Lumpectomy Lounge....let's talk!

No, sadly, I can't. I am the "the little engine who stayed up past bedtime". I have to get up at 4:40am for work. Tomorrow is going to be a stressful day at work. I still have 3 more pages of posts to read tonight. I will have to save the reading for much later in the week. Tomorrow night, I have a Reike session and Thursday night is my "Living with BC Survivor Group". Sorry that I will not be able to respond to the rest of the posts until late Thursday night. Good luck and have a good week everyone.

Hopefully, the lab results will come in for my son tomorrow. He is still sick. I am sure that my son has mono but the lab results are not back yet after 6 business days. Is it normal to have to wait this long for mononucleosis test results?

Sloan, I am getting the breast MRI because my surgeon said this soon a mammogram or ultrasound is worthless. First I've heard that, and after they did my mammogram! She wanted the mammogram as my new baseline. But when she insisted in the MRI and told me why, I am so getting it done. And hoping nothing shows up. Since I already had a breast MRI right before surgery in January 2015, I'm hoping that since they have something to compare the new one to it won't send me chasing around any false positives. But if something appears to be growing, even if you have an MRI they will probably biopsy it anyways. So I would get the biopsy, and if anything shows, then I would do an MRI to see what's up. Hopefully that makes sense

This stuff is all so bizarre. Most days I wake up and say am I really going through all this?

Dear Sloan: I have not read 3 pages of posts yet so I may have missed many details but I just saw your post when I submitted mine. From what it sounds like you are going through, I would definitely get a biopsy if I were you rather than an MRI. I am also sorry that you are going through this stressful time and I wish you the best as well as favorable results.

I mentioned that MRI's are stress relieving for me because constant surveillance gives me peace of mind. (I was dx with lobular carcinoma which is not easily diagnosed. Therefore, yearly MRI's are warranted for ILC and LCIS. My lobular was pleomorphic which makes it more aggressive.) (I had 2 MRI's this year because one suspicious area - of 2 suspicious areas - could not be biopsied at that time. I had to wait 6 months for the biopsy. That was an extraordinarily stressful waiting period. I had an initial MRI guided biopsy that caused a giant 8cm hematoma. The ambiguity surrounding my suspicious "linear non-mass enhancement with rapid washin washout kinetics" caused the need for the second MRI 6 months later. After the 2nd MRI, I was able to have the biopsy. ALH was found. I am now scheduled for yearly MRI's.

I guess what I wrote in my post was confusing. Sorry. Please have the biopsy so that you know for sure what you are dealing with. That is my humble opinion. Good luck.

Thank you, thank you. All of you.

Sloan and Italychick...in your pockets!!! I am so sorry I haven't had time to hear all the posts...work is insane, life is a bit insane too. But thinking of all of you!

But I will say this: ROAD TRIP!!! Central Valley to Spokane! :-) and hey, Yellowstone is only another 7.5 hours drive from Spokane...

Hugs

Octogirl

Sloan, hoping it’s just a scar over a seroma or hematoma. In your pocket for the biopsy. Theresa, you too. 614, perhaps the reason they haven’t put a rush on your son’s labs is that mono is a very slow infection...slow to come on, slow to fade away, unlikely to get worse. Not as much of a sense of urgency as with an obvious pneumonia, for instance.

Peggy, the advice in staging a house for sale is usually to declutter--make it look like it’s plausible that someone lives there but not look “lived-in.” (Baking cookies before a showing or an open house is a time-honored realtor trick). A fresh paint job is essential, for an impression of cleanliness and good repair....but not a creative paint job. They usually advise either white or off-white--because a buyer needs to be able to imagine him or herself in that space, putting their own stamp on it. That being said, when we first toured our house, the only advice the seller seemed to have followed was those chocolate chip cookies. One bathroom was a horrid hodgepodge of maroon carpeting & wallpaper; the master bedroom had brown walls and coarse brown curtains on the windows; Gordy’s room--which had been the seller’s youngest son’s room--had glow-in-the-dark solar system decals on the ceiling. The dining room had a dropped fluorescent-panel ceiling and was painted puke peach. But somehow we saw through all that (the huge kitchen sealed the deal) and turned it around (except we insisted our painters keep the solar system on Gordy’s ceiling--he still uses it to meditate). We calculated the cost of only the repairs that were immediately necessary and lowered our offer by that much, which was why ours was the winning bid. We’ve since put 2 roofs, 2 exterior repaints, 2 basement carpets and an eventual painted concrete floor, sump pump & check valve, a set of soffits, satellite dish, a new deck and front stairs into it, as well as replacing the 1-1/2 car garage (we had it condemned, so the city paid for the teardown) with a 2-car. We still need new windows, repairs of the front and inside staircases, and a thorough repaint, but we still love it. When we do sell it (assuming Gordy doesn’t want it), staging it will be a nightmare!

in your pocket sloan. (((Hugs))))

Yikes Sloan, I just saw the second part of your text. What a great idea to do a road trip in your little trailer! I camp all the time! In fact I really want to go to Carrizo Plains Nat. Monument soon and camp in my truck for a night or two. I hope the biopsy results are back fast and they are generous with the lidocaine. In the meantime, walk off your anxiety! I hope they put a little marker in the spot so it can be identified on future scans. But yippeee for a clean bone scan!!!

Trailer story: I had a little fiberglass Burro trailer that we gave for free to my son-in-law's family who live in Sacramento a few weeks ago . No good deed goes unpunished -- a few days ago we received a $107 parking ticket in the mail because they parked the trailer illegally in front of their house for one night. We told them they better pay it quick because it goes up to $225 in another 2 weeks!

Good luck, Theresa! I wake up most mornings and say to myself, "Oh, it's morning, and oh, I'm still a cancer patient." But before the Dx, I would wake up and say "Wow, it's a new day and I'm still over 60. Me???? How did that happen?" So it's always something.

614, I'll be thinking of you and your son. Hope he starts improving soon.

Sloan, I am praying for you and in your pocket tomorrow. I want to be included in your road trip to see Peggy. I would love to meet moondust in person! DS is not well so if you pray please include him in your prayers. Everyone else hugs and prayers from me.

Not to mention that a week post op you go back, finally able to kick/ i mean kiss that compression vest they put you in into the trash.. and for the first night sleep in just a t-shirt and undies..then wake up horrified at first, then you giggle, then laugh and finally see even GOD has a sense of humor.. you see that healing bruise that covered more then half your breast has suddenly during the night migrated to the lowest point on your breast, you have a 2 and a half scabbed incision, but the bruise above it, below it around the side of it etc.. Has now turned your nipple and a good half inch circle around it this lovely plum color that you can see thru the t shirt.. So now over 2 weeks post op I wear a bra with 4x4 gauze covering the bruise.. because it can show thru even a camisole and blouse.. I am just wondering when will it go back to the super fair skin I am normally now has a deep plumb nipple at home I don't wear all the layers and get these weird looks out doing yard work or answer the door to a stranger, and you just see the eyes zoom... the mind question is ...uhh is that a birth mark?... you wanna come back with something like.." oh yea I am like 1 /89th % Black or Latino and this is the only place that pigment comes thru.. So I show my heritage.. Just remember this too shall pass..that everything will be fine especially when you open the door, and your best friend wearing just a plain white t-shirt and her nipple on one side has had a marker treatment... laughing you finally get out please tell me you didn't use a perm marker, nah one of the kids washable kind because you's will eventually go away too.. that's a friend willing to go to the park for a nice long walk, but had to show off soo after the giggle we had as we left the coffee shop, almost hearing their thoughts 'a lesbian thing?? is that a hickey???

Find you humor and this too shall pass..

Octogirl, glad your geography of my soon-to-be hometown is good. Obviously mine isn't!

It would be great to meet all my California friends - don't think I'll be getting to San Diego for awhile to visit #1 DS. I'll probably be unpacking for the next year!

Molly, your DS is in my thoughts. Your heart must be very heavy. Wish I could lighten the load.

Sloan, I'm in your pocket. You do what you feel is right for you. Praying it is nothing.

HUGS!

Hi Iammags, Glad your lumpectomy went well. I am scheduled for mine, plus sentinel node removal, March 22, next Tuesday. My anxiety level fluctuates, to say the least, The treatment plan is that I will have Brachytherapy the following Monday. I will have a balloon with multi catheters attached, inserted into the tumor cavity on Friday, March 25. Then, that following Monday, they will insert radioactive "seeds" into these catheters. The seeds are left in the balloon for a few minutes, then they are extracted. That will happen twice a day for five days. That's assuming that my nodes are negative and my margins are clean. If that's not the case, the treatment plan will be different. I don't have an MO yet, but I think they will want me to do hormone therapy. I am post menopausal, so I imagine it will be some sort of AI. I am very anxious about the hormone therapy. I have read so many unpleasant stories about the side effects, etc. But I am trying to tackle one challenge at a time. I'll worry about the HT after I get through the surgery and radiation. Anyway, I hope you're continuing to heal well, and that things are going well for you!

HappyHammer: the itching is really minor. The RO looked at me this morning and told me to get some 4% Allocaine for pain. I'm supposed to mix it with whatever lotion I use. No real pain just tightness. Walking around with my gown open in the back paid off today. Three people pointed out today that my back is also getting red from the "exit" radiation to my clavicle. If only I had eyes in the back of my head !

Pwggy, congrats on the new house! I was thinking about selling and moving, downsizing (again) etc When my son and his family moved back in....well, I guess that changes my plans.

Sloan and Italychick - hang in there - many positives headed in your directions.

Had first rads yesterday - took forever because they had to take xrays (again!) and positioning. Hope today is shorter.

I figure a few more zaps and I can read my Kindle at night from my "boob light."