The lumpectomy and sentinel biopsy was a breeze. I hardly had any pain. I did sleep a lot when we got home. And I got to John’s band concert on the next Tuesday, sans camera, but I was there. I would have had to go to great lengths to get his picture anyway. He was right in the middle of the stage behind the director.
We had follow up on the next Friday, December 22. John didn’t have school so we decided to get in a little shopping and left a day early so we could get back for Christmas.
My first appointment was with the surgeon. The PA came in and told me the size of the tumor was .9 cm. There had been cancer in two of the sentinel nodes with the largest metastasis being 1 cm. I was in shock.
She asked if I had any questions and left me with the printed results. This gave me time for form some questions before the surgeon came in.
The surgeon came in and examined me, I was healing nicely. Yes, you can shave if you’re careful and use deodorant. She said the pathology results had surprised her as well. She hadn’t expected there to be metastases. The cancer was hormone receptive and HER2 negative. It was also very slow growing.
With two of the sentinel nodes positive, there were mixed results meaning sometimes they were just as successful moving on to chemo and radiation versus more surgery. She would need to take it to the tumor board to see what the recommendation was for my case.
The tumor board met on January 3rd, more waiting. I don’t think she would have done surgery any sooner than that anyway. She could schedule me for January 4th but the tumor board met in the evening so that wouldn’t give us much time to get to Kansas City. So, she tentatively scheduled me for January 11th.
On particularly rough days when I’m sure
I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100%… and that’s pretty good.
Author Unknown
I left her office in shock.
We drove to the main hospital to see Mike’s surgeon. Mike’s feeding tube was giving him a lot of trouble. The feeding tube had been replaced four times since May 5th. He wasn’t using it or eating because both caused him so much pain.
The surgeon came in and talked with Mike a little bit. They decided that it needed to come out and Mike would try to eat enough to sustain him, he’d already lost almost 20 pounds. The surgeon started to get some instruments to remove the tube. I looked at him in disbelief. You’re not going to remove that here are you? He said yes. This surgeon was a bit of a kidder. I said: no, really, you’re kidding, right? No, I’m not. I left the room and went down the hall. I couldn’t even bear to stand outside the room, it was too painful for me.
When that was done we drove back to the Westwood Clinic to see my oncologist. I was still in shock from my visit with the surgeon and Mike’s having his tube removed in the office.
She started in by saying she was sorry that the news wasn’t good, and she had been hoping for better. Then she started in on a chemo plan, shoved some papers about the chemo at me and asked if I had any questions. I was very surprised at this. The surgeon said the oncologist would probably want to take the case to the tumor board as well, but nothing was said about that. She asked more than once if I had questions.
Mike asked how soon I would lose my hair. She said within a couple of weeks. Again, she asked if I had any questions, said to schedule me for two weeks after my tentative surgery date, then she was gone.
I was in shock!
It was mid-afternoon on the Friday before Christmas as we headed back to Lawrence to get John we took the state highways to avoid all the traffic.
Merry Christmas! Did I mention that I was in shock?
Now all I wanted was to go spend some time in Kokomo or somewhere to forget all about it.
Onward! Then came the Complications. Why Can’t Anything Be Easy
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