Post-dated post. See next post for explanation.

6/9/11

I had my post-op appointment with Dr. Gold & Dr. Naill last Wednesday, June 1st.

At Dr. Gold's, we discussed my "surgical pathology" or the details of the tissue that was removed. Turns out that I was a little off the mark on how many lymph nodes were taken. It was 4 nodes on the right-hand side and 6 on the left. Still, to only have a spot on one of the 10 is even better! The tumor itself was 4cm (1.5 inches), about twice as big as we had originally thought.

It seems I wasn't far off calling it my zombie boob either. There was a mass of tissue surrounding the tumor. Reading the report, it doesn't state the exact size but suggests that it was "comedonecrotic". To break it down based on what I've read, it means that the cancer cells travelled into some of the ducts and glands, became blood-starved, and died taking some of the other tissue with it. However, it didn't manage to get past my breast tissue (except for that one lymph node spot). Thank goodness!!! I'm just glad it's gone.

Dr. Gold mentioned that there was going to be a meeting between all of my docs the following Wednesday (6/8) to discuss our next steps and to nail down our treatment options. She thought there might be a chance that we might have to take more lymph nodes from the left armpit to make doubly sure there wasn't more cancer spots in there. She ordered up an OncoTypeDX* test on the removed tissue, but didn't expect the results for a couple of weeks. I'll talk more about this in a bit.

After having some lunch, we went to Dr. Naill's office. Our visit there was pretty short. He said that based on the size of the tumor and the fact that there was only one spot on one node, he didn't think that radiation would be necessary in my case. He also said that he would have to wait until after the Wednesday meeting to make sure it jived with what the rest of the team thought. Aaron & I were both really pleased with this. One treatment worry off the table! Did I say pleased? I meant ecstatic! Yay!!!!!!

We had a little scare over the weekend where someone didn't call in my painkiller prescription or it got lost along the way. In any case, I ran out and had no refills left! Because it was the weekend, I was unable to get ahold of someone to send out a new one. I've cut way back on all of my meds, but I still have to be able to sleep without pain so that I heal well. All I got to say is thank goodness for great friends. They have their own injuries but were willing to offer some of their meds (same as mine) to get me through. I am so blessed!


* OncoTypeDX- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncotype_DX