Early Christmas Gifts
Well it's almost Christmas ....
I've been hoping to share a bit of good news this holiday season. By george, I think I've got it!
I went to see the breast surgeon for my post-surgery follow-up appointment yesterday. After pulling off all the bandages and checking everything out, she said it looked to be healing well. The smaller incision in the front where she took out the benign papilloma is not even bothering me anymore. I'm still in some pain and sometimes it is a deep burning or stabbing pain way inside rather than just the soreness at the site of the incision. She said this was normal as she had gone in deep almost to my chest wall and done quite a bit of tugging and pulling in through a relatively small incision and had probably bruised my chest wall muscle in the process. Apparently, nothing that some more healing time won't fix.
She also handed me a pathology report. Surgery: complete success with negative margins all the way around. Wait for it ... It gets better.
Only 2 lymph nodes were removed and tested in a sentinel node biopsy. She had no reason to take more. Both samples: COMPLETELY NORMAL & CANCER-FREE! This is huge and the best result I could have hoped for! I am not ashamed to say I cried tears of joy right in front of her with this news. All you people who prayed and hoped right along with me ... prayers answered.Thank you!
The rest of the report just confirmed the original pathology and sub-typing information already known from the core biopsy. It is still triple-negative, grade 3, 70% (20% is considered high) cancer. A very small, but very aggressive cancer that would be deadly had we not caught it early. I shudder to think what would have happened had it gone unchecked another year. I am personally not sure it would have been found a year earlier. It might have been too small to catch even with a mammogram and a clean result in 2016 would have lulled me into a false sense of security so I would have skipped this year. Every two years is the normal recommendation for women my age. There is no doubt that going 5 years without one is dangerous. I will not make that mistake again.
But this time, my amazing PCP and the leaking symptom changed everything.
And saved my life.
I will be talking to an oncologist on Jan. 22 (News flash: chemo will not be taken off the table by the doctors ... however, now I feel I have a choice).
I will also be doing 6 weeks of radiation follow-up starting most likely in January.
My prognosis remains very good.
I've been hoping to share a bit of good news this holiday season. By george, I think I've got it!
I went to see the breast surgeon for my post-surgery follow-up appointment yesterday. After pulling off all the bandages and checking everything out, she said it looked to be healing well. The smaller incision in the front where she took out the benign papilloma is not even bothering me anymore. I'm still in some pain and sometimes it is a deep burning or stabbing pain way inside rather than just the soreness at the site of the incision. She said this was normal as she had gone in deep almost to my chest wall and done quite a bit of tugging and pulling in through a relatively small incision and had probably bruised my chest wall muscle in the process. Apparently, nothing that some more healing time won't fix.
She also handed me a pathology report. Surgery: complete success with negative margins all the way around. Wait for it ... It gets better.
Only 2 lymph nodes were removed and tested in a sentinel node biopsy. She had no reason to take more. Both samples: COMPLETELY NORMAL & CANCER-FREE! This is huge and the best result I could have hoped for! I am not ashamed to say I cried tears of joy right in front of her with this news. All you people who prayed and hoped right along with me ... prayers answered.Thank you!
The rest of the report just confirmed the original pathology and sub-typing information already known from the core biopsy. It is still triple-negative, grade 3, 70% (20% is considered high) cancer. A very small, but very aggressive cancer that would be deadly had we not caught it early. I shudder to think what would have happened had it gone unchecked another year. I am personally not sure it would have been found a year earlier. It might have been too small to catch even with a mammogram and a clean result in 2016 would have lulled me into a false sense of security so I would have skipped this year. Every two years is the normal recommendation for women my age. There is no doubt that going 5 years without one is dangerous. I will not make that mistake again.
But this time, my amazing PCP and the leaking symptom changed everything.
And saved my life.
I will be talking to an oncologist on Jan. 22 (News flash: chemo will not be taken off the table by the doctors ... however, now I feel I have a choice).
I will also be doing 6 weeks of radiation follow-up starting most likely in January.
My prognosis remains very good.
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