Lumpectomy Lounge....let's talk!
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Poodles, I just want to hug you. I'm sorry you are still having body image issues but I can understand. If you are worried about DH's reaction to the new you, close your eyes and let him look and take it in, and then open your eyes after a bit. He loves you and while neither of you may be happy with the results so far, I think you'll find that he is accepting and supportive. Hasn't he been supportive all the way through? I think YOU will feel better after you do let him see you. Get that "first" over. Have him take those pictures so you can figure out the best way to give you boobs again. I think it will be worth any awkwardness to have photos and get going on reconstruction. You could let us know when you plan to do it and we will give you a huge group hug to support you! We love you just like you are - warm, funny as hell, and a wonderful person.
HUGS!
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I got my pathology report back today, margins are clean and there is nothing in the nodes. I was sitting there rattling off to my psychiatrist, whom I have had since my doctor retired last year. I was talking about lumpectomy vs. complete mastectomy, and then she says to me, "I had breast cancer, it was in the nodes and I had a complete mastectomy." She also said that quite a few of her patients have had a lumpectomy. Really puts things in perspective.
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Michelle, I'm sure it helped to know that your psychiatrist has been in your shoes. I hope she can help you navigate the mess of emotions that go with BC.
HUGS!
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She was my study mate in college. She went to med school and I went to pharm school. Always one of my favorite people.
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Michelle, that's even better. She really does KNOW you.
HUGS!
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Thank you, Peggy. Now I'm crying. I really appreciate your words of encouragement. DH has been great through this whole experience. The only time he really couldn't look at me was when I was going through that episode of poor healing, when it looked so horrible. I didn't hold that against him--I could hardly look at it either, and I'm a nurse! And, of course, I have helped him through these last 10 years during which he has become fully disabled with heart/lung disease. I've seen and done some things that most wives haven't had to deal with, and I'm sure he felt embarrassed, too.
On a happy note--a REALLY happy note!--MY 30YR DS GOT A J.O.B~!!! He's been living with us for about 2 years while going through welding school. He graduated in Aug and got all his certificates for the different types of welding. He had a hard time figuring out how to find a job, but DH helped him find some companies online. He applied to an international company, who called him in for a welding test last week. Holy smokes! Their local outfit is located in an industrial park about 10min from our house! He passed his drug test and they hired him today for the 3pm-2am shift starting tomorrow, which is GREAT because he is a true night-owl. The starting salary is very good, especially for a guy coming straight out of school--wonder of wonder!--he gets medical and dental coverage! I will save about $180/mo on his health insurance and he can pay for his own darn teeth! He's even talking about investing in a 401K~! I can tell he is pumped, and more than a little relieved, but he's trying to be all cool about it. His dad and I are dancing a jig, LOL>.
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Poodles, that is so fantastic!!! Doesn't DS have some challenges? Obviously he did extremely well in welding school. I'm happy for him and you and DH. Will he continue to live at home? And extra $180/month is always welcome. What an upper on a day when you were down. Many more hugs to you, dear friend!
HUGS!
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Poodles, fantastic news about your DS!! Giving you a big hug!!
And hugs to the rest of you dealing with all the waiting, treatments, life...
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((((Poodles))))
I felt the same especially after my first mx but the second one I just took a deep breath and showed DH. My PS is really, really good and since I have an expander I am not completely flat but it is shocking and I felt very self conscious especially when I had one natural breast. I agree with Peggy that I would bet your DH will be loving and supportive.
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Molly, somehow that makes sense being more uncomfortable with only one breast. I guess it's because you can compare them and it's so obvious what has been taken away. I think I would likely feel the same.
HUGS!
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DS struggled with bipolar disorder and severe learning disabilities all through high school. He really didn't start to get his act together until he was 28, after losing yet another of a string of food services jobs, most of which he hated despite that he was an excellent waiter who made good tips. He became suicidally depressed and after couch surfing with friends, finally called and asked if he could move home. I didn't really want that but what are ya gonna do? He was literally 24 hours from sleeping on a park bench. So, he moved back home. I'm very sure he is ready to leave, by now. I'm thinking that he might be able to put his finances together in the next 6 weeks and be able to move in with a friend. Thankfully, DS is not a collector of things. He travels lightly through this world: his clothes, his bed, his guitars, his laptop, and the piano--we'll have to see about the piano. Prolly can't have that in an apartment without thoroughly pissing off the neighbors.
Another bit of good news is that my 23yo DD has moved to Atlanta and found a job about 100yds from her front door! So, now she walks to work and doesn't have to fire up the Jeep, which is a gas guzzler. She was hoping to get a job as a pastry chef (her field), but this was a great situation so she took it. She's working front of house for minimum wage, plus tips--so far, that has equaled to twice her old salary, where she was on her feet 8-10 hours a day, lifting 50-lb bags of flour with her 102-lb frame, and putting up with a boss who was a bombastic fool. The woman who owns this new restaurant is also a pastry chef, so she is giving DD the opportunity to try some desserts--DD made her a gluten-free low carb high protein cheesecake yesterday, and the boss loved it.. If that continues to work out, the boss has said will contract with DD so that she gets some of those profits. Fingers crossed. DD also has a contract to cater a friend's wedding (if the bridezilla doesn't drive her completely crazy!) And did I mention that she is working on a book of tattoo images? That girl has her hand in everything.
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Poodles - sending a big HUG...I certainly have not faced the same challenges and can only imagine the impact it has on your well-being. Thank goodness for your doctor who saw it for what it was and gave you the medication you needed. May time heal your body and spirit....you are so deserving.
It must be so rewarding to see your DS and DD embark on new successes! Always a great feeling to see your kids thrive..
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Poodles, wow! DS certainly has turned himself around. That's impressive. Fingers crossed that he moves out soon. It has to be hard having a kid come back home. All privacy is gone. And obviously you did the right (and only) thing but that doesn't make it easy. And Woo HOO! to DD and her job. It's wonderful when work is so close. And that she's getting a chance to show what she can do besides getting good money! Lots of positives going today!!! You have to be grinning ear to ear!
HUGS!
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Hi All! Just checking in. We did close on our new house and have spent most of last week there without any internet or TV! It has been wonderful! Have been warmly welcomed by the neighbors and saw DD quite a bit! I think that when we move there full time it will be great! That won't be for a couple of years.
Have read most of posts but hard to keep up! Welcome new friends and everyone be well
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PlanB, congrats on the new house!! Where is it? Are you downsizing or moving to be closer to DD or both? Is it your retirement home?
HUGS!
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Poodles, mazel tov on your kids joining the ranks of the gainfully-employed. I never met you before your surgeries & chemo, but I can say you are a beautiful woman--I did not see “fat" or “flat," but rather the glint in your eyes, your lovely smiling face and your pert haircut....rocking those earrings!
Elizabeth, so glad you don't have to go through “chemus interruptus" (as a pal of mine who battled anal melanoma put it in her blog).
Michelle, one year ago I was in the same place as you....okay, maybe 250 miles northeast. Nobody sees that “C" but you and your care team. They sure didn't with me. While you're in active treatment, that's almost all you can think about, simply because it occupies so much of your daily routine. And then suddenly, you “had cancer" and are on maintenance medication. Last year at this time I was biting my nails, right after my biopsy, waiting for the call that came the very next day. The previous two weeks had me obsessing over "possibly having cancer, probably having cancer, OMG what am I gonna do once I'm diagnosed, snap out of it, it might be benign"....lather, rinse, repeat. Except for the two hours I sang & played at a Tulane-area coffeehouse (performance adrenaline and applause are wonderful medicine), my trip to New Orleans was marred by that stupid tape loop playing in my head--drowning out the valuable entertainment law I learned, the incredible food & wine, the new friends I made and even during the Charmaine Neville show I saw on Frenchmen Street. The tape kept playing all the way up to Philly & Scranton (especially because our senior center gig was cancelled due to a booking screwup at their office--adding a new verse to the tape loop: "I could have gone straight home from NOLA, had my biopsy a week earlier, and possibly gotten the jump on my might-be-cancer"). And it continued through a wonderful outdoor Indian banquet thrown by friends on a gorgeous day, into the fantastic vintage B&B where I stayed while running & performing in our writers' rounds at the Fox Valley Folk Festival. I felt normal only when onstage--the rest of the time everyone I knew could see my body was there but my mind was elsewhere, and yeah--I told them. And then, little by little, their own stories began to pour out--and we began to heal each other.
Cut to this year. Skipped NOLA, since we had responsibilities & plans back home (and blew the travel wad on a trip to Italy). At the folk festival this weekend, people kept coming up to me, not asking “how are you," “what did it turn out to be?" (I did start a CaringBridge page) or “are you okay" but instead telling me how much they enjoyed my songs and saying how “great" I look. (I know otherwise, but hey, I'll take it). I can go hours without even thinking about cancer. Heck, I went to pick up my letrozole refill today and “cancer" didn't even cross my mind.
I'm sorry you feel so exposed down there in southern IL (I occasionally record down in Sparta and stay with my engineer & his wife, so I get some perspective on how, um, “intimate" small towns can be--another friend has an autobiographical song with the chorus “Where your business is everybody's business, and everybody's nose is in your business..."). But in my big-city lakefront neighborhood, I live on a double block of century+-old single-family homes, where we've been for almost 30 years; and we've all seen each others' kids grow up and elders die off and businesses spring up and close down, so it's its own kind of small town--albeit one sandwiched between the rapid transit CTA and commuter rail Metra train tracks.
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Hi Sloan, I think my disposition is a lot like yours. After diagnosis, I didn't want to look at or touch the "defective" breast. It will be hard to do exams.
Peggy, I appreciate your offer of pictures and all of the input you're giving this board.
However, I've looked--and the first thing I'm going to do at my first post-op visit today is give my surgeon a High Five. She deserves it. The shape doesn't seem affected. She said she moved tissue around to fill the gap, and it will take a year for everything to fully settle into place, but if it stays like this, I may not need any reconstruction.
My incision is on the top portion, and I haven't seen it yet because the steri-strips haven't fallen off. The one under my armpit is brutal, though--red, raised, and angry. Really could care less because my arm isn't sore anymore and I have full range of motion.
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Sandy, I think you well-captured all that we feel waiting for those biopsy results to come in, travelling through treatment and then being cut loose to just an AI or Tamoxifen. Thank you.
Summer, glad you looked at your poor girl. Your breast incision will fade away. And nice that your surgeon did a good job keeping you looking fairly "normal!" I'm sorry your armpit incision is nasty. Mine was annoying, not like yours. Keep an eye on it that it isn't infected.
HUGS!
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ChiSandy, I lived in Lincoln Park for several years and loved it. I was on Fullerton. I noticed my diagnosis and findings are similar to yours.
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Hi Ladies, just want to check in and update you on what's I've been doing. This past week met with PS and BS and discussed Lumpectomy vs. mastectomy. It looks like the BS leans toward UMX and when he did the physical exam with me he commented something in my right breast. My left breast is the one affected. The PA was there and they talked about it but then he dismiss it and we went on discuss about surgery. Later, I feel something was not right so I called the doc's office and wants to have a right breast US but then the BS throw in the right breast mammogram. The nurse said the doc didn't think either was necessary. He just ordered because I have grave concern. Well of course I do but I don't really want mammogram. Wouldn't a breast US detect cancer by itself? I'm thinking of delaying the RB mammo for later.what do you think?
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Houston, have they done an MRI of your breasts yet? Mammogram may or may not be best for you, depending on your breast density. Ultrasound can sometimes see things more clearly than mammogram, but they are not definitive. MRI is often used before making the decision to remove a breast (or two!)
Until last summer all my mammograms had been fine, or mostly fine. I had a few call-backs and I had a stereotactic biopsy in 2014 which turned out fine. Unfortunately, my breasts are very dense, so neither mammograms or physical exams revealed my 1.8cm tumor, the size of a small cherry. The mammogram showed a small shadow, way up high, almost in my arm pit. There! Up there! A quick ultrasound revealed it clearly--I could see it and I instantly knew what I was looking at. An MRI confirmed it and also ruled out anything brewing elsewhere in both breasts.
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I wouldn't recommend an MRI - just based on my three different consults and what all they were suggesting/doing. If you like your BS and feel confident in what they are suggesting, then trust it. In my incidence, consult #1 wanted to do an MRI before surgery to see if there was any other cancer. While consult #2 said it isn't necessary as even if the MRI did find more microscopic cancer (that the ultrasound and mammo doesn't see) the radiation would kill all of it (this was when I thought I was only doing radiation - now the chemo AND radiation will kill it all). Consult #2 also said that by doing an MRI before my lx, and if consult #1 DID see any microscopic cancer...than they may have no option for surgery and a Mx may be mandatory at that point. Whereas, my consult #2 (and the BS I wound up going with) felt more than confident that a Lx would work (my chances were the same either way, so might as well start with the lesser option first)...and an MRI is just a waste of money AND time. As that would delay the surgery and potentially force a surgery decision, rather than having an option. Does that make sense?
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HI Elizabeth, no I go to Carlo Fidani at CVH in Mississauga. I have a friend who went to Jurivanski, and I was looking at it when I was looking at treatment options for another benign tumour that I had.
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No pathology reports today and dr. was in surgery all day... more waiting..
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I didn't think an MRI was necessary.TW I was under neoadjuvant chemo all this time but somehow I still worry for my good breast. The BS didn't think anything was significant. So I'm thinking of doing the Ultrasound first. The US. revealed more like poodles has said. Thanks
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IHGJAnn - Darn on the waiting. Keep changing the subject in your own mind if nervous thoughts drift in! You'll have a plan soon. Also, will you come out with Moondust, Peggy and me on Oct 1st or 2nd when we're in Spokane? It helps a lot to get together.
How's everyone else doing?
My 6 mo mammogram and ultrasound were good. I'm back on yearly mammos. Yay! I'm nervous about my MO visit on the 19th because of the crazy blood tests in the past, but I'm keeping a positive outlook.
I'm walking with my FitBit while playing golf and getting my steps in. Yay. Moondust said she was tired after chemo, and I'm thinking, "Now I can finally hike with her and keep up!" Haha.
On a personal note, one of my sons moved back in when he graduated college when I was diagnosed with cancer. Today he hurt my feelings saying he wanted to move out. My other son talked to me on the phone and helped me understand that it's a quest for independence.... I KNOW that, but after cancer I'm afraid to let go of anything. I don't want anything to change because everything is good right now. *Sigh*
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Sloan, I get what you mean about not wanting to upset the apple cart with your son leaving. It sounds like he was supportive too. Bet you just don't want an empty nest
HUGS!
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Sloan and Peggy, it sounds good right now... something positive anyway.. i needed a cheer up
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I believe in getting an MRI pre-surgery and let me tell you why. The MRI is of both breasts and if you have dense breasts something may show up in the "good" breast that you would want to know before you had surgery. An MRI can change a diagnosis if more abnormal cells are found, and it is better to know up front, versus after your surgery. Third, breasts are a pair, not a single body part, what happens in one can happen in the other. Fourth, the MRI gives guidance to the surgeon as to exactly where your abnormal area is and helps them get a clean margin. I know that mine was used as a reference guide by my very particular surgeon who is a trained oncoplastic surgeon. She got great margins on mine, and it appears that I won't have a scar as it is hidden by the areola edge. I am a very particular person when it comes to my health and leave no stone unturned when it comes to getting an accurate diagnosis. I don't want a doctor that shoots from the hip or thinks diagnostic tests are unnecessary. I want the most particular surgeon who is going to get everything the first time. With breast cancer, information is the key to ridding it from our bodies and what better information that a test that sees your breasts from a different perspective than mammogram and ultrasound.
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Awww, Sloan. Ya know, the empty nest is a real thang. My two older kids have moved out, moved back in, and now I have one out and the other in. And as much as I say I can't wait for DS to move out, I will miss him. He brings a sense of chaos to any situation, that's for sure! It will be very quiet around here when he leaves.
It's gonna be okay.
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