Christa's Journey with Invasive (Infiltrating) Ductal Carcin...

Found a lump during my monthly self breast exam. Went to FP just to be safe and she sent me that day to St. Vincent's for testing.

Learned it was cancer at age 36 and my husband and I had not started our family yet. Very scared as I have no family history.

Decide to do lumpectomy instead of bilateral mastectomy against advice of my ONC and surgeon.

Surgery not successful. Margins not clean.

Doctors again strongly urged me to have both breasts removed. I was not willing at that time and elected another lumpectomy procedure.

More cancer found that was not picked up on any test, even the MRI. Again there was not clean margins so all of the cancer was not removed.

20 lbs

still have to take Herceptin

Herceptin only for one year every three weeks

Finished my hard chemo and took a nice vacation to recover. Now it is just Herceptin every three weeks.

Fatigue, hot flashes and body odor. Also mood issues.

Off 3 weeks and had a hard time.

This part hurt bad. The fills were worse.

The filling of the expanders was very painfull and caused me great anxiety. This had to be done every other week for months until the chest muscles were expanded enough for the implants to be placed. It was like having a brace on that cannot be removed no matter how much it is bothering you. It felt like no one could understand why I was having a hard time with the expansion but it feels to me that I cannot have been the only one. Perhaps because I am narrow built in the shoulders? Glad it is over.

Final implants

Removed

In feet. It only lasted a few months.

Bad body odor that started with hormonal chemo