The important things have been going well: no infection, not much pain, and good reports from the doctors. But the less important things have been getting me down: namely the drain tube and emotional aftermath of surgery. Let's start with the good stuff.
The pathology report from the surgery was very good. The original tumor was gone - no cancer cells found there at all. The other areas that showed up on the mammogram and led to the mastectomy turned out to be "multifocal DCIS", which is basically very early cancers that were in several areas. All of the "surgical margins" were big, which means that the cancer was all far away from the edges of what was cut out. This is good because it means that there is little chance that some cancer was left behind due to being close to the edges. They found 4 lymph nodes in with the breast tissue and 2 of these did have some cancer in them, but not much. This means there is a decent chance that the other lymph nodes still have some cancer cells left as well, but that is why I am going through with the radiation treatments, and small bits of cancer is what radiation is good at clearing up.
I also learned from my oncologist that the lymph node that I thought was abnormal on the PET scan is not really a problem either. She said it was slightly enlarged, but did not light up on the PET beyond the background levels and that she would consider all of the lymph nodes to be normal on that test. The other Doc who first told me the results doesn't deal with PET scans as much as the Oncologist and had given me a more negative spin on the results.
I met with the Radiation Doc this week and got some good news there too. He is thinking that I might need 25 treatments, possibly 30, but definitely not 35, which is what the first Radiation Doc that I saw in November was wanting me to have. He was pleased with those good margins from the surgery and said that he doesn't often see results that good in pre-menopausal women. And in some other news that might help take the edge off the radiation treatments - the clinic is starting a construction project in May. Why is that good? Well, it will take one of their two radiation machines out of commission, so they will be expanding their hours to pick up the slack. This means that I should be able to schedule late afternoon appointments, which I had been hoping for. Partly I wanted to be able to work for most of the day before going in for treatments, but more importantly it will be woodcock banding season and I was REALLY not wanting to miss out on my favorite outdoor activity. Since we use dogs to find woodcock hens and chicks, morning is usually the best time to search since the warmer it gets the harder it is for the dog to work. Here is my favorite photo of small munsterlander, Annie (Annerl Vom Gamskar) checking out the fruits of her labor.
So that's all the good news, and frankly there is quite a lot that is good. However, I am finding that the mental side of this surgery is quite a lot to take. It is difficult to even put into words what it is like. One minute I'm doing ok with it, the next minute I'm ready to fall to pieces. I suppose it is just a normal grief process, but I have to admit it is still catching me by surprise at times. As much as I didn't really want to go back to work this week, I think it has been good to get back to the routine and distractions of the office.
Speaking of distractions though, the drain tube from the surgery is still in place and driving me crazy. It is basically like a piece of drain tile under the skin, curling around from my armpit, across the chest and back around to my side where it exits and there is some tubing and a small plastic bottle shaped like a little hand grenade. You have to squeeze the air out of the bottle and put the stopper in so that there is suction in the tubing to pull out the fluid from the wound. If they didn't do this fluid would collect and the skin wouldn't grow onto the muscle that it is now sitting on top of. They won't take this tubing out until the drainage goes down below 25 ml, and it is taking FOREVER to get down there. So far I've missed two appointments to take it out because it was still draining too much, and the next one is Friday. I have some hope that it might happen Friday, but it's going to be a pretty close call. Not only is a pain to deal with this bottle hanging off of me all the time, the tubing itself is held in place with a stitch in my skin, which doesn't like to get pulled (but which inevitably does get pulled). And the tubing under the skin is really uncomfortable too - I could go on, but I won't.
I'll leave you now with a question to ponder (maybe Dennis can answer this one for me?). Why do people keep giving me tips for minimizing the scar? Is it just me, or is that crazy? Is it like I might not notice the missing breast if there's no scar there to remind me? I can't quite figure that one out...
