We liked the surgeon we met with today, Patricia Moorison. She spent a good deal of time talking with us and went our speed! She explained several things so that we have another layer of understanding. Each time we go to an appointment, we glean a bit more of the whole picture.
Tomorrow afternoon I have my pre-op appointment. Friday morning I am scheduled for the port install. It should be a short procedure, we are scheduled for 9 am, and I should be in recovery within an hour. The port will be placed just under my collar bone.
We should have a quiet evening at home. I will be groggy, but there shouldn’t be too much pain associated with this procedure. We hope to enjoy some family time Saturday and Sunday.
Post Chemo Surgery Options
She agreed with the oncologist about doing chemo prior to surgery. She also explained some of our options for surgery. Due to size of the tumor, the additional tumor lesions and the lymph nodes, I will probably not be eligible for a lumpectomy. At the least she expects to perform a single mastectomy but most likely her recommendation will be a double mastectomy. Of course, we will have to re-evaluate after chemo.
There are a lot of variables that could change the exact course of action we will take. She explained that the small satellite lesions surrounding the tumor are not part of the big tumor, but they are likely the beginning of individual tumors. We had not understood this, we just thought they were part of the original tumor.
I have purposely not researched what each of these surgeries entails. She gave us a brief overview. It was not a pretty picture. I am squeamish about these things, listening to her talk about how they would cut my breast open was not very comforting. The hope is that the chemo will shrink it so that when she goes in for surgery we will have clean margins.
We asked about the size of the tumor, if you remember Dr. Fain measured it at 3 cm and we wondered could it be shrinking? She says it is likely still 5 cm, the exterior part that we can see and feel is around 3 cm but if you look at the MRI films, the part that is against the wall of my chest is larger and likely where they got the 5 cm measurement.
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