2012 has got to be a better year ....NOT!

In May 2011, I was diagnosed with carcinoid cancer and as luck would have it, caught it early in a routine colonoscopy, removed the tumor via a right colectomy and small bowel resection on July 6th, and now cancer free. yay!  I just have to have a blood test every 3 months for a couple of years, and a CT Scan and colonoscopy every year to be sure it doesn't come back.  " Oh, by the way, you have 5 small kidney stones and a cyst on your kidney plus an hemangioma on your liver.  Nothing to be concerned about....we'll just keep an eye on them. "  Fast forward 5 months..... kidney stones decide to make themselves known and I go to the ER on November 25th.  I pass one and then get the rest pounded out via a lithotripsy on December 6th.  December 13th, 2011, I have a followup xray to check out the kidney stones and a routine mammogram.  Xray shows that two very small kidney stones remain (resilient little buggers) and my mammo showed suspicious, abnormal cells in my right breast.  There were only 4 or 5 tiny spots so they did a breast sonogram to take a better look.  Not sure what these are, but just to be sure, I better have a biopsy done.  So, they contact my gyno dr and she calls me and sets up an appt with a surgeon to check the xrays and determine the next step.  Met with Dr. Kelly (who was a co-surgeon in my carcinoid tumor removal) on December 29th.  He checks out my breast and can't find any lump to biopsy and so schedules an ultrasound guided biopsy for January 3rd.   I was hoping to have the biopsy in December so I could be done with all of this and start the new year fresh but that was not to be.   After a very difficult biopsy (the cells are so small they had a heck of a time finding them to get a big enough sample to send to pathology), I went home in pain with a huge black and blue mark on my breast and surgical strips to seal up the incision he had to make.  In 24 hours, they will call with the results.  24 hours later, on January 4th, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. 30 minutes after that,  Dr Kelly calls and asks if I can come in that evening after his last appt to discuss and explain the results.  He says I have two cancers - one is ductal and non-invasive and the other is invasive.  I can choose a lumpectomy or mastectomy. He says a lot of other things in between this but I was mostly in a fog and sick to my stomach.  Lloyd is with me and luckily paying more attention.  Dr. Kelly schedules me for a bone scan and a chest xray to determine if the invasive cancer has spread to my bones or lungs or chest.  That was scheduled for January 9th.  Today is the 11th and my follow up appt with Dr Kelly is scheduled for tomorrow to get the results of the xray and bone scan and determine my plan of treatment.  The days following my diagnosis are a real blur.  The first few days were the worst and I found myself crying a lot and letting my nerves get the better of me.  I decide to share my diagnosis first with family, then with my some close facebook friends and eventually with my customers of Country Light Candle Co.  The response has been so overwhelming and uplifting that I have been able to do some research so I am ready to meet with Dr. Kelly and hopefully handle the results (good or bad).  So now you're caught up and I'll try to blog every day so I can look back one day, after I am totally cured and cancer-free, and reminisce about my journey......