🍀 March Update #1 🍀

Hello, a bit of a sucky update!

Firstly, update with the gene situation: I DO have it, specifically CHEK2. I got referred to Cancer Prevention and Wellness to come up with a personal care plan for me to help prevent it and reduce my chances of getting it! To clarify, I do not have breast cancer nor am I guaranteed to get it. A woman's normal risk is around 12.9%, and due to my gene, I'm roughly 23-27% risk right now (this is a guesstimate) but could go up to 40% of a chance. Also due to my family history, I'm at a higher risk of getting it at a young age like my mom, so technically I'm not exactly super safe from it currently age wise even with the "not that high" percentage :<

I'll have to see how the plans go for my individual case once I have a breast doctor/surgeon. My aunt got a mastectomy (meaning both your boobs are entirely removed) when she found out she has CHEK2 years ago, but mastectomies aren't always recommended for CHEK2 carriers and are considered aggressive since the percent isn't high compared to, say, BRCA. But they decide on a case by case basis depending on your family/personal history. My current plan for myself is a breast reduction instead as a middle ground to reduce my percentage + makes it easier to monitor them in mammograms. Less boob = less places for cancer to develop, and if you guys didn't know, I've always had massive booba, which also makes mammograms less effective which is dangerous because they could miss lumps ;-; The only thing is for a breast reduction to be effective percentage reducing wise, I have to remove A LOT and not just a small amount, so I decided if my reduction is approved I'll go almost flat with tiny amount of boob left T^T (like A or AA cup)

Second news is my voice. I was having a lot of good progress the past few months, but after my surgery on the 17th my voice got dried out for a few days. My voice hasn't gotten worse but hasn't gotten suuuper better either since. On my speech therapy appointment on the 4th, my second speech therapist (who works together with my first one with me) said the improvement since my last exam in December is either minimal or nothing changed visually even though vocally I improved a bunch.

When they examined my folds, they saw a huge white spot that they think is keratin build up. From what I looked up, it can happen due to incomplete healing, and since I had huge nodules for almost a year that caused deep tissue damage, it's no shocker that my folds struggled to heal. My doctor also left nodule "remnants" in my surgery as a conservative approach to operate on my voice the safest. The remnants were supposed to go away with speech therapy, and instead caused a "cup saucer effect" where the remnant on one pushed into my flatter fold if that makes sense visually??? Think of "(" being the pushed in spot and "(" being the bump on the other side.

But due to the keratin and cup saucer plus the fact it's been almost 6 months since my vocal surgery, my voice doctor/surgeon has to get involved again. My next speech therapy appointment for the 18th was cancelled, and from what I understand, there's gonna be a steroid injection to soften everything and then surgery if it doesn't work, or we might go straight into a second surgery, I don't know yet ._.

I love the voice doctor I have but feel like even though he left remnants to be safe, in my specific situation with long term/rougher nodules it just didn't work, so if I get surgery again I think I'm gonna advocate for a.) being more aggressive with the blade or b.) laser surgery, but I'm leaning to laser. In comparision to the blade, laser is also more effective, can get the deeper tissue with less risk, and healing/recovery time is faster, so it wouldn't set me back! I see my surgeon in two days, so I'll update you guys on the plans then.

Also just for reassurance, I was doing well vocally in February til this issue came up and made me decline, so as long as the injection or surgery fixes the remaining issues, it won't be a super long recovery like my first voice surgery and will be way shorter because I won't be recovering from massive nodules, I'll be recovering from minimal leftover issues 🫶 But that's all for now!