So we got up, I forget exactly when, but the technical term, I'm pretty sure, is "way before the crack of dawn" and drove to the hospital. As I am typing this, I am in the same day admitting waiting area and DH just came in after parking the car. We are all geared up and ready to go.
The last week has been a whirlwind of sorts, as I have been trying to get ready, get some spring cleaning done before I can no longer lift my arms, and tie up loose ends. My mom flew in on Saturday and has helped out tremendously already. But I've been very busy, so I haven't managed to reply to all those loving and supportive messages I have received. So let me say thank you here instead. I really, really appreciate the wonderful support from my awesome family and friends! Thank you SO much. I feel as though I am riding a big old wave of love and comfort into this surgery. This time around, the mastectomy has me nowhere near as nervous as the first time.
So soon it shall be my final goodbye to boob(s) -- and hello to all silicone!
DH will post the first post-surgery update, and I will follow up when I feel good enough. Thanks again for all of your kind and loving support. So here it goes... Peace and out.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
As we thought, pathology was benign
There is good, though expected, news regarding the pathology report from that fibroma I had removed two weeks ago. I received a call from the butcher today, informing me that not only was he able to remove the entire thing, but that it was benign as we thought. So that is good news all around, and certainly important news to receive! Yay, one more strange growth on my body turned out to be benign! It still makes me wonder, though, why my body is apparently so good at growing things that don't belong...
Anyway, next week I will have my various pre-surgical appointments for the prophylactic mastectomy on the 14th, so that will keep me busy. Besides, I have some stuff I want to wrap up before the surgery, as I know that I won't be able to do certain things for a while. Plus, since my mom is flying in next weekend to help take care of me for the first two weeks after surgery (DH will have to work, and work late, too), I have to get the house cleaned and ready for that. Yay for moms that swoop in to help out their kids! It's wonderful to have so much support... Thanks, mom!
So I'm gradually getting ready for the big surgery. I even have a mastectomy buddy this time around, fellow TNBC gal Julie who received her diagnosis just a few weeks ago and is scheduled for a double mastectomy the same day and time as I am (although hers will take place in an entirely different city). The idea is to stay in touch and give each other encouragement and support. Since this is my second mastectomy, I already have some experience with what is likely to happen and hope to be able to share some tips with Julie as we recover. If you feel so inclined, stop by Julie's blog at http://jdaudelin.blogspot.com/ and drop her some words of encouragement as she proceeds through her TNBC journey.
Anyway, next week I will have my various pre-surgical appointments for the prophylactic mastectomy on the 14th, so that will keep me busy. Besides, I have some stuff I want to wrap up before the surgery, as I know that I won't be able to do certain things for a while. Plus, since my mom is flying in next weekend to help take care of me for the first two weeks after surgery (DH will have to work, and work late, too), I have to get the house cleaned and ready for that. Yay for moms that swoop in to help out their kids! It's wonderful to have so much support... Thanks, mom!
So I'm gradually getting ready for the big surgery. I even have a mastectomy buddy this time around, fellow TNBC gal Julie who received her diagnosis just a few weeks ago and is scheduled for a double mastectomy the same day and time as I am (although hers will take place in an entirely different city). The idea is to stay in touch and give each other encouragement and support. Since this is my second mastectomy, I already have some experience with what is likely to happen and hope to be able to share some tips with Julie as we recover. If you feel so inclined, stop by Julie's blog at http://jdaudelin.blogspot.com/ and drop her some words of encouragement as she proceeds through her TNBC journey.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Quickie surgery update
This is just a quick note to let you know that my little warm-up surgery this morning went fine. The butcher removed a fibroma from my ahem, derrière if you must know. Other than a little delay in the morning (not sure why that happened, but I was definitely there on time) everything went smoothly. I spent the day resting and am just about ready to turn in now, as we got up at five a.m. this morning. Needless to say I'm a bit tired.
For those of you who do not yet know, I call this my "warm-up surgery" because I have scheduled a prophylactic mastectomy for March 14. For one thing, I am tired of waiting for biopsies and their results. For another, due to my initial experience with core biopsies, which are essentially sampling procedures, and the false negative it produced (i.e., the pathology report claimed the lesion wasn't cancer when in reality it was -- they simply hadn't obtained a truly representative sample), I never quite fully trust their results.
What is even more important to me, though, is that a study that came out last year showed that while a prophylactic mastectomy of the unaffected breast doesn't provide any survival benefits for most cancer patients, women under 50 who had stage I or II estrogen receptor negative breast cancer (hey, that's ME all over) were the only subgroup that did benefit significantly, increasing their survival rate by almost five percentage points over five years. If you are interested, you can read the study here. Anyway, increasing survival seems like a very good thing to me -- I'm greedy that way, you know! Plus, it seemed like the appropriate way to celebrate my two year cancerversary.
So my mind is made up, and the big surgery is scheduled. Just wanted to get this fibroma thing out of the way, first. The overwhelming odds are that this fibroma is just that, a benign (though somewhat annoying) growth that likes to afflict my delicate rear end. But the main thing is that it is gone now, meaning that I should soon be returning to my usual cheekiness.
Ok, I'll lay off the bad puns now, I promise. As I said, all is well here.
For those of you who do not yet know, I call this my "warm-up surgery" because I have scheduled a prophylactic mastectomy for March 14. For one thing, I am tired of waiting for biopsies and their results. For another, due to my initial experience with core biopsies, which are essentially sampling procedures, and the false negative it produced (i.e., the pathology report claimed the lesion wasn't cancer when in reality it was -- they simply hadn't obtained a truly representative sample), I never quite fully trust their results.
What is even more important to me, though, is that a study that came out last year showed that while a prophylactic mastectomy of the unaffected breast doesn't provide any survival benefits for most cancer patients, women under 50 who had stage I or II estrogen receptor negative breast cancer (hey, that's ME all over) were the only subgroup that did benefit significantly, increasing their survival rate by almost five percentage points over five years. If you are interested, you can read the study here. Anyway, increasing survival seems like a very good thing to me -- I'm greedy that way, you know! Plus, it seemed like the appropriate way to celebrate my two year cancerversary.
So my mind is made up, and the big surgery is scheduled. Just wanted to get this fibroma thing out of the way, first. The overwhelming odds are that this fibroma is just that, a benign (though somewhat annoying) growth that likes to afflict my delicate rear end. But the main thing is that it is gone now, meaning that I should soon be returning to my usual cheekiness.
Ok, I'll lay off the bad puns now, I promise. As I said, all is well here.
Monday, January 10, 2011
The biopsy results are in
Today my wait was finally over as the biopsy results are in. Assuming that the doctor obtained a representative sample during the procedure (and as I unfortunately know all too well, this could be an erroneous assumption), the news is good. The pathologist says the tissue shows only benign changes. I vaguely remember the nurse who called me saying something about "ductal stroma" and "hyperplasia" but with my chemo-battered brain's short term memory problems, I'm not sure until I see a copy of the written report. In any case, apparently the pathologist saw no signs of cancer in the sample, which is definitely a good thing.
Nonetheless, I am only guardedly optimistic, as I've heard this kind of thing before and it was a false negative back then. So I am still contemplating having a prophylactic mastectomy on the right side. I just don't know how many more false alarms and unnecessary biopsies I can take. Having long, thick needles shoved into very sensitive body parts just isn't that much fun for me, and neither is waiting for the biopsy.
But at least there is no urgent news for further surgery, and no other treatment imminent. I am very, very grateful for that!
Nonetheless, I am only guardedly optimistic, as I've heard this kind of thing before and it was a false negative back then. So I am still contemplating having a prophylactic mastectomy on the right side. I just don't know how many more false alarms and unnecessary biopsies I can take. Having long, thick needles shoved into very sensitive body parts just isn't that much fun for me, and neither is waiting for the biopsy.
But at least there is no urgent news for further surgery, and no other treatment imminent. I am very, very grateful for that!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
The fun just never ends...
So I hadn't posted in a while, hoping that all that cancer stuff was slowly but surely behind me, despite the occasional scares and worries. But then, with cancer, the fun never really ends...and I sure got a reminder of that.
In late December, I went to my annual mammo and sono. The weekend before, I had noticed some tenderness in my one remaining boob, and felt a funny, hardened area when I checked out the sore spot. So I was sure to let the technicians and doctors know about it when I went for my routine appointment. The mammo came back clear. Initially, the soon looked clear, as well. But since I had noticed something there, the radiologist gave me a breast exam (though she couldn't feel anything abnormal) and checked the area with the ultrasound over and over.
Well, and if you check thing out thoroughly enough -- you guessed it! -- you eventually find something. In this particular case, a one centimeter suspicious mass. This, of course, meant that they immediately scheduled me for a core biopsy. Due to the holidays, the first available date I could get for that was today. Oh the fun wait over the holidays is just hard to describe.
Anyway, I went for my biopsy today and what fun it was. At first the radiologist tried an aspiration, just in case it was a cyst. It wasn't, so she moved on to the core biopsy. I was grateful that she numbed me up pretty thoroughly, but still it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Apparently it was really close to the chest wall and tough to get to, so I had to reposition myself and roll over the examination table several times, all while they have some nice large needles shoved into my boob. Oh, did i mention that as soon as they were done shoving needles into me they noticed that i was nicely red and flushed? No crash cart this time, just a Benadryl and then it was off to the mammo confirming the placement of the clip that now marks the biopsy site, and finally a few extra minutes of observation with the nurse. As I said, the fun just never seems to end...
I am resting comfortably now, icing the sore area for about fifteen minutes every hour and taking it easy.
Now it's on to the post-biopsy wait, with results expected in 3-4 days. Since I assume we're talking working days here, I guess that means sometime early next week. Keep fingers crossed...!
In late December, I went to my annual mammo and sono. The weekend before, I had noticed some tenderness in my one remaining boob, and felt a funny, hardened area when I checked out the sore spot. So I was sure to let the technicians and doctors know about it when I went for my routine appointment. The mammo came back clear. Initially, the soon looked clear, as well. But since I had noticed something there, the radiologist gave me a breast exam (though she couldn't feel anything abnormal) and checked the area with the ultrasound over and over.
Well, and if you check thing out thoroughly enough -- you guessed it! -- you eventually find something. In this particular case, a one centimeter suspicious mass. This, of course, meant that they immediately scheduled me for a core biopsy. Due to the holidays, the first available date I could get for that was today. Oh the fun wait over the holidays is just hard to describe.
Anyway, I went for my biopsy today and what fun it was. At first the radiologist tried an aspiration, just in case it was a cyst. It wasn't, so she moved on to the core biopsy. I was grateful that she numbed me up pretty thoroughly, but still it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Apparently it was really close to the chest wall and tough to get to, so I had to reposition myself and roll over the examination table several times, all while they have some nice large needles shoved into my boob. Oh, did i mention that as soon as they were done shoving needles into me they noticed that i was nicely red and flushed? No crash cart this time, just a Benadryl and then it was off to the mammo confirming the placement of the clip that now marks the biopsy site, and finally a few extra minutes of observation with the nurse. As I said, the fun just never seems to end...
I am resting comfortably now, icing the sore area for about fifteen minutes every hour and taking it easy.
Now it's on to the post-biopsy wait, with results expected in 3-4 days. Since I assume we're talking working days here, I guess that means sometime early next week. Keep fingers crossed...!
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