Hood-scarf hybrid for Megan

My friend Megan, whom some of you may remember as cancer-fighting Megan, is in town visiting, and since she has no hair again (keep reading), she needs headwear! I haven’t been the best knitter (though I AM working on a hat for Megan) lately, so when I saw the hooded scarf on the Bolt Neighborhood blog (thanks, Frenchie), I knew I had to whip one up. I wanted it to be super soft, so I used double gauze for the exterior and T-shirt fabric for the inside (scraps of the rayon jersey knit for the hood lining and washable wool jersey for the scarf lining). I think now maybe the drawstring one might be more practical, since you could actually have some peripheral vision with it, but hopefully Megan will get some use out of this one!

Okay, so cancer-fighting Megan is back to fighting cancer again. She had breast cancer 7 years ago when she was in her late 30s. It had been diagnosed as triple-negative breast cancer, but it turns out it was misdiagnosed, which means she has been walking around for 7 years with this crap still growing inside of her. Megan actually has HER2+ breast cancer. The cancer was misdiagnosed because of the standard testing protocol. Basically, and I may not have all my facts totally straight, so please forgive me, when they test the cancer cells to determine which type of cancer you have, they do an IHC test. If your results are within a certain range, they call it good and say you have HER2+. If your results are NOT within the range, however, they don’t do additional testing. They just figure that if your results are not within the range, you have something else (like triple-negative).

IF they had done FISH testing, they could have determined that Megan did indeed have HER2+ breast cancer, and they could have given her a treatment specifically designed for that type of breast cancer. She isn’t the first person to have produced results that weren’t within the standard range and thus receive a misdiagnosis.

What is so maddening is that Megan is not the type of person to sit back and just let the doctors tell her what is happening. She is very involved and the strongest advocate for her health care. She is not afraid to ask questions, and she does extensive research. But, she was still misdiagnosed. This can happen to anyone. Please remember to fight for FISH or additional testing if you or anyone you know is ever in a similar situation, and let’s find a stinkin’ cure already!

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6 Responses to Hood-scarf hybrid for Megan

  1. freecia says:

    Oh that is such a cute scarf! I wonder if I could make one with nylon on the outside, as a nod to the asian plastic bag hair shield.

    RAWR Megan! Thanks for teaching me something pretty important today. Hope you get better soon!

  2. Megan says:

    I LOVE my new hoody! Love it! Thank you, thank you.

  3. Seanna Lea says:

    That is always a good thing to remember with any disease. I’m lucky in that breast cancer isn’t one of the things that runs in the family (heart disease, I’m looking at you), but one of my aunts had a chronic brain tumor and I kept thinking that if she had taken a more active role when she thought it was just lots of really bad headaches, then maybe the treatment wouldn’t have been quite so bad.

  4. Lulu says:

    That is ridiculously cute. Start selling them; I’ll be the first customer. Thanks for the information; the way they test is so frustrating. Let’s kick some butt, Megan.

  5. Casie says:

    Cute scarf! Hang in there Megan! Kick cancer’s ass! I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer two years ago. I had a recurrence right after I finished chemo (grrrr) but so far, so good! Recurrences suck.

  6. cara says:

    Raw deal…need I say more?
    Funny, I haven’t been reading your blog lately but was on the bolt site this morning and saw this very hood, and ordered up the pattern so I can make a few for gifts. Yours is very cute! I hope mine will be 1/2 as cute.

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