I am the face of breast cancer

      My breast cancer story began July 13, 2010 @ 1:30 in the afternoon. I was at my obgyn for my annual check up and had promised my self I would ask her to look at the "dent" I has in my left breast. I had noticed it right before Colt was to be born and thought it was just due to my milk coming in...boy was I wrong. At the appt brought the "dent" to my NP attention, she said I don't think it's anything and dismissed it even after she had done my breast exam. It must have not FELT like cancer. I pushed again before she left the room to look again with my arm raised because it looked different or worse when my arm was up. She again said "Well, there is a "dent" but I don't think it's anything, BUT we will send you for a mammogram just to be sure." WOW....was this happening to me?
    So, got to the imaging center same day, had the mammogram and then they took me to another room to have an ultrasound. I knew it was not good at that point. As the radiologist does the ultrasound he looks at me and says" You have a mass Heather, and I believe it is breast cancer". I was BLOWN away. No family history of breast cancer, in fact I met none of the criteria for having this dx. WOW...what next?
     Meet Dr. Lehr, surgeon...." Heather, you don't have family history, your young, I believe this is going to be nothing, but let's do the biopsy to be sure".......3 days later "Heather, it's Dr. Lehr......are you sitting down?" ....No, do I need to be? "Yes, you do have breast cancer".....yada yada yada....my world was spinning. Ductal Carcinoma, what is that? WOW...again...how can this be happening? I went to his office the next day with my mom, grams and Brett my "support" team. We discussed the cancer, what it meant and how to treat it? Would I live? Am I going to die? ....I wanted the cancer OUT- gone, I wanted him to take both of my breast that I would NEVER have to deal with this again. He said let's go slow, we can go forward but never back and if we do the double mastectomy you can't go backwards.
    So, I had a lumpectomy, margins clear, no node involvement, but it was invasive. The tumor was 3.2 cm, it was estrogen and progesterone driven or positive and it did not have the her protein that is present in aggressive forms of breast cancer. After the initial path report revealed no node involvement the final one said 2 positive nodes...wow that means CHEMO. Could this get any better? I may lose my boobs which I LOVE and now my hair!!!!! This cannot be happening!!!!! But it was,  I was then given the BRCA test to see if I am at a greater genetic risk for recurrence. If so, recommendations were to have a double mastectomy to reduce the risk. The BRCA test results came back MAYBE...wow...1 of 10 people in the WORLD to have this particular mutation, still trying to find out the significance of it. Still recommendations from 2 oncologists and my surgeon, double mastectomy to reduce risk, as each year it would climb 0.5% plus my 10 to 20% chance of recurrence just having been DX previously. So, decided to have the double mastectomy to ensure a better survival rate and less chance of recurrence. WOW is this hard!!!!!!
     I am a woman BECAUSE I have boobs...what does it mean if I don't have any?  Struggling but muddling through, all the while weaning our son in 3 days from the breast which was very difficult for me and I thought would be devastating to the little man cause he was a boob guy for sure, but he transitioned beautifully. Still everything else was haywire, I was trying to be strong, praying and believing that God would change this outcome and move for me to get me out of this nightmare.  Then it happened God stepped in at my weakest moment and took my hand and said, "This is your testimony and you will tell a lot of women your story". WOW, it is starting to make sense now,  I hadn't revealed this to Brett but God had told me that last fall and I knew the second time I heard it what it really meant. I was going to live and beat breast cancer so that I might share my story with others. I CAN do this, no matter what I am going to come through this.
    August 23, 2010 I had a bilateral mastectomy clear margins and one more positive node, that means Stage2 B. WOW....I had not asked any Dr at that point what stage as when you hear the word cancer you assume stage 4 and death, or at least I did. Fast forward to now, healed from surgery awaiting first chemo treatment October 11, 2010  to be finished in February 2011.
    I AM THE FACE OF BREAST CANCER. October is breast cancer awareness month, I want to urge all women to ask your doctor to test your for the BRACA gene and see what your risk is...even if you have no family history, if you test positive your chance of developing breast cancer before the age of 60 is 80- 85%. Please be proactive with your health and press and push your doctors to do more tests if your body is telling you something different. My tumor based on size and grade had been growing 5-7 years, that means I was 27 -29 years old when it began . I would NOT, based on the current policies and recommendations, had a mammogram until 40 and by then it could have been too late.