Mid Treatment Ultra Sound

Oct 24th 2018 - Sometimes you have to make your voice be heard when it comes to your health, not saying my doctors and my nurses aren't great (I praise them every chance I get), just I think sometimes we have to speak up for ourselves.

It's not protocol during treatment to have any testing down on the mass in my breast to see if treatment is responding or not - that's just not going to fly with me, sorry.

When I was 16 years old I had a synovial sarcoma tumour in my left forearm that I received chemotherapy treatment for. After I completed my third round of poison invading my body, I found out the cancer I had did not respond to chemotherapy, the size of the tumour was not shrinking and it wasn't going to. We stopped treatment.

As one would, that question is going to be on my mind a lot; is it working? I needed to know, I wasn't going to wait until the end and find out a yay or nay .. I needed an answer.

Half way through my treatment, I asked after 3 round of chemotherapy for imaging on the mass in my breast, I was granted an ultrasound... I'll take it!

On Oct 24th and Bluewater Health in Sarnia went in for the imaging and patiently waited for my results that would come in a week later.

In my mind I didn't think there was any change in the size or the shape, the only thing I did notice was the achiness of the mass was a bit more minimal.

Going into the ultrasound and receiving the results I had to keep an open mind for what I could hear.

Worst I could hear was it's got bigger, it's still growing. Now this I had to be careful with; let me explain. Because the last imaging testing I had on the mass was 3 almost 4 weeks, prior to my first chemo round, and knowing it was fast growing tumour, I knew there was a chance we were starting larger then a 5 cm mass, from when I was originally told.

This was going to be the worst case scenario.

I would settle with being told there has been no change and the mass is around 5 cm (or slightly bigger) but not exponentially bigger. This would mean the chemotherapy is doing it's job and it's stopped the growth, we move forward - I'd take that.

Best news I'd hear, the mass is smaller then 5cm. This for sure wants to be the news I hear, that means 100% the chemotherapy is working and the tumour is responding treatment - we continue onwards with the next 3 rounds.

Oct 29th 2018, I got my news. The mass in my left breast has decreased in size! Of course I said I was going to keep an open mind and no matter what I was going to be fine, but this was what I wanted to hear - I needed to hear!

The overall size of the mass is about 4cm based on the ultrasound imaging - the tumour is responding to treatment, and we are good to keep going with the next 3 rounds as planned. We are on track to kicking ass.

Positive Note: It might not be as small as I wanted to hear, but I have to remember, I 99% started out with a mass around 6 cm.