Our appointment with Dr. Barr was set for Friday, December 16. We’d learn what the final pathology report showed, the cancer’s stage and what our plan of attack would be. That’s all I wanted – a plan. The not knowing had been the worst part. I felt like I was living in limbo, unsure what path my life was about to take. I was ready to have something tangible to hang on to.

Brian and I walked through the doors at the LMH Health Cancer Center and I felt like I’d entered a new world. Sure, I’d been in the clinic before to interview doctors and to take photos for articles I’d written, but this was different. It had never been about me before. This time I was the patient, the one with a story that someone might write about someday.

It was all so surreal, even when Dr. Barr walked into my exam room. You couldn’t ask for a kinder, more caring oncologist to have in your corner. I don’t recommend getting cancer just to meet her – in fact, please don’t – but you’ll love her if you meet her. She came in, gave me the biggest hug and told me how sorry she was that this was happening to me. I introduced her to Brian, who later asked me if all of my doctors hugged me, and off we went with the appointment.

She confirmed that the initial pathology was correct and I did have triple-negative breast cancer. That meant that the best course of action would be to start with chemotherapy. I’d have 12 rounds of chemo – one treatment each week for 12 weeks – starting mainly with Carboplatin (carbo) and paclitaxel (taxol). There have also been great strides made in therapies for people with TNBC, so every three weeks I’d also get an infusion of a monoclonal antibody named Keytruda. Yes, it’s the one you see airing as about every third TV commercial. After 12 weeks, we’d break and do scans to see if and how much the tumor was shrinking, and then go into another 12 weeks of chemo with other drugs. Fortunately, the second batch of chemo would only happen every three weeks, along with some other infusion the day afterward. (More to come on that later. Like later, later.)

Once Dr. Barr explained everything and we asked a few questions, she left and my nurse navigator, Amy, came in to give us a schedule for the next week. I would get my port placed on Monday morning, then have an echocardiogram on Wednesday to get a baseline assessment of my heart and then go into chemo class. Yes, you take a one-on-one class about chemo, what it is and what to expect and honestly, it is super helpful in answering all of those lingering questions. And then I’d start chemo that Thursday, December 22. Just in time for Rachel’s 26^th birthday and Christmas.