Lumpectomy Lounge....let's talk!
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Upstate that is great news!!! I am a week out and still wiped at end of day so I'm glad to see it all isn't in my head! Hoping to hear similar news today.
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UpstateBee, that's great news, congrats!
I also found the whole surgery/radiation thing to be perplexing, kind of a Catch-22 situation. My DCIS also turned out to require a larger amount of tissue removed that originally planned, and I don't have the "luxury" of being well-endowed, so I really don't have much to spare or much to work with. I knew this going in, and once I saw what my post-Lx breast looked like, I wasn't very happy with it. I also knew it would change before all was said and done. But I was concerned about eventually maybe wanting to do some kind of at least minimal reconstruction. Knew I didn't want implants or any more drastic procedure, but maybe a little "rearranging" of what little bit I have, maybe even fat grafting. But at the same time, I also knew I had to have rads. I tried to figure out how to reconcile potential surgery after having rads, asked about it (both RO and BS), and never did get a very good answer. I was advised to see a PS prior to rads, which I did, and she said that she wouldn't want to do anything until at least 6 months after rads, and that rads would complicate any reconstruction. But at the same time, I did have to do rads, and I couldn't see how fat grafting FOLLOWED by rads would be a good idea, since it's sometimes hard to get the fat grafting to take even under the best circumstances. All my PS would say was that things would likely change after rads, and as she said, "It won't make things better!" Which wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear even if it was true. But there didn't seem to be any option other than to get through rads, check back in with the PS about 3 months after, just to see how things look, and go from there later in the year.
At this point, going on 2 months post-rads and about 4 months post-Lx, I'm leaning toward not doing anything, though I will still see the PS in July to talk about it. I still don't like how my breast looks, but the scar is getting better and my skin after rads, I'm pleasantly surprised to find, looks really good (at least to me), and it feels normal. I don't have any areas of hardness or anything like that, skin and boob feel normal, just misshapen somewhat and mismatched from the good girl. I may opt to just live with it rather than go through more surgery, but I feel as if I was presented with kind of a lose-lose situation. Seems to me that having reconstruction done at the time of Lx would be the way to go, but of course, we don't know that ahead of time. At least no one even suggested it to me.
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I had my lumpectomy on December 10, shortly after that, I feel a vein or something hard running from under my right breast (where I had the procedure) down to my stomach, I asked my Oncologist about it, he felt it and said that it was normal, it went away and but now is back, has anyone else had anything like that?
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UpStateBee...so glad to hear your MO's response to chemo. My BSO basically said the same thing and I had an intermediate score of 24 and age 59 at DX.
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I did stay home today, and glad I did. I'm so tired! Upstate hooray! What wonderful news for you! No chemo whoop! I missed my big meeting, but they just had it without me and sent me flowers and a card that said relax. Love my job.
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Tresjoli2, I'm so glad you stayed home. AND that your job was so understanding. By next week you should be more ready to work at least part of the day. Just do nothing for the next 4 days; pamper yourself!
HUGS!!!
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my lumpectomy is tomorrow!!! Overwhelmed with the support from my family and friends! Wi report back soon!
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So glad you have wonderful support, MidgieMoon! It makes surgery so much easier and you can relax and be waiting on (never a bad thing)! Do let us know how you are faring. Here's hoping for a smooth, uneventful surgery and recovery. We're all in your pocket so you'll notice us dancing away!
HUGS!!!
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Best wishes Midgiemoon!
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PoppyK, my surgery and treatments are at Rancho springs medical center in Murrieta. My appointment with my radiation oncologist is next Friday, I was told my treatment will be at the same hospital as my surgery, not sure about chemo yet, as that oncologist works out of a different hospital, still in Murrieta.Riverside is very close, maybe we could meet for coffee, as soon as I'm physically able??
A question for you or anyone who can answer, I had previously met with a PS because initially I was told I needed a double mastectomy, based upon the pet scan and MRI, my BS said that now I can have a lumpectomy and that I won't need the PS . He said that my tumor is small enough for him to take it out with clean margins and it shouldn't affect the appearance of my breast. I keep hearing about this droopy breast and nipple, and I'm wondering if the appearance does change, can the PS fix it after the fact??
I have small breasts to begin with and I'm 51, married and not entering any beauty pageants, I just want to look as close as I can to the way I am now. I'm beyond grateful to be able to keep them. Now that I've typed this, it seems like a stupid question. The whole thing is still kinda freaking me out. Sometimes it feels like this is happening to someone else. I guess I'm just getting nervous again because the surgery is coming up soon.. Thanks for listening.
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BobLaJo, no question is stupid! Of course you're nervous! We all have been. You really won't know what your breast looks like for awhile. Downward facing nipples seem to go with incisions that are on the underside of the breast, I think. At least for me it was. I think most PS want you to be all done with your treatments before doing anything cosmetic. I'm also small, and while I do have a dent on the underside, on top my girls look the same. I'm glad that a mastectomy isn't needed, too. Whew!
Please make your Dx and Tx public so we can better answer all your questions.
HUGS!!!!
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Midgimoon...sending positive vibes your way. (((Hugs)))
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BobLaJo, where is your lump? Mine was at 2:00 towards the side of my. Feast and you can't tell anything when I am wearing clothes. The surgeon took out 8 cm x 8 cm x 4 cm. I am a D cup though
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boblajo,
I have 38C breasts. My bs said she was using some type of PS technique where she would use my existing tissue underneath to reconstruct and use dissolvable stitches. My area of concern was around 2 or 3 o'clock. My boob looks perfect, like she took nothing out of it. BUT I have a scar that starts as 12 o'clock and goes to about 5oclock, which I was not planning on. I was so out of I it, I never got to speak to my BS. But my girl looks normal, except for the scar. I am 40.
I also noticed today that my snlb scar is not in my armpit, but very very close to the outer edge of my breast
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I had a 1.6 cm tumor and am a triple D, so plenty of natural material. The BS said she could do some rearranging and it wouldn't be an issue. It was the nurse navigator that suggested I might want to consider oncoplasty, reduction and lift. I ended up also having a papiloma which doubled the amount of material that was removed. The PS did a great job and I'm very happy with my new perky girls. All my clothes fit better and I could even go bra less. I will say recovery was quite a bit more than just a lumpectomy because both breasts were worked on and the incisions are pretty extensive.
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Great news! Meet with BS today for final path report. Still 1A.grade 1, hormone pos. HER2 neg.but darn it forgot to ask about if oncotype was going to be run. Am getting set up with MO. Is this something MO would order or does BS order?
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Pat, my BS ordered the Oncotype but I'm sure your MO could order it. Glad the results are so good!
HUGS!
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Pontiac Peggy -- Heh. Yes, it's always a big deal here when it rains, particularly after this drought we're having. It was odd to have rain in May, but very welcome. Some places did get some flooding due to bad storm drains, but nothing widespread.
I've been feeling around under my arm and around my breast incision and I'm not numb that I can tell (and I AM numb on my foot from an injury and neuropathy--so I know that odd feeling!). I think my surgeon managed to avoid disturbing any of the nerves. My incisions are both pretty small (1" for SNB, 2" for LX), so maybe I just got lucky! Nerves will act up even if they are brushed up against, it seems, so it could be very temporary, or it may take longer to heal up. Apparently nerves are very very slow at healing.
I AM done with Chemo! And I just got my 2nd Herceptin only infusion. It was less than an hour (mostly waited around to check my blood tests to see if everything is OK, since I'm still haven't some SEs from Chemo). I'm pretty sure Herceptin doesn't make your hair fall out. I can see tiny hairs starting to grow in on my head and eyebrows, anyway!
MariaTheresaG and PoppyK -- Oh, sorry to hear you both had problems with the anesthetic! That can really be a major problem with these surgeries. I guess it's not uncommon for people to be allergic or have some sort of reaction (the anesthesiologists are always asking about that, anyway, I definitely remember!). I'd never had major surgery before so it was hard to tell about the anesthetic, but I'd had the twilight sleep variety and had no problem with it, so I told them I thought I'd be fine, and fortunately, I was! (The post-op nurse was surprised I was so awake and chatty so soon, but really, I barely remember any of it! --so I don't know how awake I really was!).
I only felt like my breast was hit by a truck, thankfully. And the pain pill definitely stopped that. But it's not very surprising to feel that way. Even though it's usually a short out-patient operation, it's still a big assault on the body, and the body is going to tell you all about it!
I hope that feeling--all the aches and pains-- have gone away by now!
boblajo -- The time right after DX is definitely the toughest (in a way), since it's like you get thrown into an unknown stormy sea and need to swim for your life! Try to stay calm (or at least don't panic!) and deal with things as they come. After you see your surgeon, that should help some, but make more questions in other ways. You might also want to see an oncologist, too, since they can give you more answers and give you more idea about your course of treatment.
There are sections of this forum for people with similar diagnosis ... you might want to check some of those threads to see what they are doing. Treatments can differ a bit (for instance, I had chemo before surgery because I wanted Perjeta with my Herceptin, being HER2+), but there's no single way to go (which can make things harder if you need to choose, or not!).
Things will sort themselves out, though. Once you start a course of treatment you will feel a bit better--because then you'll know something is being done to get rid of the cancer! Definitely take advantage of all the help and support on this board.
I'm in So. OC, but am getting treated up in West L.A. and Santa Monica. I just got recommended to an Oncologist up there and I liked what he was saying about my course of treatment. My sister lives in Santa Monica so I'm staying with her a LOT! Pretty much taking over her guest room--even if it only has a stupid aerobed in it! I went all the way through 18 weeks of chemo there, so it wasn't too bad...!
UpstateBee -- Congrats on the low Oncotype score!!!!
Oh--I just got my tattoos today! I was going to warn people that they had better be able to put their arm above their head for that, though! Luckily, I was OK, but I know some people are getting some stiffness there...
They put stickers all over me, too. The guy said to nevermind them if they happen to fall off... One is right in the middle below my neck!!! I'm wondering if THAT one might "accidentally" fall off if I'm wearing anything with a slightly low neckline???!!! Geesh. ==I guess I should be happy they weren't tattooing there!!!!
I didn't touch my bandages until the morning of my Post-Op appt. Then, I figured I should spare people examining me and take a shower before I went. But I was totally a chicken about looking at my incisions. I had on a surgical bra (nice support and pretty comfortable, really), and there were big pieces of gauze under that--just tucked in, not taped down. And I had surgical tape over dissolving sutures. I still didn't look closely, but there was no blood or seepage, so that was good! And they really weren't that big... 1" SNB and just under 2" right above my nipple. No big swelling or redness... so I was actually pleasantly surprised. But maybe we all have different ideas about that. I was just glad I didn't see anything gross or infected!
Hopefully your incisions will heal up nicely so that you will barely see them at all. I have heard from people who have said they can barely tell where they had incisions--so it's very possible!
Glad there is a slight trend to not doing chemo, as it really is hard on the body. It's do-able, but if it can be avoided, that's what you want! Glad your doc is up on the latest info!
kayfry -- Sometimes it is a no win. But it sounds like your skin is in good shape, so maybe you just need to find a different PS? --I don't have a lot of breast, either, so I was worried a bit--whether cosmetically, getting a BMX might be better than a possibly lop-sided LX. I wasn't sure how much tissue they'd need to take for the LX... but so far that isn't looking too bad (although swelling could go down and a big divot might still appear! who knows?)... and now the radiation folk are saying that it could shrink the skin and make things uneven... *sigh* I guess I'll just have to wait and see! --Anyway, I do hope that something can be done to help you out.
PatRN10 -- Congrats on the good Path!!!
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April, you are sounding really good! Glad to hear that. Being done with chemo has to be a huge relief!
You're so right about being able to put your arm above your head for radiation. That wasn't an issue for me since I seemed to have a good ROM right away. I didn't have any stickers, just my 3 tattoos. You should post a picture of you all decorated!
I'm hoping that all the rain and cool weather is gone by the time I arrive in San Diego in 3 weeks. I've had enough of that here in Michigan! My son assures me that the weather will be fantastic.
Keep healing good!
HUGS!!
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Arm over the head for rads: kind of funny, but I didn't have to have any nodes removed, so I had no issues with raising my arm over my head from that. But what I didn't realize was that all my old injuries from my almost-65 years of an active life and, especially, of a life with horses, would come into play. My right shoulder—opposite the Lx side—that hadn't bothered me for years and years suddenly let me know that that position, both arms overhead at that exact angle, was NOT going to make that shoulder happy. Sigh. Like most everyone, I guess, I had a custom mold they made at my set-up that was used for every one of my 19 treatments, and the main problem was that dang shoulder. I took my NSAID pretty much 5 days a week during rads to help dull the pain of holding that position, and it really was only bad on the days that they took images, which meant I had to stay in that position for longer.
Stickers: I had them all over the place, for like 6 weeks. The only tattoo I can see is the tiny one right in the middle of my chest, but I was SO glad to get rid of those stickers at the end. Not to mention the Magic Marker lines all over me. New ones at the end for the boosts were all around the nipple and especially annoying.
April, because I'm barely an A to begin with, I did consider whether I should opt for Mx and reconstruction instead of Lx. My BS wasn't really enthusiastic about that, and really, in the end, I was very glad I decided on Lx. Yes, the cosmetic result isn't what I'd ideally like at this point, but it was well worth the trade-off, for me, in that the surgery itself was pretty minimal and recovery fast. I was riding my horse 6 days after surgery. I would definitely go that route again. I had swelling both after Lx and from rads, but I could definitely see the big dent on the underside of my breast right away, and the kind of downward facing nipple (basically that just seems to happen because the tissue underneath that would support it is taken away). Now the swelling seems to have largely gone down, but I wouldn't say there's a huge change from rads. I was told I'd probably do better with rads because of being small-breasted, so maybe that's true and you might have the same advantage. I don't think rads did anything to shrink my skin. I know a lot of folks here swear by Aquaphor, but at Hopkins they recommend Miaderm, which I used throughout and am still using twice a day until I finish my last tube. I'm a big believer in that stuff and think maybe it helped to keep my skin in good shape.
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Kay, I am extremely sensitive to aloe so wouldn't have been able to use Miaderm if it had been recommended. I don't recall if anything other than Aquaphor was recommended or if I researched or what but I came home with a sample tube and bought a big one. It was the right product for me. I still use it off and on (RO would like it to be more "on") when I get a bit itchy on my breast. Almost like it was a bit dry. And that takes care of the issue.
HUGS!
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Peggy, I know that Aquaphor is tried and true and has worked wonders for many, so I don't doubt it. I wouldn't have known if I was allergic to aloe, but luckily I'm not. A plus of Miaderm, for me, is that it's not greasy, so I didn't have to worry about getting it all over clothes, bedclothes, etc. Once I finish this tube of the stuff, I think I'll switch to the big tube of Jean's Cream I bought before I knew that Miaderm was going to be what my RO wanted me to use. I avoided the Jean's Cream during rads because it has Vit. E and some ROs think that inhibits the effectiveness of radiation, but I figure I'm fine to use it now, and it's also very nice. Then there are the samples of something or other that my dermatologist gave me before I started rads, so I have a whole inventory of creams to use. I was told I might need to moisturize the radiated skin forever, that it might always be drier, but as I said, I honestly don't see that now. But then again, I'm still doing the Miaderm.
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Kay, the greasiness of the Aquaphor doesn't seem to be much so it's never bothered me. Guess we should listen to our ROs and keep slathering something on that radiated area forever
HUGS!
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PontiacPeggy --- Oh, I'm sure the weather will be warmer by the time you arrive. This cooler weather has been very unusual!
I'm still getting stomach problems from chemo--but really, it is SUCH a relief not to be doing more of that, that I'm feeling GREAT!
kayfry --- Before surgery I had a breast MRI and had to lie face down with my arms above my head, and for some reason the angle was really making one of my shoulders ache. Getting older makes stuff like that happen, I guess! --Luckily, that wasn't a problem this time. I was worried, though. 35 times of lying there in an uncomfortable position would not be good!
LX was always preferred by me because I didn't want to go through all that surgery and recovery that the MX folk have to do. But it did worry me that the BSs I talked to were a little concerned about my tumor vs. breast size! But the surgeon I went with, I trusted to really know what he was doing (he had lots of experience), and he mumbled something about "might as well go for breast preservation"--which sounded fine to me, so it was LX. I figured it was possible that more might be needed to be taken down the road and I'd do that if I needed to, but since I didn't need to NOW, I'd just deal with the LX.
So far my breast looks pretty much like it did before (minus incision of course). My tumor was at 12:00, so a divot would be noticeable, but not do the nipple-curving under thing... My surgeon said he was certain I would look OK "in a bra." Even if I did shrink due to radiation, it might still be OK... But hopefully I'll be OK.
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Cool to hear the recs for lotions and creams for rads.
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I'll put in a good word for calendula lotion recommended along with aquafor. That combo worked well for me throughout rads.
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Interestingly, Miaderm is composed of aloe, calendula, and hyaluronate. I think both aloe and calendula are very helpful in combo and by themselves. Since the one unique ingredient in Miaderm is the hyaluronate (promotes healing in randomized trials), it's my hunch that this makes it different from either of the other ingredients alone. Anyway, the combo has worked really well for me, but I'm sure all of these things do work for most people.
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Kay, that's the most important thing - that it works for YOU! There are so many different products that the ROs recommend - each seems to have their own favorite. Definitely one area where there are many right choices
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The nurse recommended Miaderm to me, and Aquafor, but that is messy she said. Then also suggested getting a aloe plant at the grocery store and just cutting off leaves opening them and using the pure aloe, said that was the best thing ever. Keep it in the fridge so it's cool. Not sure, but I may try it, we'll see how it goes. She said Miaderm has healing and moisturizing, Aquafor just moisturizing and the aloe the best of both, but more healing.
And yes, lifting the arm above the head was scary, but I had tried a few times knowing I would have to do it for the RADS and it was fine. Now after holding that position for a while, I am totally fine and some of the scabbing is starting to peel away from being stretched.
April so happy chemo is done for you!!! Happy dance!
Pat, your MO will order the Oncotype, that's who did mine. My BS told me about it, but said the MO would do that. YAY for a great Path!
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Thanks Upstate. I have been following the type 1A what is your oncotype thread. Not too many grade ones on there high mostly twos. One poster said her MO did not order as grade 1 dies not respond to chemo. We'll see. Very interesting thread.
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so I heard from my BS. 2 lymph nodes were removed, and both were negative for cancer! We also had 3mm margins everywhere but one spot where we had 1mm. BS thinks it looks good. Most of it was dcis. There was some micro invasion, but it was small. My BS couldn't say for sure, but I might avoid chemo altogether! Need to hear from MO and RO. Very happy!
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