I have what???

It was time for my annual check-up and mammogram, so when I saw my doctor, Dr. Barbara Hayes, I mentioned a slight discomfort in my breast (yea, you can see where this is going). She recognized this could be cause for concern and scheduled not only a mammogram but an ultrasound as well.
Mammograms can get an “F”, mine did. If there isn't a breast imaging specialist reading your film, the reports can be wrong. What I now know is, to get your mammogram at a facility specializing in breast imaging. The Ultrasound I had showed some suspicious spots, which led to a biopsy (horrible procedure), which led to a call the next day from Dr. Hayes. In a 3-minute conversation I heard the words infiltrating ductal carcinoma. Holy shit. I couldn’t hold a pen to write it down.
Every minute of everyday day for the next week I felt the sting of those words. After a week of fear, miraculously, my focus shifted to I’M GOING TO GET THIS BEHIND ME.
I am clear that fear doesn't serve me. If I hadn't gone through this with two close friends, I would NOT have known what to do. I knew who to call and what action to take. Eleven year breast cancer survivor and dear friend, Susanne, immediately delivered the latest edition of Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. I called and annoyed the newly referred medical office of Dr. Lisa Guirguis to get me in pronto to meet the oncology surgeon...make that, MY oncology surgeon.
Dr. Guirguis is cheerful and down to earth, I like her. The tests came back from the pathology on the cancer, and she's still cheerful. Are surgeons cheerful? Analysis on the estrogen and progesterone receptor came back positive—a good thing as that indicates the tumor is sensitive to hormones (responds well to drug therapy), is slightly slower growing and have a better prognosis than tumors that aren’t.
The FISH test, a more definitive test, shows Her-2/neu is negative, my cancer is NOT over-expressive (not of an aggressive nature) and this is a good thing too. I’m smiling.