What we know....

My name is Nicole Jensen, I am creating this blog at the request of my dear friend, Melissa Davids. She has been diagnosed with breast cancer recently. We know there will be family and friends who are concerned for her and have questions. We anticipate that it will be difficult for her family to answer all of these questions and that Melissa will likely not be available. Melissa would like people to have correct information about her condition so we will be updating it frequently. It is important to her to stay positive. Please feel free to share this with others who are interested in Melissa and her family.

Melissa detected a thick spot about a month ago so she went for a mammogram (Oct. 17th) where she was told she had cancer. Since then she has had an ultrasound, MRI and biopsy. Preliminary results of the biopsy tell us that the cancer type is invasive ductal carcinoma which is the most common. About 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have this type. We do not have definite information on treatment as of yet. Thanks to her local Doctors' persistence, Melissa will meet with the oncology team on Friday. She has a total of four appointments with radiation and medical oncologists, general surgeon and geneticist at the Huntsman High Risk Breast Cancer Center at McKaydee in Ogden. When she sees them the tumor board will have already met and will be able to make recommendations for her treatment. Final staging is not complete until pathology results are in. Our local physicians are optimistic because even though it seems to be an aggressive tumor and is 5.1 cm, the cancer has been caught early. There is a smaller tumor which is contained. Melissa had an unrelated CT scan in May which shows no abnormality. At this time prognosis is encouraging. We do know mastectomy will be necessary and chemo is probable. At this point she is tentatively on the surgery schedule for November 7th. Because of a family history on her father's side there will be genetic testing to determine additional treatment options. Melissa is feeling very blessed because of the opportunities her new job has given her. Her care is being expedited which will undoubtedly be beneficial. Another huge blessing is that the very expensive genetic testing is now covered by her insurance as of October 1st!