The Results Are In

Victoria and I met with the surgical oncologist today and we couldn't have received better news. The pathology report came back from the lymph nodes and all of the breast tissue that was removed during Victoria's surgery and no cancer could be detected. The doctor told us that Victoria had a full pathological response and is in remission. This happens in about 15-20% of patients with Victoria's type of breast cancer. The chemotherapy did it's job and killed all of the cancer cells! As you can imagine this was very exciting news for us. Victoria and I are definitely ecstatic about the news and are looking forward to the road of recovery ahead of us. She will still finish out another 7 months of herceptin infusions, and will be on tamoxifen pills for the next 5 years. The herceptin is to prevent the type of breast cancer that she had from returning in what little amount of breast tissue she has remaining and the tamoxifen is to prevent cancer from showing up somewhere else in her body.
I'm happy to report that Victoria's hair is growing like a weed since she has been off the chemo. It's coming in as a dark brown, so we'll be curious to see if it continues to darken or if it will lighten up.
Victoria had 2 of the 4 drains, that were installed during surgery, removed last week. The tubes were actually inserted through a hole in the skin that they created and into the area where the tissue expanders are installed. Victoria was nervous and asked the plastic surgeon what it was going to feel like. He said you'll be surprised and not feel anything at all or it will burn like a mother for about 45 seconds. The medical assistant pulled the first drain out, Victoria clenched my hand, and then said, yep, that burned like a mother, but only for 15 seconds!
The immediate road ahead will consist of primarily the tissue expansion process and reconstruction. The total reconstruction to finished product timeline is about 5 months.