The Merits of the Case

If I never had to have surgery again, it would be too soon. I am tired of it already. I am tired of the recuperation time and of the pain and of not being able to do the things I would normally do.

As I mentioned in my update post on Friday, the surgery went well. When I first arrived at the hospital, my surgeon injected radioactive fluid in four different spots in my breast around the area where the lump had been. The fluid was allowed to work its way into my system for about 10 minutes, and then a radiologist took several pictures of my chest area from different angles. For some reason I think that some dye was also eventually injected into the area, maybe during surgery, but I don’t remember for sure.

This time the incision was made under my left arm just below my armpit. The pictures allowed the surgeon to see which lymph nodes might have been affected by the cancer and to remove only those nodes. This is called sentinel lymph node surgery. I understand that this is relatively new technology, and that before the use of this method a surgeon would remove all the lymph nodes to be certain that he or she had gotten all the cancer. My surgeon took 4-6 nodes, which will be tested for cancer. I should have those results in a week. While I was out, he also did a needle biopsy on the lump they discovered in my thyroid last week.

Prior to this last surgery, they told me that it would be a bit more invasive than the lumpectomy and they were right. I feel like it took me longer after this surgery to feel something other than “bad” and I am still in some pain today. However, I have refused to take any more pain medication other than Advil because I hate feeling that out of it. I have too many things to get done to feel like Paula Abdul! Despite my good intentions, though, it’s been slow going today since I don’t have much use of my left arm. I’m not supposed to lift anything with it and it hurts. I can’t type with it because my hand and arm get numb so I am typing this one-handed (which takes forever!). I’ll be very happy when I can get back to feeling relatively normal.

And now we just settle in for a long wait. I will see my surgeon at the end of this week to check my post-surgical progress and hopefully he will have the results of the lymph node and thyroid tests by then. I have an appointment with an oncologist scheduled for next week after which I hope to have a treatment plan. From there, I hope, it will be onward and upward and as far away from breast cancer as possible.