[jessica]

Hi All~
This is more than my brain can wrap around...I'm hoping you guys can help me...I'm upset and shocked and scared and in complete disbelief...
As I write this, I'm sitting in Hawaii (home w/my parents) recuperating after liver resection 8 weeks ago. You may recall, I'd been wrestling w/a single stubborn liver lesion for a year before we finally decided that it was the right time & the right decision to do surgery. I sailed thru the surgery-the scope & the intraoperative sonogram showed no other lesions, clean clean clean, except for the one. My recovery has been going really well.
This time that I'm spending here in Hawaii was supposed to be my opportunity to really relax-after 3 1/2 yrs of an almost constant battle-81 weeks of chemo, so many scans, surgeries, etc-maybe let my guard down a little and look into a brighter future without this disease...at least a nice long reprieve.
It was just some random movement & I felt a new lump. Same breast, same quadrant, feels like it's the exact same spot. How could this be?I've been getting weekly Herceptin while I've been here, so I had the onc check it out. So now, after a week of tests-mammo, US & FNA (biopsy), it is cancer. Everyone said it "felt" benign-superficial, very moveable, smooth, soft. It even looked like a cyst on the US. But the mammo showed calcifications.Cancer Again. How can it be?
I had a lumpectomy w/my 1st dx in May 2002 & the breast has been clean ever since. It was my liver we were watching so vigilantly. And we took care of that w/the resection. So, I'm cutting my visit short by 2 weeks & returning to Atlanta to my docs & make a plan.
How can this be? Where was it hiding these past ~4yrs? I've been getting PET scans every 12 weeks...why didn't we see it last November when we saw the liver lesion was back? Where was it hiding all those 81 weeks of chemo? Am I, God Forbid, not responding to Herceptin anymore? Admittedly, I haven't been having mammos every 6 mos-it just felt redundant since I've been getting the PET scans so frequently...is this where I went wrong? I even asked my doc about getting a mammo, but we agreed that the PET could/should have been sensitive enough?My TM's right before my resection were 32...
I have so so many questions...when I get back to Atl, I'll hit the ground running...meet w/my onc, repeat the FNA, get all the receptor info, determine if this is a new primary or the same old disease...I don't even know which would be "better"...more surgery? more chemo? losing my hair again...
How can this be? What are the chances?It is so easy to be here, Hawaii, this beautiful place & just forget about the reality that's waiting for me in Atlanta. I have a long flight to gather myself and put my "game face" on...right now I'm just having a hard time finding it.
Any wisdom you can offer would be a great comfort.
Keep the Faith (...atleast trying really hard)

Jessica