Fighting Breast Cancer

I met with Dr. S this morning.  He is the surgeon that my gynocologist recommended.  He looked at my mammogram film and examined my breast, then sat me down in his office to go over my options. 

First, he took a piece of paper and drew a line down the center, separating it into two columns.  At the top of the left column, he wrote Mastectomy.  At the top of the right column he wrote Lumpectomy + Radiation.  He explained that, statistically, a lumpectomy with 6 weeks of radiation has the same effect as a mastectomy.  (That was the whole purpose of the chart- to show me that the odds were the same.  He could have just told me that.  I don’t need graphics to understand “equal odds”.)

The choice then, would be which surgery I prefer.  He said that regionally, it seems that women in the western side of the U.S. seem to opt for the mastectomy, while more lumpectomies are performed in the East.  God knows why…and really, who cares? 

Anyway, with a mastectomy, the whole breast is removed, including the nipple.  After the mastectomy, I would have to go through a series of breast reconstruction surgeries.  He said that a nipple would be fashioned and tattooed to match my other breast. 

During a lumpectomy, only the tumor is removed.  Once the breast is healed from the surgery, 6 weeks of radiation is applied to the breast to “sterilize” the area where the tumor was removed.  This sterilization process kills any microscopic cancer cells that may have been left behind during the surgery.  Of course, I found out later, it also- ironically enough- leaves you more susceptible to cancer in the future.  You get lots of lose / lose choices when you have cancer.

Dr. S then told me that once my surgery is over, a pathologist will examine the tumor and an oncologist will decide whether I need chemo or not.  He estimated that there is a 50/50 chance that I will need chemo.

Dr. S is giving me the weekend to make my decision.  He wants to schedule the surgery ASAP.

My original doctor (my OB/GYN) called me to tell me that I was “right to be concerned” about the lump in my breast.  He retold me the results of my pathology report and referred me to a surgeon to discuss my next course of action.  I’m scheduled to meet with the surgeon tomorrow, which is so inconvenient when you are expecting guests.  

Meanwhile, my husband has been parked in front of his computer Googling ”Invasive Ductal Carcinoma”.  He tends to overreact when it comes to health issues- while I’m quite the opposite.  I’m certain that everything will be fine; there’s no sense getting upset at this point. 

The Radiologist just called me with the news.  I have ”Invasive Ductal Carcinoma“.  She said that it’s the most common type of breast cancer.  Invasive Ductal Carcinoma sounds so clinical.  The thing is, I don’t feel like I have something that warrants a title like Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.  Aside from a persistant, dry hacking cough, and feeling slightly rundown, I feel fine.  I would equate my symptoms with the feeling of having asthma or mild bronchitis.  I’m assuming that I feel this way because I’ve hopefully caught the cancer early and will be able to get through this as soon as possible.

My friend from Michigan is flying out to visit me this weekend.  Great timing.  Cancer is so inconvenient.  Normally when my friend comes to visit me, we hike Camelback Mountian, we go boating at Canyon Lake or we take a daytrip to beautiful Sedona.  Right now, I feel nervous and on edge.  I just don’t think that I’m going to be in the mood to have fun this weekend.

Today was my appointment for my breast biopsy.  I went to the radiologist’s office for my early morning appointment.  On the way there, my cousin Kristopher called me to chat and see how the weather is here in AZ.  We talked about his possible transfer from Michigan to Minnesota (what a move) and exchanged other pleasantries.  I didn’t mention my biopsy or it’s possible implications.

I arrived on time and was shuttled into a room where there was a padded table for me to lay on next to an ultra-sound machine.  I was told to undress and put a gown on.  Then, I laid on the table and waited for the doctor and nurse to come in.

First the doctor numbed my breast in several places with an injectable local anesthetic.  Then she showed me the device that she would use to collect the tissue sample of the mass in my breast.  It looked like a small gun-like device with a long hollow needle inside the “barrel”.  It kind of reminded me of the type of “guns” used to pierce ears, except the needle on this gun was pretty long.  She explained that she was going to ”shoot” the needle six times in my breast at different angles to get six different samples.  The ultra-sound was used to help her with the placement of the gun against my breast.  All together, the process took about 20 minutes.  When she was done, she placed a couple of butterfly shaped bandaids over the points of entry.  She collected the samples and prepped them to be sent off to a pathology lab to be analyzed.

I decided that I shouldn’t keep the fact that I was getting a biopsy on my breast from my husband.  He grilled me about my mammogram appointment and I didn’t want to lie, so I down-played my description of the appointment as much as possible and told him that it was just procedure, that the mass was probably nothing.  He stared at me blankly for a second.  Then he set his jaw and was grimly silent for about 20 minutes (the calm before the storm).  It wasn’t long before he started banging away furiously on his computer; this is always a bad sign.  Like most neurotic, obsessive-compulsive hypochondriacs, the Internet has become a feeding source for Michael’s never-ending quest for finding doomed information regarding disease.  When he finally emerged from the office, he was sufficiently upset.

He made me give a play-by-play of my appointment over and over.  If I left something out, he would detect it like an attorney with a lying witness on the stand.  He would then ask me to “think about it carefully” and repeat the same question again.  Finally, realizing there was nothing he could do at this point, he provided me a list of questions to ask the doctor when I returned for the biopsy.  I could almost see him going out of his mind.

Michael was pacing the floor and, literally, tugging at his hair.  Meanwhile, at this point, it could be absolutely nothing!  What I have to put up with…