Well if it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.

I went for my 6 month routine check up with the cardiologist on the stent in my carotid expecting to get a clearance for the lumpectomy, and found out I now have a another better than 90% blockage ABOVE the stent he put in in 2008. I am now scheduled for an angiogram tomorrow and another stent either tomorrow or Friday. I am hoping he can do it all in one procedure because lying immobile for 10 hours after it is no fun. Plus I don't want the second leg bruised up too. He also said he won't clear me for lumpectomy for two to three weeks and that it needs to be done on Plavix and under a local. Doctor at Princeton wants me off Plavix for 10 days and not under a local, so that option is out.

Went to HUP for second opinion same afternoon. He is willing to do lumpectomy under local and on plavix, so he is the guy. HUP is going to do a HER2 test on the biopsy and if it turns out positive, which I doubt it will, there is a clinical trial for a vaccine they make from your own cells that he wants me on before he does the surgery. This vaccine is supposed to shrink the tumor and then he does lumpectomy. His goal is for me NOT to need radiation.

Now you are going to love this. If this breast cancer is HER2 negative which means it is triple neg breast cancer, then he thinks was probably caused by scatter radiation from the XRT treatments I had for H&N cancer in 1997. Good old radiation, the gift that keeps on giving. For this reason, he would like to be able to avoid me having more radiation. He also wants a breast MRI to make certain nothing is going on in the other breast. I get that sometime next week. Can't wait for those results.

So I'm off to Hahnemann tomorrow for angiogram and stent. If I don't post anything for a few days, don't worry. I'm either recurperating at the shore or off getting the MRI.

Sorry for the novel but since both these conditions may be a side effect of radiation, this really is about H&C cancers.

Send some good vibes my way tomorrow and Friday. I'm gonna need 'em.
Take care,
Eileen