Doris' help with the diagnosis

Today I'm thankful for...

Going to the Aces baseball game with friends

Holding Lourdes for a hour, enjoying her touch Living in the United States this independence Day Having the freedom to make choices because of the valiant people who fight for these rights

Yesterday was our UCSF clinic day. It started with Lulu getting another Ultrasound and Mammogram done at 8:00 AM (we were all so excited to be there, we showed up at 7 AM). Then met with the breast surgeon (a fairly young women, that impressed the Lulu and her sister Doris). Again, the doctor preformed a very complete medical history, examination, and evaluation of the previous records and tests. She spent a long time explaining what her assessment of Lulu's condition was and what the next steps would be. She was very concerned about the fact that the mass in the right breast was so large, and that it was attached to the chest wall. The doctor had felt that chemotherapy before a full breast mastectomy was the better way to approach Lulu's cancer. She ascertained that by giving the chemotherapy first there was a good possibility that the tumor could shrink in size and the tumor's margins could get more defined (which I learned meant if that happened the surgery would have less chance of negatively effecting Lulu's long term use of her right arm). The doctor also thought it was important to get a MRI on both breasts, and needed Lulu to stop pumping to empty her breasts of excess milk.

Lulu would also start chemotherapy regiment the next week; have blood tests and chemotherapy every two weeks for a total of 8 cycles. Next, we met with the oncologist (another young female, again impressive). The oncologist went through the types of drugs used for this type of cancer and how they work. She also gave some details of the side effects of this treatment. I really liked her, and I could tell that both Lulu and her sister were impressed also. I do have to say that these two doctors were very compassionate; as could be seen by not just their words but also by their body language (they both did a lot of getting close to Lulu, putting their hand on her knee or shoulder, and looking directly in her eyes when speaking. Though, i mostly noticed that they didn't use words like, "you are going to be fine", or "we've seen patients with similar diagnosis and their doing fine". They would only say, "we'll give you the best drugs we have and do as much for you as we can". Wow, this scared the %@*&^% out of me. Wasn't this what the doctors tell you when there's no real hope of saving one's life, and they just want you to know they've done all they can? I told myself that they don't want to give false hope, or say thing that they may not be able to back up (especially the way law suits are these days, if they told me I would be fine and I died, my family could probably sue this doctor for wrongful death)?

We left that afternoon (about 4 PM, because we needed to get Lulu's sister to the airport for a 5:30 PM flight back to Puerto Rico) both with new optimism and also new fears. How was the final chapter going to read? In my book, my heroine was going to beat this villain called cancer and ride into the sunset her knight in shining armor (I was just hoping that the heroine was Lulu and the knight would be me?)