is quite clear, no gray area, the treatment (improved a lot in the last five years) is also straightforward - chemotherapy followed by radiation and then several years of taking a hormone that helps avoid recurrence. The radiation and hormone treatments are no-brainers, the chemo will be tough but we are learning it is very doable. Rosemary Gallagher back home after 4 days in Central DuPage Hospital

Rosemary Gallagher back home after 4 days in Central DuPage Hospital

At the conference with the doctors we learned the pathology report on Ro's cancer had only one bad thing and that is that there were four lymph nodes with cancer (we knew that right after the surgery). The tumor itself was fairly small, but the finding of cancer in the lymph nodes makes it stage 2 breast cancer and puts you into the chemotherapy treatment. There are several other facts in the pathology report regarding how aggressive the cancer cells are, how quickly they divide and how receptive they are to certain drug treatments. These facts were all very favorable - the cancer cells are not the aggressive type and they are receptive to being killed by modern drug treatments.

Ro is now in the hands of an excellent oncologist who will administer the chemotherapy over the next six months. Dr. Cohen is a very impressive guy who has successfully treated many woman with similar diagnosis as Ro. We are still learning about what chemotherapy will be like, but we know major steps have been made in the last 5 years to make this much more tolerable. But each person's experience is unique. Ro will lose her hair (comes back after treatment) and we were talking about the fact that Ro has recently been giving me very short haircuts and maybe I should give Ro a buzz cut before the treatments start.

Ro has been incredibly brave throughout the past four weeks. Ro feels better immediately from any communication from friends and family. I will be a much stronger person when I face the next challenge of life after watching how Ro handles these situations. Two quick stories about Ro.

The worst day we had was caused by the infection one week after the surgery. Early last week about 7am, Ro had 103 fever, was dehydrated and very weak, (I won't describe the nasty look of the infection), very bad nausea, and Ro could hardly walk to the car to get to the hospital. I called the doctor at home (waking him up), and described the situation and he said to meet him at the emergency room at the hospital. As I tried to get Ro to the car, Ro said before we left the house, to make sure I programmed the VCR to tape her favorite soaps for that day and the next day.

Second story - while in the hospital Ro was visited by Father Mike from our church. Father Mike is a older, traditional priest that seems a little unfriendly, but we have never really talked to him, only listened to his sermons that sometimes have a negative theme. Ro met with him alone in her room and Father Mike prayed with Ro. As he was leaving, Ro recalled that Father had talked at mass about losing his niece to cancer. Ro asked him about what happened and Father Mike began to share a long, tragic story of losing his niece and many other members of his family. Ro listened and offered comforting words. So Father came to help Ro and Ro ended up comforting Father Mike and making him feel better.

To close a long e-mail, I wanted to say thanks to many family and friends that have asked how I am doing with this. I am doing OK.......going on good. My sister Nancy sent Rosemary an excellent book called Be a Survivor. We used the book to prepare for the meeting with the doctors. It has one chapter called "A Guide for your Partner". I have read this three times. Here is one section: