Well, I won’t pretend to know much about the actual surgery itself. Thank heavens – I was asleep!
On May 22, 2007, I went into the local hospital for a lumpectomy and a sentinel node biopsy. Of course, we had to be there fairly early, 9 a.m., but the wait would be fairly long as we were not a “critical” surgery.
I had the pleasure of meeting a very nice nurse who had just had a similar surgery so she helped me understand more first-hand what would happen and what the recovery would be like. That was so fortunate for me and helped put me right at ease. I was so impressed with all of the staff at the hospital. Everyone from the floor nurses and the OR and holding nurses to the anesthesia crew and especially my surgical crew were awesome. Everyone of them spoke to me personally and made me feel comfortable about their knowledge of the case and what needed to be done.
While I was out, my surgeon took out the lump and the sentinel lymph node. The on-site pathologist examined the material of each and was able to determine that the margins around the removed tumor were clean (which mean there were no stray cancerous cells in the removed area around the tumor) and that the lymph node did not show any signs of cancer involvement (which meant the cancer had NOT spread). This meant the lumpectomy was successful and the surgeon would be able to conserve the rest of my breast.
Once I returned to my room, very loopy as you can imagine, the nurses began their work to get me ready to go home. It was determined that if I had any difficulties I would stay overnight, but the surgery had gone so well and my recovery seemed so smooth that they all anticipated my being able to go home the same day. I, on the other hand, was not so sure about all of that. My surgeon came in to talk to us. He was very pleased with what he saw and though the surgery went about as well as it could go. He did tell us that the tumor was larger than anticipated and it was considered a Stage II cancer. He told us them that the lymph node was clean which we all viewed as fabulous news. At this time he told us he would wait for the full pathology report to come back, but that he felt that the size and grade of the tumor, coupled with the fact I was so young, would put me in the chemotherapy category.
I am not sure I would have ordinarily admitted this to anyone, but that one statement pretty much leveled me. Up to this point, everyone was telling me to anticipate a lumpectomy and radiation. Originally, chemotherapy seemed a distant possibility, but suddenly from out of nowhere, it was practically a reality. If you ever thought the word cancer was scary, try hearing the word chemotherapy attached to your name.
So we retired to our home to recoup at our own pace and to allow our minds to run wild with the ideas of what “follow-up treatment” would actually mean for us. A smashingly successful surgery felt so much like the other shoe had fallen.
