Surgery Follow Up
What are the next steps?
Ten days after surgery and it was back at the hospital for the post surgery check up and I would get to find out my surgery results with regards to whether I had the required clearance margins around the extracted tumour and whether my sentinel lymph node contained any cancer. Hopefully the Surgeon would have enough results to let me know what would be happening next on my breast cancer treatment pathway.
I won't lie, I had a mixture of emotion on that Monday morning on 30th October. I was relieved that I was finally getting the chance to get the now pretty smelly surgery dressings off but I was also nervous as to what the results of the surgery were going to be. As the date of the appointment had drawn nearer I had convinced myself that I would need further surgery to the lymph nodes.
Gary had come with me and as I sat waiting in the Breast Screening waiting area, all the nervous feelings from the screening day came flooding back. You would think that the medical team would have some awareness of how being in that waiting room would raise the anxiety levels given that it's where you are sat when you go through screening and await your fate with your diagnosis.
The Surgeon came breezing into the consultation room followed by my Breast Care Nurse (BCN) and that kind of put me on edge. He didn't look nervous and had a smile for me so I thought "well hopefully it will be positive news". The first thing he did was to ask if he could remove the surgery dressings and to assess the wounds.
I said to him and the BCN "I apologise now for the hairy armpit" and that I was glad to get rid of the smelly dressing and my BCN told me that I could've taken it off after a week!
The Surgeon say that the wounds had healed brilliantly and he was happy with them. Relief No. 1 for me.
Once I'd got myself dressed, the Surgeon gave me the results of my surgery. He said it was good news. "Hurray!" I thought. He said to me that the tumour was smaller than initially thought, it measured 16.5mm (originally measured as 21mm on the scans) and that they had got over >5mm of clearance margins so no further surgery to the breast was required. He then said that the sentinel lymph node had a micrometasis of 0.66mm with no extracapsular invasion seen (to you and me that means that the cancerous deposit in the lymph node hadn't infiltrated the lymph node casing) so they classed the removed lymph node as a negative node. With that I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been so worried about the lymph node that they had removed.
The Surgeon explained some other results from my biopsy on the removed tumour and the sentinel lymph node and said that my case would be discussed at the next MDT meeting (that's Multi Disicplinary Team) later that week and it would be decided if I was eligible for the Oncotype DX test. In essence the Oncotype DX test tests 21 genes within the tumour and from that it provides the medical team with information on how the cancer has behaved within the body, how likely the cancer is to recur but also how effective chemotherapy would be in helping to prevent recurrence.
As we left the hospital I still felt a mixture of relief and anxiety. It was great news that the surgery results were looking positive but I still hand the threat of chemotherapy hanging over me like the grim reaper.
I won't lie, I had a mixture of emotion on that Monday morning on 30th October. I was relieved that I was finally getting the chance to get the now pretty smelly surgery dressings off but I was also nervous as to what the results of the surgery were going to be. As the date of the appointment had drawn nearer I had convinced myself that I would need further surgery to the lymph nodes.
Gary had come with me and as I sat waiting in the Breast Screening waiting area, all the nervous feelings from the screening day came flooding back. You would think that the medical team would have some awareness of how being in that waiting room would raise the anxiety levels given that it's where you are sat when you go through screening and await your fate with your diagnosis.
The Surgeon came breezing into the consultation room followed by my Breast Care Nurse (BCN) and that kind of put me on edge. He didn't look nervous and had a smile for me so I thought "well hopefully it will be positive news". The first thing he did was to ask if he could remove the surgery dressings and to assess the wounds.
I said to him and the BCN "I apologise now for the hairy armpit" and that I was glad to get rid of the smelly dressing and my BCN told me that I could've taken it off after a week!
The Surgeon say that the wounds had healed brilliantly and he was happy with them. Relief No. 1 for me.
Once I'd got myself dressed, the Surgeon gave me the results of my surgery. He said it was good news. "Hurray!" I thought. He said to me that the tumour was smaller than initially thought, it measured 16.5mm (originally measured as 21mm on the scans) and that they had got over >5mm of clearance margins so no further surgery to the breast was required. He then said that the sentinel lymph node had a micrometasis of 0.66mm with no extracapsular invasion seen (to you and me that means that the cancerous deposit in the lymph node hadn't infiltrated the lymph node casing) so they classed the removed lymph node as a negative node. With that I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been so worried about the lymph node that they had removed.
The Surgeon explained some other results from my biopsy on the removed tumour and the sentinel lymph node and said that my case would be discussed at the next MDT meeting (that's Multi Disicplinary Team) later that week and it would be decided if I was eligible for the Oncotype DX test. In essence the Oncotype DX test tests 21 genes within the tumour and from that it provides the medical team with information on how the cancer has behaved within the body, how likely the cancer is to recur but also how effective chemotherapy would be in helping to prevent recurrence.
As we left the hospital I still felt a mixture of relief and anxiety. It was great news that the surgery results were looking positive but I still hand the threat of chemotherapy hanging over me like the grim reaper.
Trip to the hairdressers
I had my pre-arranged hairdressers appointment scheduled for the Saturday at the end of the same week. I'm pretty organised when it comes to my hairdressers appointments, booking them a couple of months in advance and because it was early November, I'd booked in all my appointments in the run up to Christmas back in August!
Because I knew there was a strong possibility of me having chemotherapy I had made the decision to have my hair cut shorter in readiness. My hair at this point was originally at shoulder length and I wanted it cutting to more of a shorter bob style so in the event I got the news that I was having chemotherapy then I could keep getting my hair cut shorter and shorter so that it wasn't so traumatic when it fell out. My hairdresser knew of my diagnosis and surgery and had one of her own friends going through breast cancer treatment so knew the process with the hair loss.
As I walked into the hairdressers that Saturday morning in early November it was with a sense of trepidation. A place I had been to for the past 10 years suddenly felt alien and uncomfortable. I felt like I was under pressure to have my hair cut when in reality I didn't want to cut it, I was happy with it, I'd started to embrace my natural curls and to cut it now, well it was to be honest upsetting.
In any other circumstances I would've looked forward to a new shorter style but, it was the reasoning behind it that was upsetting me. It felt like my hair even at this stage was out of my control.
As it turned out, the new shorter style wasn't too dramatic and I actually quite liked it, but I was all too aware that within the next two weeks that I may be having to make the decision to have it cut far, far shorter and that was a scary and depressing thought indeed.
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