Today I had surgery. The breast surgeon removed three sentinel lymph nodes and checked them for cancer. The sentinel lymph nodes are the ones closest to the tumor that was removed at the beginning of the month. If the lymph nodes had tested positive for cancer, then the surgeon would have performed an auxiliary lymph node dissection. That would have meant removing the fatty tissue from under my arm and collecting the lymph nodes there.As it turned out, the sentinel lymph nodes tested negative for cancer, so today I’m breathing a sigh of relief that the cancer appears not to have spread throughout my lymphatic system.
That puts my breast cancer in an early Stage II. There are 4 stages of cancer and the 3.5 cm size of the tumor they removed is enough to skip over Stage I and straight into Stage II, but the lymph node surgery was important to determine if I was a Stage II A or a Stage II B or a Stage III patient. I’ll feel more secure making this claim after the full pathology results are in and I get to discuss them with my surgeon and my oncologist, but based on the breast cancer booklet the doctors gave me it looks like I’m a Stage II A patient and that gives my chance of full recovery higher odds.
When I wrote that the margins were clean from the original lumpectomy surgery, that information was based on the preliminary pathology report. The final pathology report changed that analysis slightly to say that the edges were not completely clean on the side of the tissue closest to the breastbone. While I was under sedation today, the surgeon extended the original incision a little bit and removed more breast tissue so we could make absolutely sure all the cancer has been removed.
She also installed a port on my arm. I guess that’s my IT professional taking over medical jargon. I suppose she didn’t “install” the port. She “inserted” the port. I’m too amused by the faux pas to go back and rewrite the sentence.
A port is a little triangular receptacle maybe half an inch big that has tubing attached to one end. The port was inserted into my left arm since my cancer was in the right breast. It fits in the inner lower arm near the crook of the elbow. The little tube forms a catheter that runs through an artery in my arm over to my shoulder and down to my heart. This is the device they will use to administer chemotherapy.
Monday of this week the pre-chemo scans began. First I had the CT scan. I had a hard time with that test because it involved drinking that nasty tasting barium sulfate solution the night before and the morning of the scan. I mostly had a hard time with that scan because Sunday night I couldn’t deny that my week of focusing on the baby and forgetting about the cancer was over. I survived the scan, though, and what helped was the modern equipment that didn’t take long to conduct the scan and the compassionate staff at the cancer center who conducted the scan. They treated me so well that they calmed my nerves and made me feel like a person rather than a number.
That situation was reversed the next day when I went to a lab facility to get the bone marrow scan. The lab was a factory for scanning people and their goal was obviously to work through the sea of humanity gathering there and to keep the flow of people steady enough to work through enormous numbers of procedures every day. Every smile was insincere. Every kind word was forced politeness and nothing more. They didn’t care who I was or how traumatic the circumstances were that brought me there. The woman who injected me with the radioactive substance necessary to conduct the scan did so with efficiency and little gentleness, and the resulting bruise is dark purple and red.
The nurse helping me prepare for surgery this morning was completely aghast that my arm was bruised so severely from a shot. Knowing that I’m supposed to return to the lab on Friday for a heart scan, I made a phone call this afternoon. I told the appointment maker at the cancer center how my arm was mangled by the lab and how I felt like a number rather than a person. I asked if I could go to a different lab for the heart scan and the answer was yes. I just voted with my money and my insurance company’s money, and it’s nice to feel like I stood up for myself.
Now that I’ve had lymph nodes removed on the right side, I will have to avoid cuts on my right arm for the rest of my life. I cannot have shots in that arm. I cannot have blood taken from that arm. I must apply antibiotic ointment immediately to any accidental cuts. Failure to take these precautions could lead to permanent swelling of my right arm and the breast tissue on the right side. I knew this going in, but it’s an unfair trade. It seems like every step of the process requires me to suck it up and patiently endure yet another thing that’s unpleasant. Today’s lymph node news was refreshingly good. I have more hope today about beating this thing than I’ve ever had.
Also on the plus side, it seems that I’m only a pound away from my early pregnancy weight. I don’t know what I weighed before I got pregnant because the bathroom scale still hasn’t unsurfaced from the move. The weight I was at during my first prenatal visit is only a pound less than I weighed this morning before surgery, and that cheered me up. The weight has been redistributed, of course, but that will make it a little easier to deal with chemo which causes most people to gain about 10 pounds. (I joked with the doctor that most people probably eat a lot of comfort food during chemo and that’s why they gain weight.) The tendency I developed during pregnancy to get my sweet tooth fixes from fruit more often than from candy is going to help me with chemo. Now if Guy can only convince me that tea tastes fine without sugar…
Angela
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