The bad news...

I want to thank each and every person who offered prayers on mine and my family's behalf over the last couple days.  It has been a REALLY long couple days.  Monday I went to the doctor because my breast was swollen and painful.  I had an ultrasound done to see if I needed a cyst aspirated, but there wasn't anything to aspirate.  He sent me home with some pain medicine, an antibiotic and instructions to call him if it wasn't better by Wednesday morning.  Wednesday morning I had seen no change so I called the office back and he referred me to a general surgeon for a consult.  Thankfully they squeezed me in to the general surgeon's office to be seen on Wednesday at 2.  After the surgeon looked at the inflammation, he really thought it was a severe case of Mastitis (which is what the original doctor and radiologist all thought the problem was also).  In case you don't know, Mastitis is a breast infection that a lot of women can get mostly when they are breastfeeding.  It is very painful and is usually accompanied by a high fever.  I'm not breastfeeding anymore and I hadn't had any kind of fever, but was in a lot of pain.  He admitted me to St. Vincent's in Birmingham for IV antibiotics.  During the evening, I had a reaction to the vancomycin.  They call it "Red Man Syndrome".  I got very itchy and my skin turned the color of a coke can.  The nurse stopped the vancomycin and continued with the other antibiotic that had been prescribed.  Thursday morning the surgeon came into my room and the swelling had actually gotten worse.  He stood at the foot of my bed and just shook his head and said I had him stumped, but he wasn't going to give up.  He really thought it was an infection so we kept going with the antibiotics.  He sent me to Ultrasound again to have them attempt to find a pocket of fluid to drain to reduce some of the swelling.  Unfortunately, they didn't find any pockets to drain.  The surgeon came to my room kind of late that evening.  He was disappointed that they couldn't drain anything and said he really didn't want to have to do exploratory surgery.  He left to go back to read the ultrasound reports again and see if he could figure out what to do for the next step.  Friday morning he came into my room and said he was sending me to Ultrasound...again...this time to take several biopsies to try to determine exactly what kind of infection this was.  He also wanted to rule out some other conditions.  Very shortly after I returned to my room, the surgeon came in and sat down on the bed.  (Never a good sign when they sit on the bed.)  He broke the news that I tested positive for Inflammatory Breast Cancer.  My heart immediately began to race.  I started crying because that wasn't anything near the kind of news I as expecting to hear.  I know that God is in control of the situation at hand.  It was a surprise to us, but it's not a surprise to Him.  He has a plan and a purpose and I pray that this situation is going to be used to Glorify His Name.  I want to be strong for this.  I know there will be times, there already have been some, that I will be weak and scared and confused, but I know that I'm not alone.  The outpouring of love and support already shown to us has been overwhelming.  I have the most amazing husband who is my rock and has been so incredibly supportive.  He is unshakable and I am so blessed that God put him in my life.  Today I had a MUGA test that confirmed that my heart is strong enough for treatments and a CAT scan that confirmed that the cancer hasn't spread to any other of my organs.  Tomorrow I will have an MRI to finish confirming that the cancer has not spread anywhere else in my body.  Please pray with me specifically that the cancer has not spread and is localized to my breast only.  I will start Chemotherapy tomorrow.  I hate typing those words.  I know this isn't going to be easy, but God has a plan or He wouldn't be allowing this to happen to me.  I feel His love and presence and I am resting in the security that He promises to never leave me or forsake me.  I will try to keep my blog updated for anyone who is interested in my progress.  I don't plan to update on Facebook, but I know I won't have time and energy to be talking on the phone a lot.  I'm hoping to be released from the hospital Monday.  Please pray for me, David and Ashlyn as we embark on a journey that we never knew we would have to take together.