Everything so far...

This blog is to inform the masses of the events that occur around my beautiful wife, Britteny and her breast cancer. 

A question that is asked a LOT is "how did you find out?"  Well, without further adieu, here is how it all started.  When Britteny was breast feeding Franklin, she developed mastitis.  The doctor treated her and all was well. Then about 2 months before Abigail was born, Britteny started showing signs of enlargement without pain which was passed off as no infection or anything to worry about.  After Abigail's birth there were signs of infection and antibiotics were given to Britteny.  After the antibiotics were finished, there was no change so the family physician ordered a mammogram for further analysis with a breast specialist which was on June 7th.  That same day they took a small biopsy of some cells for some initial testing.  June 12th we were back at the breast specialist and we were informed that it was "very likely" that Britteny had cancer.  Also on that day they did another biopsy and actually took tissue to get a better read on the possible cancer.  June 13th we were back at the doctor's office and Britteny was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC).  The cancer is fast growing (grade 3) and is currently considered to be stage 3.  We were told that IBC is only 1% of all breast cancers and is typically found the way we found it.  Also on June 13th we meet the oncologist who will be taking care of Britteny's treatment at Texas Oncology.  The next day Britteny had surgery to put in a port to receive chemo treatment.

Britteny's oncologist said that she will be treated 4 ways.  First there will be 20 weeks of chemotherapy to reduce inflammation.  Next will be surgery, a mastectomy to be exact.  Following surgery will be radiation and some kind of pill regimen which we will find out more about down the road.

After a heart echo (echocardiogram) last week we found out that Britteny's heart is good to go for chemotherapy.  So, today was the first day of chemo.  She took it pretty well after a little bit of nervousness.  I was so proud!  Sitting in the waiting room reinforced what everybody has been telling us, "y'all are so young!"  We were definitely the youngest in the office today.  A couple hours after she completed her chemo she began to feel nauseous.  I think it was because we were at Heather and Ryan's house where her and Heather talked solid for a couple hours wearing out Britteny.  We got home and after some rest Britteny is back up and around as usual.

Tomorrow she has a PET scan to see if the cancer has spread anywhere else.  Please be praying for her!

Also, thank you everyone so much for the prayers so far.  We can definitely tell they are working; spirits are high and things seem to be flowing pretty smoothly with appointments.  This is just something we have to go through right now and we really appreciate the support.

Sorry for the novel, but so much has happened in the last couple weeks that it takes a lot to get caught up on everything.  I promise they won't all be this long.  Again thank you for everything!