My Story – Part 1
My story begins with a lump I found during a routine breast exam in March of 2014. It was on my right breast. At first, I was in denial—of course I was—but that didn’t last long. After about three weeks, I finally made an appointment with a gynecologist. As I suspected, she ordered a mammogram and a bilateral sonogram.
I didn’t hesitate—I went right away to get the tests done. The radiologist told me there was a suspicious mass and that a biopsy would be necessary. The biopsy was scheduled for March 6, 2014. The wait for the results felt like forever.
Wanting to be proactive, I had also scheduled an appointment with a breast surgeon for March 19, 2014. I went with my husband. The doctor explained that the mass was ductal carcinoma. He discussed my options: a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. He couldn’t yet tell me the cancer stage definitively, but based on the information available, it was likely a clinical stage one. Still, not all the reports were in.
He was ready to schedule surgery immediately, but I wasn’t. It was too much—too fast. I needed time to absorb it all in my own way.
While I was trying to process everything, I did a lot of reading. I also reached out to Sloan Kettering in Commack, Long Island, and arranged to have all my medical records sent there.
In the meantime, the original surgeon called. He had received all my test results and recommended an MRI biopsy because other suspicious masses had appeared. That biopsy was scheduled and completed on April 7, 2014.
I later learned that Sloan Kettering didn’t perform surgeries in Commack, so I rescheduled my appointment for their Manhattan location on April 17, 2014. I did my research carefully, wanting to find a doctor I could trust—someone knowledgeable, compassionate, and open to considering all options.
That’s when I met Dr. Van Zee. She was wonderful: calm, caring, and direct. She believed a lumpectomy was the best course of action. The total size of the masses was about 2.0 cm, and she felt confident that removing them, along with three sentinel lymph nodes, would be sufficient. Around this time, I also learned I was HER2 positive (3+), which meant I would need ACT rounds of chemotherapy and radiation afterward.
We scheduled surgery for May 14, 2014. It went very well—an in-and-out procedure. Dr. Van Zee successfully removed the tumors, but one of the lymph nodes showed cancer that was spilling out. At the follow-up appointment, she told me I would need to have all the lymph nodes removed. I was hesitant, but she explained that we wouldn’t revisit that until after chemotherapy was completed.
After a four-week break, I went to Sloan Kettering in Rockville Centre to meet my oncologist, Dr. Troso—a truly wonderful doctor. She explained everything in detail to both me and my husband. She even wrote it all down in the little journal I had been keeping. A treatment schedule was set. My first chemo treatment would begin on June 25, 2014.
Part 2 coming soon.
