Pregnant with Breast Cancer: Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Grade 3 Diagnosis

In early April, I had found a lump in my right breast that I knew from the start was not good. 

It was stationary and hard and therefore I was sure it was malignant. 

I went to the Dr. the following week and was told that it was a fibroadenoma. Very common in woman my age who are  pregnant. (I was about 5 1/2 months at the time) 

To be sure of this and because of my cancer history, my Dr. sent me to a surgeon to get a second opinion. Sure enough, I heard the same thing from him as well. In fact, he gave me a 1% chance of it being anything bad. To be sure and again because of my cancer history, he wanted to do a needle core biopsy to confirm. Less than two weeks later, I had the biopsy and again was told everything should be just fine. The surgeon gave me an ultrasound requisition to have the lump followed up to be sure it was not growing too fast and getting too irritating. I still have to cancel that appointment that is scheduled for next week. 

Anyways, A week and a half later my follow up appointment was scheduled for the biopsy. I got to doing more research on the fibroadenoma and fibrocystic breast disease and convinced myself that is all it was. This all fit the description perfect of what I had. It made sense. The pregnancy hormones caused this and should go away postpartum. I managed to stay calm and not get upset while waiting for the results. 

On May 20th I went to the surgeon for the results. My husband had offered to attend the appointment with me and since I figured it was nothing, I told him that it really didn't matter. 

I was lucky he said he would take me anyways although we only expected a quick in and out visit to hear it was nothing and leave. 

We waited for a while before we were called into the office. I sat there reading magazines with articles about breast cancer thinking I was so lucky that all I had was a cyst. 

I was reading about women a little older and younger than me that had been diagnosed with breast cancer and choosing to have mastectomy's. I remember thinking that I just couldn't imagine having to do that...to make that decision. 

I was then called into the room where the surgeon got right to the point. I could tell by the way he said my name that it was not going to be going well. Then he told me that it was cancer. 

I felt my whole body turn to stone and everything echoed. When I heard cancer, I automatically thought about dying and that is not something I am prepared to do anytime soon. 

It is a good thing that I had my husband Dave with me, he was able to be supportive to me yet keep it together enough to hear what the Dr. had to say. 

We were given a copy of the pathology report and a whole bundle of information and a book on breast cancer. We were to go home and review it all. 

Then came the next part that was rather hard to stomach. Surgery less than a week later. 

I then had a choice of having the lump removed and radiation with chances of the cancer coming back. The other option was a mastectomy. Less than 20 minutes after thinking that I could never imagine having to make such a decision, I was opting for a mastectomy. Given my cancer past I felt it was the best thing and so did the Dr.s. So, it was set, the following week it would be done. 

This was a fast growing tumor as it appears that it was hormone dependent. If I had not been pregnant, I would still have breast cancer but who knows when I would have found the lump and how much more damage or how much more it had spread by then (if it has even spread now)

This type of breast cancer happens once in every 3000 pregnancies. Pregnancy does not cause the cancer, the women who get this already have the tumor before pregnancy but it is picked up usually within 6 months after becoming pregnant.