Six years and six months..... Still Sassy

Well it has been six years and six months since my final treatment for my Stage 2 Breast Cancer . Life has been good. When people would ask me is if I was cancer free I would respond with "I am sassy, which it is good thing. You never know you are cancer free because you can't examine every cell in your body." Wait is a good thing I had that mind set, it made my most recent diagnosis easier to accept. Yes, the breast cancer has spread to my bones, so I am now a Stage IV Breast Cancer Fighter. How did this come about? I had fallen earlier this year and had a sore back for quite some time and thought, well I am getting older. Then the pain went the my left side and felt like I had a knife in my side. So I consulted Dr.Google and figured outbid had a kidney stone. Since I have only 1 kidney, I went to the doctor. Well the kidney function test was normal 😊😊 , the ultrasound was inconclusive. The Urologist ordered an X_Ray and a CT Scan and again showed no kidney stone but did show a "boney island" near the 9th vertebrae. So. It a kidney issue but a trip back to my oncologist, Dr.Hill was recommended. A PET scan was conducted which showed many hot spots of cancer. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography for what a PET Scan is. The PET Scan came back showing many "hot spots" of suspicious cancer activity. Mainly in my spine at the 9th vertebrae ( hence the back pain) plus some at the 2nd and 3rd vertebrae along with some spots in my pelvis and collarbone. The scan also showed some fluid in my right lung, but they are not real worried about that. So the next step was to go for surgery to repair the compression fracture at the 9th vertebrae. The surgery was awesome, they did it with an incision no larger than a pencil eraser! A 19 mm tumor was removed and a type of bone cement was placed where the tumor was. Very cool, the pain in my left side was gone. The surgeon explained that is was the tumor growing and pushing on the narrow covering of nerves that caused the extreme pain. Recovery was very easy, the hardest part for me being recovering from anesthesia, it seems to take me 3-4 days to get over the effects, but sleep is a good thing! It took about 4 days for the biopsy to come back. When it did, it did indicate cancer. This is not bone cancer, but a return of breast cancer that has metastasized to my bones. The physiology is altered from what I had in 2008, I learned that cancers often morph their characteristics. It is still estrogen positive. With this being stage 4, there is no cure, but my doctors will be following closely and altering treatment as necessary. My next post will cover my treatments. All is well, but cancer is a pain!