Long-awaited results bring tears

By John Bach

Julie was sobbing when I walked into the consultation room at the UC Health Breast Cancer Center today.

After two days of testing, an MRI, a mammogram and an ultrasound, it was finally time to find out the status of her breast cancer. I had been pacing the lobby for an hour when they called me back. Julie and I had been nervously exchanging text messages.

Julie makes her way toward testing.

“Mammogram is finished,” she texted. “They’re going to do an ultrasound on my breast.” 

This was unexpected, and I knew she would assume the worst.

“Did they say why?” I asked.

“Nope, but that doesn’t seem like good news,” she answered. 

I quickly googled why they would do an ultrasound following a mammogram but didn’t find any great answers. All we knew was that the last time she had an ultrasound exactly six months ago, the fancy pictures revealed she had cancer. After four months of chemotherapy, suffice it to say we were more than anxious to find out if it all worked and plenty worried that it hadn’t.

The testing started yesterday with an MRI, but there was no meeting with a doctor afterward, so we did our best to interpret the results when the findings posted on the MyChart app on our phones. If you have ever tried deciphering the complex language following an MRI, you know it’s tough sledding. I spent a solid hour running complex searches to unearth some nugget of clarity.

Here’s the phrase that confounded us while doing our frowned-upon self-diagnosis: “Vague focal nonmass enhancement with convex margins and subthreshold kinetics is seen in the upper outer breast measuring up to 1.2 x 0.9 cm.”

Clear as mud, right? 

That’s what we had to chew on until today’s tests. Keep in mind that her tumor once measured at 3 centimeters, so in my mind, it sounded like her tumor may have shrunk by ⅔ but likely it still existed in some form. I pictured a pea-size enemy instead of a walnut-size foe.

That’s why I was so surprised by the news that came once I walked into the room today. Well that and the fact that Julie had tears streaming down her face. I instantly thought the worst only to have the doctor throw me a lifeline. 

“It’s really good news,” she blurted out before I even sat down. “It is?” I questioned, as my eyes darted back to Julie, who was too upset to talk.

Turns out Julie hadn’t taken a decent breath in 24 hours, so watching the MRI technician fail to find a trace of her tumor brought on the tears, but hearing the doctor say “it was like it was never there,” well, that opened up the emotional floodgates. 

No walnut. No pea. No nothing. Three thorough types of imaging reveal her tumor “has melted away,” the surgeon shared with us. “The chemo did its job.”

Julie is positive for the BRCA gene, which means there is a 50% chance her cancer could return. That means she’s still facing challenging surgery options, but for now, we are celebrating through the tears and thanking so many of you for your prayers.

A quick point of clarification: While we can’t wait to use the phrase “cancer free,” we aren’t there yet. The MRI, mammogram and ultrasound are unable to detect Julie’s tumor, which is amazing progress, but those diagnostic tools don’t see down to the cellular level. Once she has surgery, doctors will do a series of additional tests to determine if there are any remaining cancer cells present.