Welcome and Support Jen Lapole
While She Fights Again
I am sure I will have ups and downs, good days and bad but most of all, I am able to share this with all of my friends and family. So as some/most of you may know, I was diagnosed with Stage II Breast Cancer when I was 28 years old, yup 28. At that time I had a bilateral mastectomy followed by 4 growling weeks of chemotherapy. I finished with flying colors and things looked and felt great. I started taking Tamoxifen as planned and went on with life. Then in 2009, I got married to the love of my life (as seen above) Mark Lapole! In February 2010, I just celebrated my 5 year Cancer free day and was elated until a few months later the cancer had returned. At this point it was in a lymph node near my collar bone. I had a lymph node dissection, different chemotherapy, and this time Radiation. When I finished all of my treatment I started taking Arimidex, which I hated and had to take for 10 f’ing years. Somewhere along the way I had decided to have my ovaries removed instead of getting a horrible shot in my stomach monthly. I was trekking right along taking my pill daily and getting yearly breast MRI’s which was a little over kill but it eased my mind.
This is where it gets real….
In March/April I noticed a lump on the left side of my tongue that wasn’t going away but I figured it would. Oh…and in the beginning of May I celebrated 10 years of being Cancer free, or so I thought. Then later in May, the left side of my chin went numb and that is when I knew something was really wrong and that it wasn’t normal. I immediately called my Oncologist at Stanford Hospital and discussed my symptoms with her Nurse Practitioner who quickly called back and said that they ordered a STAT Brain MRI for me. I asked her if she thought it could wait a week or two and she told me that she didn’t want to say and that she scheduled a video appointment the next day with my Oncologist. Well when I spoke to her, she said its probably something with my teeth, not to worry and just see my Dentist. I explained to her numerous times that it wasn’t my teeth, my teeth don’t hurt. Then she said well why don’t you go see an ENT who can look at the lesion on your tongue and also order the correct imaging to figure out the chin numbness. So, off I went to Palo Alto Medical Foundation an ENT doctor that I have seen before. The rest you will have to keep reading……Welcome and thank you for supporting me throughout this the journey:)
Jen's Cancer Journey 