Meeting with Dr. Mikkelson

Bright and early on Monday morning, my mom, dad, husband and I filed through the door of the Breast Care Center at St. Luke's Hospital. We were ushered into the library by Cathy (Dr. Mikkelson's Nurse Practitioner) who is absolutely amazing. As we pile around a small round table, Cathy takes up her post next to my mom while slyly moving the tissues from me to her. She said later that she figured my mom would need them more.

My doctor came in and explained what Inflammatory Breast Cancer is. She said that there would need to be tests run to see if it had spread anywhere, but that we are still going to beat this. She goes through the possible schedule of treatment being 4 rounds of chemo, mastectomy, 4 more rounds of chemo, radiation and then five years of being on hormone treatment. At this point, my mom is obviously crying as is my husband. My dad kept a pretty stoic face thank goodness, because if he starts, I'll never stop. I even tried to lighten the mood by referencing the fact that I have always wanted to lose weight and have smaller boobs, just didn't think this would be the way I would go about getting to those goals. Dr. Mikkelson and my mom both gave me a look saying that there were easier ways to go about it, but it definitely lightened the mood.

I guess my thing is that no matter how much I cry, or upset or pissed off I am, nothing is going to make this go away except the treatment. The only thing I can do is look at it like anything else that I have to do. Like my husband says, our motto is "One Day at a Time - Balls to the Wall". Not too catchy, but it works.