Hi friends — I am continuing to recover well from surgery. Nerve pain and muscle soreness are still there, but a little less "loud." I was able to go on a run this past week and I am back to biking.

Here are the updates on the ongoing cancer treatment: The pathology report from the surgery has returned and the news is both good and ???

The good: The lymph node that was removed during surgery tested negative for carcinoma. Put another way, the cancer in my breast had not spread, meaning radiation won't be necessary. 

This lymph node has been a part of this story from the beginning. It was bigger than normal and therefore deemed suspicious, so this whole time everyone was expecting it also had cancer. It was the reason my oncologist urged me to get surgery sooner rather than later. The fact that cancer was not found in this lymph node is objectively good news! And yet, I haven't been able to feel relief from it and I'm not entirely sure why. For one thing, I'm not out of the woods yet.

The ??? news is that the genetic test on my tumor also arrived and the results are ambiguous. There is a medium chance that the cancer will return. In these cases, chemotherapy is often recommended for younger patients. This is harder to hear. Although I was expecting to undergo radiation, chemotherapy felt far away – a distant possibility. (For one thing, my oncologist said my type of cancer is not usually as responsive to chemotherapy and before surgery, she guessed I wouldn't need it.) It's still not certain, yet, though. As my surgeon put it, there is "not a clearcut yes or no chemo." An oncologist might advise otherwise, though. And, ultimately, it will be my decision.

There are many shitty things about cancer, but one big one is that you feel like you have no control over huge things happening to your life or your body. If you do have the privilege of agency, none of the options available to you ever feel good. Decisions aren't made, but forced, under intense emotional stress on a compressed timeline. And, somehow, no decision will ever guarantee you your prior life, prior body, or a life completely free of disease. 

Should I just take turmeric supplements for the rest of my life and call it a day? I had multiple oncology appointments on Friday and strangely this never came up as an option.

Big decisions are ahead. As always, thank you for your love and support. I so appreciate your texts, calls, snacks, and meals 💛 Your care and generosity mean so much.