I am home from surgery and tumor free. Matt and my mom did great; you'd be proud of them (I like to think I did great too ;). I will write more soon, perhaps tomorrow.
Later Gators,
Megan}
Happy Sunday!
Is it tomorrow already? That's when I said I was going to write my update, right? So, as you know, I underwent surgery on Thursday. Prior to the surgery, on Wednesday night, I was injected with radioactive material and turned into a superhero (I'm still working on my superhero name). I wish the superhero part was true, instead my boob was just injected three times... "Some people say it feels like a bee sting," the doctor said. Yeah right. Maybe if a whole slew of bees stung all at once, maybe that could be somewhat comparable. After the injections I was told to walk around for a couple of hours, in order to allow the injections to work themselves into my system, and return for a CT Scan with Darryl and Darryl (from Newhart). The Darryls took two photos of my radioactive breast and that was that - we had a map of my sentinel lymph nodes for the surgeon.
Thursday morning we arrived at 7:15am for my 8:30am surgery. The morning was a blur, there was no downtime. One after another the doctors and nurses stopped by. The last thing I remember was them wheeling me into the OR and telling me they had warmed the bed (wasn't that nice) and to take a breath. The surgeon was ever so proud of how I did. She said she got the entire tumor and took "about 3 sentinel lymph nodes" (the average is 2.4). The surgeon was also very proud because she only needed to cut me open once. There was a possibility of two slices, one for the tumor and one for the sentinel lymph nodes. I am happy to only have one scar, however the scar is definitely something to write home about, it's about 2 inches and is currently being held together by glue. Surgery took about 2 hours and I took about 3 hours to recover, mostly I just needed to de-dizzy myself. We finally left the hospital around 2:30pm.
The results came in on Friday - the surgeon did indeed successfully scoop out my entire tumor and the sentinel lymph nodes tested CANCER FREE! This means they got it all and the cancer did not yet travel anywhere else in my body. This is great news, right?! I was hoping that was the end of it, it would mean things are great, and I'll have radiation for sure. Well, not so fast. My tumor was sent to California for further testing. I have this image of my tumor showing its passport, going through security, and boarding a plane with its luggage (its luggage, of course, being about 3 sentinel lymph nodes). I hope the doctors that handle it along the way are making a scrapbook of photos they've taken with my tumor so I can publish it one day - "Just my Tumor and me" Anyways, as I was saying, the tumor is en route to CA for an Oncotype DX test, which will test the genetic component of my tumor and whether chemotherapy would be the best option for future treatments. So, again, I wait.
My case will be reviewed by the Tumor Board on the 16th of May. That same day I will meet with the surgeon again and will hopefully find out more about my future treatments. In the meantime I am trying to enjoy the fact that I don't have to worry myself to sleep about the tumor inside of me growing into adulthood and talking to me in my sleep.
I am not sure how much information people want and how many anecdotal stories people want to hear so, for the interested few, you can find more information here: http://
I hope you are all were able to enjoy your Sunday to its fullest. Thank you for everything!
Later Gators,
Megan
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