We’ll be waiting to hear how it went! Best of luck.
I don’t own a tablet, and I probably wouldn’t have used it anyway because I hadn’t slept well overnight and dozed on and off until they took me to surgery. Anyway, I got home about an hour and a half ago (6:30ish Central time) and had no nausea and not much pain, and that’s vastly reduced now that I have placed a cold pack in my bra and taken a Vicodin. 
I would have been done a lot sooner had an emergency not come in and delayed us all by about two hours. Those things happen and believe me, I understood.
Now, for the news everyone wants to hear. The preliminary pathology report indicates that the lymph nodes were negative (my biggest fear was that they weren’t) and the ice-cube-sized specimen they took out of my breast appears to have clear margins.
:eek: 
This news makes me all the more grateful that I had all of this done.
Excellent news!! Yay!!
Woo-hoo!
Yippee. Now I can go to sleep with a calm mind.
I was told not to drive for 24 hours, but decided to play it safe and stretch it to 48 so I went out and ran a few errands this afternoon (library and grocery store). When I got home, I removed my bandages and took a shower, and realized that most of the pain in my armpit was from the tape I was using on my skin. :eek: I simply stuffed new 4x4s in my bra and did tape one corner down to keep it in place.
I took my surgical bandages off yesterday, as instructed. I’m bruised, of course, and have no external stitches; he uses heavy internal stitches which must do the job. I’m feeling better and better by the hour, let alone day.
I will see the surgeon again next Wednesday, and we’ll take things from there.
Whew! Take it easy and good luck!
I am so glad things have turned out ok for you!
Last year I had an abnormal as well. Not enough to do biopsies but enough that I had mammograms done every 4 months. I got the all clear this spring… and then 2 months later at my normal mammogram time they found another spot. Which pissed me off because, hey, I just got an all clear. Luckily that spot, too, is nothing. (Makes me wonder how many false positives the new digital mammograms are giving.)
I say next Wednesday go out and eat at your favorite place, or go buy yourself something frivolous or buy a new book… anything to celebrate. i bought myself a 10 book series on Kindle (so about $12 ) and made my husband cook dinner for once
Great!
Yesterday evening, I became concerned that the armpit incision might have become infected (it was sore, warm, and swollen) and called the on-call number. Another surgeon called me back, and once I said I didn’t have a fever, let’s just say he was less than thrilled to talk to me. :rolleyes: But you never know what he might have been doing; among other things, he may have been dealing with someone who was having him paged 10 times a day for genuinely dumb stuff.
My surgeon called me this morning with the final path report, and unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as we all expected. 
They found some cancer cells in the sentinel lymph node (see footnote) and I didn’t have clear margins, thanks to a microscopic thread of cancer that was discovered on more detailed examination. I see the surgeon on Wednesday and we’ll schedule lumpectomy #2 then. This kind of thing happens about 20% of the time, something I knew beforehand. It sounds like he’ll go through the old incision and take a couple of extra centimeters from the plane that had the tiny cancer.
Footnote: They found a clump that was 0.8mm, and 2mm is the cutoff for metastasis. He thinks they may have been from the lymph node doing its post-biopsy job, which prompted the ultrasound I had after the MRI due to a slightly swollen node. That US was normal and the doctor chose not to do a needle biopsy, something I was grateful for because I’ve heard they’re very painful.
I just hope that my large-needle biopsy didn’t scatter cancer cells to the four winds in my breast. :eek: That wasn’t the news I wanted, that’s for sure.
I’m glad they’re being so thorough with all of this. Since they found something in the lymph node, does that change the treatment plan or is the general plan still the same?
Yes and no. Had the margins and node been totally clear, I really don’t think I would have taken radiation, but now that I know they weren’t, I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that. I’m not eligible for Herceptin, and as for cytotoxic chemotherapy, it still doesn’t look like I’m a candidate for it 
and even if I was, I suspect I would forego it because I know how well those drugs usually “work” and have seen it kill too many people outright; granted, they probably would have died anyway but the treatment itself killed them and their deaths were invariably horrific.
I had five clear lymph nodes and clear margins AND three weeks of radiation. No chemo. And I’m on Arimidex (anastrazole) for at least five years.
Cytotoxics are not necessarily the chemotherapy of our parents. There’s also a tremendous difference between cytotoxics as applied to widespread well-established metastases and cytotoxics applied as prohylaxis to reduce the likelihood of microscopic metastases getting established now to blossom later.
There’s also a lot of difference between cytotoxics used against various cancers. Many flavors of breast cancer are relatively tractable. Many flavors of, e.g. liver or lung cancer are not. Very different agents are used although all go under the label “chemotherapy”.
Don’t get me wrong, even the latest targeted breast-cancer specific cytotoxics aren’t as safe and side-effect free as aspirin. But a broad categorical statement like “… and have seen it kill too many people outright; granted, they probably would have died anyway but the treatment itself killed them and their deaths were invariably horrific.” is mostly ignorant or at least obsolete. As applied to your stage in the disease.
IMO/IME the best way to maximize one’s chances of dying of cancer is to under-do the treatment at the early stages.
Think very long and hard about crossing a therapy off the list while your problem is still small and localized.
Good luck whatever you decide.
I had one positive sentinel lymph node. I found both chemo and radiation much more doable than I had anticipated. Wishing the best for you.
I am 5 weeks into “AC” chemotherapy. Although I’m quite tired this week, and balder than a bat, the treatments are quite tolerable. My philosophy is that I should throw everything at it right now so that I have no regrets later.
Yay, PunditLisa!
Unfortunately, I have also been reclassified from Stage 1 to Stage IIa because the tumor measured 2.9cm (cutoff for stage 1 is 2cm) in its largest dimension. :mad: I asked about the other measurements, and the doctor said that the largest one is the only one that’s even documented. It sounds like I had (HAD) a central tumor that was sending out very thin filaments, and this is the one that will require me to have a second operation, which is scheduled for next Tuesday. He wanted to wait a few more days so the scar would solidify, because he plans to remove it and about a centimeter around it in each diameter.
In the meantime, I’m going to meet with a radiation oncologist, and the regular oncologist will call me to arrange an appointment.
One of the people from a Tuesday night meetup I attend, a woman who barely knew me, offered to join me at my appointment, and she did. He was her surgeon and remembered her, and told her that he was glad to see that she was looking good, and having her there was also a big morale boost. Her prognosis was, and is, not as good as mine but she’s doing well now.
Ouch. Sometimes the plot has more twists and turns than a Hollywood blockbuster. It sounds like you’ve got a first rate crew working on the problem.
Chin up & keep plugging. We’re all here for you.