The plan of action

Steve, my mom and myself, met with the tumor board today. It was a long emotional day. We were there from 8-4. I was very tired. My head was spinning from so much information thrown at me.

Dr. Gray, my oncologist, showed us the MRI films. The tumor is bigger than we first thought. He measured it at 5 cm and 7 cm in some spots. I was a little surprised as well. He is recommending 5-6 rounds of chemotherapy every 3 weeks, mastectomy and then radiation. I wasn't too surprised because I have been researching this type of cancer myself and it seems like this is the usual course of treatment. There are 2 types of breast cancer, Invasive Ductal Carcinoma which is the most common type and Invasive Lobular Carcinoma. The cancer I have is Invasive Lobular Carcinoma. It starts out in the lobes of the breast, is usually much bigger and doesn't show up on a mammogram or ultrasound.

Dr. Alder is my surgeon. He is going to place a port-a-cath on my left side up near my collarbone. This is to help with the chemotherapy. Chemo is very hard on the veins, so a port will help with this. There is also a bigger vein on the left side that is able to handle chemo a little better. He will also be doing a sentinel node biopsy on the right side to see if the sentinel nodes have cancer. The radiation oncologist, Dr. Ingersol, wants to wait and see if the nodes are affected. If so, she is recommending radiation treatment after surgery. The oncologist is saying radiation regardless, so we will have to see.
I also had the BRCA test done today to see if this is genetic. My aunt (my mom's sister) died at age 46 of ovarian cancer so they feel there may be a mutating genetic gene. If this test comes back positive then a double mastectomy will be done. But for now that is the plan of treatment.

I have a CT scan and a bone scan scheduled for next week to also help with staging. Surgery will be on the 9th of Feb.

Right now I am feeling very overwhelmed and mostly in shock. How can this be happening??
How will I deal with losing my hair and being so sick all the time?