MEETING THE ONCOLOGIST / TRIPLE NEGATIVE

While waiting on my genetic testing results I met with the oncologist for the first time.  I knew we couldn't put together the treatment plan until after we knew what type of surgery I would have, but I thought it would be a good head start.  That way if I didn't like him I still had time to meet with someone else.

There was no need to look further.  Jeff and I both loved him.  Even with the missing genetic testing results, we had plenty to talk about.  He pulled up a chair and talked to us eye to eye.  He asked lots of questions and honestly tried to get to know me as a person before we dug into the medical stuff.  For some reason it always fascinates people to hear that you work on those annoying phone systems that stand between you and a live customer service representative.  This man saves lives and he wanted to hear about what I did for a living!  Then of course he wanted to know what the trick was for by-passing those pesky things.  Haha  

He talked about breast cancer and different types of treatments.  Then he went over my biopsy pathology report line by line so that I understood it all.  We discussed what he would recommend if the genetic testing came back negative and what he would recommend if it came back positive.

The type of breast cancer I have is called "Triple Negative".  It is negative for estrogen receptors, negative for progesterone receptors, and negative HER2.  

http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/trip_neg/

Triple Negative Breast Cancer tends to be more aggressive, more likely to spread beyond the breast, and more likely to come back after treatment.  It also tends to have a higher grade (mine was about a 2.5 on a 1-3 scale).  The higher the grade, the less the cancer cells resemble normal, healthy breast cells.

During the meeting he attempted to locate the genetic testing results early.  After a few calls and three interruptions (nurses coming in and asking him to step into the hall to talk about what they were learning) we were told that the hospital lost my blood work, that it was never sent to the lab, and that we would have to redo it all and wait another two weeks.  We were sick about it.  This was the Friday before Christmas and they couldn't even start to redo it until after the holiday (Tuesday)!