The Breast Doctor

Dr. Berry is my surgical oncologist. He works at The Breast Clinic in Memphis (well basically Germantown). He is the person coordinating all my treatments and the one who decided on the plan of action. The first time I met with him, he did an ultrasound of my tumor. He also looked at my lymph nodes with the ultrasound and found one that was enlarged. He thought it looked normal enough, but just to be sure decided to jam a needle in and out of my armpit to get fluids from it. Originally, he thought the cancer hadn't spread to my nodes, but that meant he would have to do a biopsy on them later to be safe. However, it came back positive so when I get my mastectomy the lymph nodes will come out too. Anyway, Dr. Berry told me the plan on my first visit to him. I would start with chemotherapy, and yes would lose my hair (though he joked I would still look better than him, with his thinning hair, lol). The chemo is AC-->T and dose dense (every 2 weeks). The AC stands for Adriamycin and Cytoxan, the drugs I will get my first four chemo treatments. The T stands for Taxol, the drug I will get my last four chemo treatments. After chemo, I will get a month off to rest. Then I will have a mastectomy with lymph node removal. The point of doing chemo first is to shrink the tumor (as it is now so big there would not be much left to work with for reconstruction later) and to kill any cancer cells lurking elsewhere in my body. After mastecomy, a month off, then radiation. After that, another month off, and then I can have reconstruction. Getting hit with all that information was a shock. Dr. Berry set me up with the (in his opinion) best medical oncologist in Memphis, Dr. Schwartzberg, to be in charge of my chemo.