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There have been many days in my life I will never forget: meeting Belle at Disney World, my first big concert (A Perfect Circle), graduating high school, graduating college, being told I had been hired for my first teaching job, and the day I found out that the lump in my breast was my worst fear. April 9th, 2018, I received the phone call that I have a rapidly growing form of breast cancer and would face the scariest and hardest moments of my life.
This is my 7th year teaching 9th grade English, and my second year teaching AVID, but when I have time, I love going to live music shows, festivals, being outside, playing with our two Great Danes, spending time with my nephew and nieces, pretty normal stuff.
Only my grandmother, my father's mother, has had breast cancer in my family. My whole life I thought of cancer as something our grandparents have, and I was told since it was on my father's side, I would still be much older before I started needing mammograms. Fewer than 5% of breast cancer patients are under 40. I am 28 years old. No genetic marker for cancer.
I've learned there are three types of breast cancer that doctors can name by either the two types of hormones that feed the cancer or a type of proten that someone's body has excessively produced. Those can each be targeted to stop the hormones or protein. My tumor tested negative for all three types, so they call it Triple Negative. Only 15-20% of breast cancers are Triple Negative. It is terrifying. The chemo regimen is rough and long because triple negative is so likely to reoccur or spread. From my first sonogram of the tumor that showed it was 2 cm large to exactly a month later starting chemotherapy, the tumor had grown to 3 cm.
Cancer has pretty much halted everything. Two days after receiving the phone call that I had cancer, we were in an office with a breast surgeon telling me that I am Stage 2, 90% of the tumor's cells are actively growing, I would need 4-5 months of chemotherapy that will definitely cause my hair to fall out just two weeks in, that chemo can also cause infertility and I might want to look into egg harvesting, and in order to make sure the cancer doesn't come back or spread, I would need a double mastectomy, which would take several weeks to recover from and also render me unable to breast feed some day.
The days off work, hospital and doctor bills, prescriptions, dealing with all the many side effects of chemo, days in a row of not getting out of the house continue to add up. Anything you can provide to help support me is incredibly appreciated.
For more details and updates on my treatment, check out my blog: katkillscancer.squarespace.com
This is my 7th year teaching 9th grade English, and my second year teaching AVID, but when I have time, I love going to live music shows, festivals, being outside, playing with our two Great Danes, spending time with my nephew and nieces, pretty normal stuff.
Only my grandmother, my father's mother, has had breast cancer in my family. My whole life I thought of cancer as something our grandparents have, and I was told since it was on my father's side, I would still be much older before I started needing mammograms. Fewer than 5% of breast cancer patients are under 40. I am 28 years old. No genetic marker for cancer.
I've learned there are three types of breast cancer that doctors can name by either the two types of hormones that feed the cancer or a type of proten that someone's body has excessively produced. Those can each be targeted to stop the hormones or protein. My tumor tested negative for all three types, so they call it Triple Negative. Only 15-20% of breast cancers are Triple Negative. It is terrifying. The chemo regimen is rough and long because triple negative is so likely to reoccur or spread. From my first sonogram of the tumor that showed it was 2 cm large to exactly a month later starting chemotherapy, the tumor had grown to 3 cm.
Cancer has pretty much halted everything. Two days after receiving the phone call that I had cancer, we were in an office with a breast surgeon telling me that I am Stage 2, 90% of the tumor's cells are actively growing, I would need 4-5 months of chemotherapy that will definitely cause my hair to fall out just two weeks in, that chemo can also cause infertility and I might want to look into egg harvesting, and in order to make sure the cancer doesn't come back or spread, I would need a double mastectomy, which would take several weeks to recover from and also render me unable to breast feed some day.
The days off work, hospital and doctor bills, prescriptions, dealing with all the many side effects of chemo, days in a row of not getting out of the house continue to add up. Anything you can provide to help support me is incredibly appreciated.
For more details and updates on my treatment, check out my blog: katkillscancer.squarespace.com