Shitty Christmas news

Posting here from /r/breastcancer since it seems I have joined this club now and the good folks there pointed me this way.

Last November I joined the rare unicorn club that is Male Breast Cancer when I was diagnosed with an 11CM ++- Stage 3 IDC.

I went through 8 rounds of chemo, a mastectomy, and 30 doses of radiation. Treatment went better than expected and I had extremely positive response to chemo, shrinking my tumor down to a few 5mm nodes.

I finished treatment in August and have been slowly recovering since. I still don't feel like myself and suffer from fatigue and some mild neuropathy.

My MO scheduled a post-treatment PET scan on Friday that I was hoping would be my all clear.

Cancer had other ideas, apparently and wants to get it's ass kicked a second time.

Courtesy of a MyChart notification, I just found out I have metastatic spread.

"Active new lytic metastatic lesion posterior T10 vertebral body at 17.7"

It's funny because I was just telling my wife my back hurts, I thought because of the way I have to sleep now with scar tissue from my mastectomy making my usual position uncomfortable. I suppose it's a positive that my first thought of a new pain didn't immediately turn to cancer, but at the same time I am absolutely devastated.

I don't want to ruin everyone's Christmas, so I'm planning to keep this to myself until my MO calls to schedule me to come in and break the news.

Seriously though.... FUCK cancer.