Surgeon at UCSF

Trisha was lucky to get in touch with her nephew Daniel's English teacher at Sequoia High School. His teacher has gone through this herself and had a wealth of information and resources to share with Trisha. One of her recommendations was to get in touch with the Cancer Center at UCSF. After sending an email, Trisha received a call from the Head of the Surgery at the Cancer Center. She arranged for Trisha to meet with a surgeon on Thursday, April 10th. Trisha, Oak and Cerena met with Dr. Michael Alvarado, General Surgeon, on Thursday in the late afternoon. When we arrived, he met us at the front desk and suggested that Trisha do a mammogram and biopsy of the lymph nodes to get a better idea of what we were dealing with. Trisha was slightly hesitant (apparently the breast tissue in younger people is more dense and harder to see) but it turned out that it wasn't so bad. The people at the imaging center were very reassuring and accommodating. In meeting with Dr. Alvarado, we found out that there was in fact a mast in her lymph nodes. He saw something on the film and he felt it when he examined her. Ugh! We again went through the surgical options that Trisha has. The approach at the center is slight different than the approach PAMF was suggesting. Dr. Alvarado suggested a therapy called Neo-adjuvant. This is giving chemo up front and shrinking the tumor and the potential threats that may (or may not be) floating around the body; then having the surgery after. He said that a Lumpectomy was very possible because of the size of the tumor (2cm - which is relatively small). His next step was to get in touch with the Oncologists at the center and see if they would feel comfortable giving Chemo to Trisha while being pregnant and at what point. He said he would email the case to his colleagues and see what their recommendation is. He promised to get back to Trisha and Oak by Friday (the next day).