Good News/ Bad News

Today I got the good news that the lab report showed my margins from the tumor tissue were clean- no renegade cancer cells so no more surgery is needed to get clean margins. Also, no cancer was found in the lymph nodes so I am still at Stage 1 which is great news and made the surgery relatively easy. Yeah!!!. Dr Sataloff will be sending off the tumor for more testing to see whether it is the fast growing kind and would require chemotherapy, but she doubts it. It will take a week or so to find out. This is a slight bummer since I cannot start radiation until I know for sure that I do not need chemotherapy. I go Friday for my follow-up surgery visit so I will know more then.

The really bad news I found  in today’s New York Times article about long term threats of cancer treatments causing other cancers years later. Reading about Robin Roberts from “Good Morning America,” who is a breast cancer survivor,  the article explained that the life-saving treatment she received 5 years before was responsible for her new diagnosis of myekodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare blood and bone marrow disease once called preleukemia.

The article goes on to explain that MDS is a potentially fatal condition that can be caused by radiation and chemotherapy, both of which Ms Roberts had in her initial cancer treatment. In medical speak, it is a “secondary cancer.” The author of the article, Steven Petrow, is also a cancer survivor who has received chemotherapy.

Secondary cancers now make up the sixth most common group of malignancies which is just another thing for me to worry about as if I didn’t have enough to fear and worry about. You need radiation and/or chemotherapy to cure the cancer you have now and it potentially gives you another form of cancer. So, one thing goes off the table and another pops right back on!! Cancer is a bitch one way or the other, even when it is relatively easy.