The Merits of the Case

My surgeon called me yesterday to tell me that he had consulted with my radiation oncologist and that he thinks I am a candidate for the partial-breast radiation. This means that the tumor in my breast was not too close to the skin or to my chest wall, both of which would preclude that form of radiation. If the MRI results are also favorable and show no more cancer, the next step would be to schedule yet another surgery to have a balloon catheter placed in the tumor site.

The surgeon said that usually when he performs this surgery it is within a couple of weeks of the initial lumpectomy so the site is still open. Because it’s been a month and a half since my lumpectomy, the tumor site has healed and he’ll have to re-open it in order to insert the balloon. I’m trying to not dwell too much on that because it sounds awful. And I am certainly not looking forward to yet another surgical recovery. But the benefit is that I would only have 5 days of radiation instead of 6-8 weeks, and the gain of 5-7 weeks is very attractive to me.

If the MRI results show any cancer in either of my breasts, we will continue on with the whole breast radiation and I’m fairly certain that a mastectomy will be indicated in that case. It looks like either way I will be having at least one more surgery—the only question is when and how extensive it will be.