Capriness' Journey with Invasive (Infiltrating) Ductal Carcin...

July 23, 1996. Found a lump while serving in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica.

Edges weren't "dirty" but they were too close for the surgeon's comfort. She scheduled another surgery.

5 of 9 nodes were positive.

She had to take a bigger margin of the original lumpectomy. But this time the new margins were dirty. There was still ore cancer in there.

There's nothing good you can say about chemo. Sorry.

X-rays showed shadows that the doctors couldn't be sure of so I opted to have double mastectomies.

Breast tissue from the double mastectomy was completely clean. Since I had the mastectomies after the chemo, that told me that the chemo had worked since the margins from the second lumpectomy had been dirty.

Had tram-flap reconstruction on both breasts. That had to be the most painful surgery I have EVER had! When I woke from surgery I couldn't breathe because the surgery involved trauma to my diaphragm and it didn't want to move. Also I couldn't stand upright. In later years I've always had chronic back pain because my back muscles had to take over holding my torso upright. I don't recommend this surgery to anyone. If you're thinking about having it, please think very hard about it.

Cancer came back in my brachial plexis in 2005. I made it 9 years! XXX! Why??? I was so positive I had been cured!

Surgeon had to remove tumor from my brachial plexis which is the nerve bundle in your chest that controls your whole arm. Thank heavens he was able to save my arm functionality. He also had to remove my pectoral minor muscle and about a third of my pectoral major muscle.

I had radiation to my whole right chest and extensive radiation to the tumor site sine the surgeon hadn't got it all because he had wanted to save my arm function. Radiation was fine while I was going through it but after-effects were bad. I had a lot of cracking and bleeding from the burns because I started chemo afterwards which caused the radiation to "flare." Also, it shrunk my right reconstructed breast so much that it's only about half the size of the left one.

Chemo sucks. What can I say?

2009 cancer came back in my lungs. It's now stage IV.

I take monthly shots of Faslodex and daily Arimidex tablets. Either the Faslodex or the Arimidex cause me bone pain so I started palliative care to handle the pain.

This is Teri's brother. We lost Teri today, June 18, 2014 at 11:45am. Thank you all for what you do.