Life after TNBC & a pCR

Sometimes I think I'm rockin' it as a Cancer Survivor and have full confidence that I'll be around to raise Elise and nag love my husband for many many more years to come.

Then sometimes I get an ache or pain and I'll spiral into fear and worry that cancer is back as stage IV. I know that despite my strong faith it's human to worry. Luckily each pain has gone away and I thank God every day for that.

But when I'm in the midst of worry I try to look for reasons I should be optimistic. The biggest one for me is that even though Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) has the worst prognosis of all breast cancer types, having a pCR (pathological complete response) after chemo yields an excellent prognosis. Like, look that this chart:

Source

Now that I'm one year out from surgery what's even more encouraging to me is that all "dips" in the graph for pCR/TNBC are before one year, which means that if I was going to have a reoccurrence I'd likely have it by now. Not 100%, but likely according to studies.

I know that statistics are just statistics and ultimately I'm an individual here by the grace of God. But sometimes that graph reassures me a little.  

And now, for fun, look how good my hair looks now...

Yay for a "Mom-Bob"!

I'm a Survivor

Today, I received the amazing news that I am cancer free!

In fact, I was cancer free before surgery because I had a what's called a "complete response" to chemotherapy. The chemo killed all the cancer in my breast and lymph node. Not one cell remained! We are just ecstatic. 

My surgeon called it a medical miracle. I called it a giant answer to prayer. This is exactly what I prayed for again and again over the last 5 months. And many, many others prayed for that as well. Thank you prayer warriors. God is faithful.

My surgeon removed 4 lymph nodes. 1 showed evidence of "dead cancer" (i.e. scar tissue) and the other 3 showed no cancer at all. This is another huge answer to prayer because I didn't want to have many lymph nodes removed because that puts you at more risk of lymphadema.

The original breast tumor was just scar tissue. Amazing! I could not be happier. 

So, no more "bump" because we have Elise and no more "lump" because the lump was killed by chemo and then chopped off. I guess I should change my blog name!