So my sister has breast cancer and I'm a little freaked

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’m the youngest of five kids, all girls. I have one sister that, over the past. . .oh, ten years or so, I’ve been very close to.

A couple of months ago she went to the ER with what she suspected was a kidney stone, and was sure involved a kidney infection.

Long story short, she had a stone and several related infections, but the CTScan that showed the stone also showed a mass in her right breast.

Cancer kind of runs in our family.

More: our family doesn’t have cancer ‘survivors’, it has cancer victims.

So, having the space, the money, and the background (I worked for a number of years as a home health care provider), I told her she had to come live with me. OK, she didn’t have to, she’s a grown woman. But my husband and I both felt strongly about it, and she didn’t like her current situation anyway. . .so she came to live with me.

We found her a general care doc, who recommended a surgeon, who ran some tests. . .and yeah, the mass is cancer. May or may not have spread to her lymph nodes. The surgeon sent her to an oncologist.

Tomorrow, February 12th, we go “into town” (a half-hour from the middle-of-nowhere we live in) for her pre-op testing. On the 15th, she will have a lumpectomy, and also testing to see if, and how far, it has spread into her lymph nodes.

This is going to sound horrible, and there’s no way to make it not sound horrible, but of all my sisters this could have happened to. . .

I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s only 53. I’m not ready to lose her.

I know that breast cancer is not the death sentence it used to be.

But damn.

I’m scared.

Prayers, good thoughts, vibes, whatever. . .
This community’s never let me down. Please be here for me now.

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Hugs and good thoughts for you and your sister, norinew.

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Hang in there - tell her you love her - stay with her.

And everything will probably be fine. Cancer isn’t particularly fun (I’ve had it), but it’s a lot more survivable than in the old days. Especially if they found it early enough.

You’ve got the vibes, virtual hugs, and whatever else you need!

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Wow. That is quite a blow. You will both be in my thoughts tomorrow. Let’s think positively…there’s lots of hope here, the lumpectomy may end up being the worst of it (and I hope it is) but there are lots of options if it isn’t. Good luck!

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Many, many good hopes for you and your sister.

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norinew, good luck to your sister, I hope this goes as smoothly as possible for her.

Good on you for being such a good sister, too. I can’t even imagine how I would feel if my sister got this diagnosis. Be brave (or at least pretend to be) tomorrow - I’ll be thinking of both of you.

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Thanks, guys. It’s hard (impossible) to articulate how or why good vibes/thoughts from people I don’t even know, on a message board on the great big Intraweb, could be helpful to me.

But somehow, it is.

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I’m wishing you and your sister all the best.

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Good luck to your sister, and calming centering energy to you.

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Positive thoughts for you and sis. Hug Mudgirl for us too.

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Positive thoughts and wishes headed your way!

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I could have said that in 1975. My father’s sister was diagnosed with breast cancer during a routine pregnancy checkup in which the nurse (who had known my Aunt for years) showed off this new fancy machine which sort of worked like a submarine’s sonar, but to look at the growing fetus and well, it can be used to look at other things too, like the breasts… and… uh… doctor? Doctor!

It’s now 2010 and both mother and son are fine. There have been deaths of cancer in the family since (my father, just to name one), but somehow it makes an enormous differencce to go from “no survivors” to “sometimes someone survives.” Maybe it’s like when Dad (the accountant) asked his girlfriend to marry him saying “it doesn’t matter if you don’t love me, because my love for you is infinite and infinity/2 is still infinity.” 1/0 is infinity.

I do hope you will, months from now, be able to count your sister as your family’s first cancer survivor. {{{{{{{{{{Norine}}}}}}}}}}

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Thinking of you and hoping for the best possible outcome {{hugs}}

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Fingers firmly crossed!

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All the best to you and your darling sister. I’m the youngest of four girls, so I can start to imagine.

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Good thoughts and prayers heading out to you and your family! Please keep us updated.

GT

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I could have told a similar story two and a half years ago.

My sister was 38, and had a six month old baby and a toddler when she called to say “I found a lump” Six weeks later after testing she called, in tears, to confirm it was breast cancer. It was eventually diagnosed as Stage IIB - into the lymph nodes, but only the first few, not anywhere else. The breast was removed. She had a summer of chemo, another period of radiation. She is now cancer free. Last fall the other breast was removed prophallytically and she had reconstruction on both.

I can tell a similar story (without the kids) about my cousin, whose once long hair is now about four inches all over, but who is cancer free.

(And we don’t have the gene in our family).

I will tell you something that brought comfort to me and I found to be true. A lot of women survive this…it will be a long year, but chances are very good it will be a year - then some recovery time and it will be over. It was nice to have this thing time boxed for me.

(And as stupid as the pink ribbon thing is, a breast cancer walk is really inspirational.)

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Praying for you and your sister to have peace today and for the doctors treating her to have wisdom.

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Norinew - My sister got her breast cancer diagnosis three years ago. Pretty much as they were prepping her for a hysterectomy, the ob gyn’s office called to say, “oh, by the way, you have breast cancer. Do you want to postpone the hysterectomy until you get it treated?” She said to go ahead with the surgery, she was already there. They did the hysterectomy, did a lumpectomy, did a second lumpectomy (until they got clear margins) and chemo and radiation. She really didn’t feel all that badly through the chemo, although she lost her hair. However, she got lots of compliments on her wig! The radiation was little radioactive pellets inserted through straws twice a day for five days in a row. When she finished the breast cancer treatment she had part of her thyroid removed because she was having swallowing issues. Cancer again. Another surgery to remove the rest of her thyroid. Five surgeries in one year. But here she is, three years later, and is cancer free and healthy. This is very doable.

For the record, my sister has had breast cancer and thyroid cancer, my nephew had thyroid cancer, my mother had breast and uterine cancer (the last while she was carrying me!), my father died of lung cancer, my maternal grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, my paternal aunt had thyroid cancer, my maternal aunt had breast cancer twice, two of my maternal uncles have had colon cancer, one maternal uncle and a first cousin had kidney cancer, and a maternal uncle died of a brain tumor.

StG

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Good luck!

(I hope she kicks a size 7 up cancer’s ass.)