Lumpectomy Lounge....let's talk!
Comments
-
Sandy, you will manage to lose the weight because you are motivated. You just have had a whole lot of complications - like many surgeries - that threw things off. I'd find it hard to give up my glass of wine I have most nights. Good luck with that since I know how much you appreciate fine wines.
HUGS!
-
Wow, I took a computer break for a few days and look what happened! I'm seven pages behind and completely lost!
Poodles, congrats on your son's job and your daughter's job! It is so great when our children start to succeed! I'm sorry about all your mother's issues. It's so hard to deal with that long distance.
Judy, congrats on your clean margins and negative nodes!
Dara, I hope you don't have any more episodes like your ER visit with upcoming infusions!
Sloan, I can't imagine why your DS wants to move out, especially with your wonderful cooking and beautiful house. He doesn't realize what he is giving up, but I understand their need for independence. Mine was that way at 18.
Sandy, weight control is truly hard work. My hat is off to you that you are trying hard to stick to your eating plan and that you acknowledge the "cheating". The only way I control my weight is by sticking to my routine just about every day. I count my steps, I count my calories. If my weight goes up, I adjust accordingly. But it is work and takes daily dedication. Although 80% of my calories are "dead animals and leaves", I will always be an intuitive over-eater. If I try to restrict too much, the "bad" foods, like baked items, start tasting just so damn good!! Hang in there. Every day we just have to do the best we can - not beat ourselves up for a particular day, but not quit either.
I have to admit a little trepidation is brewing about the upcoming road trip, because I am not accustomed to sitting that much and I will not have access to my normal foods. I have an irrational fear of hunger. But I will do the best I can! Peggy, you will probably see me marching up and down your road to get my steps in
My son and DIL left for Seattle today. He will be stationed at Ft Lewis for the next three years. It was great to visit with him but great to have a quiet house again.
-
I began seeing a dietician in July and brought in my niece, who is a vegan cook, to prepare at least one meal per day. She shops the farmer's markets for me, but hopefully I can go this week. Thanks Molly, for giving me the run down on the verbage. Thanks ChiSandy for making me feel like I have a gray area twin. Who would have thought a 1/2 of one centimeter would push me into another stage or grade. Does not matter, because I am pretty sure with such high positives on the hormone side 95%, I will be getting tamoxifen or ai with lupron. Hopefully the onco test will be kind as I am a non-smoker, non-drinker, veggie eating, person that still cycles at 50+ish, with no family history. I am like you ChiSandy, having taken SSRI and need it. Same one since daughter was born. I have such wonderful doctors from Harvard, University of Southern California, etc. I am going to let them do their thing, but it is nice to know what is going on.
-
Alice, you'll love the park at the end of my street. It's got a nice walking path. I'm not sure how long it is but it is good - unless you have allergies - it's more like a field for most of it. Tell me what kind of foods I should have around for you. I don't keep much on hand since there's just me. (Always wine, though
).Michelle, I believe that your lifestyle has no bearing on your Oncotype. You got BC and sometimes it just doesn't matter if you lived vegan and exercised like you should. Very discouraging. But I'm hoping your score is ridiculously low!
HUGS!
-
Hi All! Back to world of computers and TV for a couple of days!
Hard to keep up but glad your surgery went well Sandy and you are on the mend.
Continued thoughts for you and your Mom Poodles it is so hard ,sad,and frustrating!
Peggy thanks for your well wishes! We are eventually going to be at our new house full time. It is on a small lake in Niles Mi where are DD lives. It is less than 2 hours from Chicago and very close to South Bend. My DH is a basketball coach and is not quite ready to give it up. I like the idea of a year or two for transition. I will be going back and forth as activities dictate. I hope to really only move what will fit nicely in the new place. So the paring down will begin! I also don't want to change my treatment team just yet. First Mamogram since lumpectomy in 2 weeks already on my mind!
Hello to all the new folks! Take care of yourselves
-
PlanB, en route home from PA, I actually ate last Sept. at a diner on that very lake in Niles! (Good veal cutlet)!
-
Well, Mother took her car to the shop and plunked down her $1400 to fix her 10yo van. We are all just shaking out heads. And now we'll all have to hear her bitch and moan and wring her hands because she's worried about her money. I just want to scream. Guess ill buy a few more gift cards, cuz she will never take my money. And i raised up $3000 overnight for her to put to a newer car.
When I get to be 82 I hope my DD slaps the crap outta me if I start pulling this stuff.
-
PlanB, my son worked at the nuclear plant there one summer while in college (he loved it) and rented an apt on the river. I moved him in, bought used furniture and got him settled in one day. He loved Niles and spent most of his free time going to the South Bend minor league baseball games. it is hard to transition to retirement. No sense in doing it until you're ready. Good luck with the downsizing. it is really hard. And changing your oncology team is kind of scary. I think I've found the perfect MO but I had the recommendations of my DIL for the center to use. And won't it be nice being near DD???
Sandy, you find the good places to eat no matter where you are!
HUGS!
-
Poodles, someday when you are feeling peevish, tell your mother she'd have money if she sold her house. I know that won't happen but wouldn't you like to? I hope my kids slap the crap out of me too if I do something like that. Enough to make you down several bottles of wine.
HUGS!
-
I have reminded her that she needs to sell the house ASAP, and she understands that but she just cant get off the stick and she wont let us help. She needs to go through each and every scrap of paper, plastic cup, old holey towel, puzzle with missing pieces, circa 1975 sewing pattern, and her collection of yard and household chemicals.
Right now Mother is laying out about $300/mo going over there and back, plus she's paying utilities while my niece lives there, plus home insurance and yard maintenance. All told, she's probably losing around $800/mo. No wonder she feels like she's hemorrhaging money. She is!
-
Poodles, there has to be a way to break through the rut your mother is in. Something you can say that will wake her up and get her to let go. I wish I had a bright idea. If only we could figure out some awful person she is acting like that would totally repulse her (I would never act like that). $800/month is a helluva lot of money.
HUGS!
-
I don't know if we need to stage an intervention or what. She'd never forgive us. And frankly, it is her money to spend and she is not incompetent, just foolish. Sigh...
-
Poodles, that also is true. It IS her money to spend or not. Doesn't mean it won't drive you crazy.
HUGS!
-
>>When I get to be 82 I hope my DD slaps the crap outta me if I start pulling this stuff.<<
That’s what I tell Gordy all the time. And my sister and I have vowed that if we ever tell a waiter the "digestive reason" why we can’t have one food or another (Mom used to explain in excruciating detail just why she needed to sub out something for either the corn or the rice) or even go on at length about the regularity of our colons, we each have permission to shoot the offender. (Sis doesn’t read BCO, of course, or else she might be heading up here from VA with my BIL’s deer rifle).
-
Sandy, HAHAHAHA!!! Love it!
HUGS!
-
Poodles, tell her about Airbnb. People pay very well to stay in a home with their kids/dog/etc. for a week. She could be looking at $750 to $1,000 per week, depending on location. Alabama is a very popular destination for midwestern vacationers. It is a nice area and not too far to drive.
-
and I thought my brother was bad... he is 79, needing constant transfusions for his leukemia, has congestive heart failure, and maybe a year left... has oxy and smokes while wearing it... and he still thinks he can drive.. we've tried everything to get him to give up his van, but it's his and he will drive it when he wants... i am helping my niece get to her appts and shopping with my van.. so we finally got to where he is totally alone if he decides to drive... i think that is starting to sink in.. but he's burnt his nose, took off his moustache, made a fireball with his oxy when he lit up with it on... I wish you well with your mom.. it can be trying...
-
hello all, first time poster here. I wish I'd found you all a while ago, this is a lonely road when you start out. You don't know the terrain and you don't speak the language. And the things you thought you understood, you get home and realise you didn't at all. So it's great to find a sisterhood here, you're funny, knowledgeable and you care. No, I'm not going to cry...
Anyway, I have a kind of confusing diagnosis. My lx results showed pure DCIS, my surgeon told me there might be microinvasions, but there was nothing outside the ducts. But the area was 5cm, high grade, and on two sides the margin was only a millimeter, so I have to have a re excision. And if there still isn't a good enough clear margin it'll have to be a mastectomy. My first surgery was an oncoplastic breast reduction, so everything has been moved around and that breast is already smaller despite the swelling and bruising. So I'm worried about the cosmetic result of the new surgery if it is successful. At the moment my cosmetic result is really great, I could kiss my surgeon. I had real anxiety over the outcome because of the size of the tissue being removed and did consider mastectomy and reconstruction from the outset, but my surgeon said he believed I could get a good outcome from lumpectomy despite the size of the area coming out.
So I have a stage 0 cancer but still may have to have a mastectomy and this is grade 3, aggressive cancer cells but I haven't had even a SNB because DCIS doesn't involve nodes. Yes, I feel lucky not to have a sore armpit as well, and no lymphoedema risk. It's hard to get my head round all these things.
New surgery is next week, still not healed from the last one...the surgeon said to expect this to be more painful because the wound hasn't healed. But I see plenty of people here had to have a second surgery for clear margins, what did you all find?
-
DizzyBee, Welcome! We're sorry you had to find us but glad you did. You have figured out that we are warm, welcoming, informative, funny and often talk about life issues, as well as BC, that impact us.
I can't answer your questions but I know there are others who will. It is so darned hard at first when you don't even know what you don't know. I recommend that you read Dr Susan Love's Breast Book. For me it is the bible of breast cancer. Maybe even more information than you want but I've found it invaluable. That's rough having to have a second surgery. Ugh. Good luck!
HUGS!
-
Dizzybee,
Because of your oncoplastic surgery, breast tissue does get moved around. I know, because my surgeon is also an oncoplastic surgeon. I would get a more clear picture of "micro invasions." Do you have abnormal cells that are scattered around your breast? Although all DCIS is Staged at 0, the microinvasions are outside of the duct. Grade 3 means it has a greater chance of becoming invasive. If you already had 5cm plus margin removed, and they are going in again trying to locate the margin, you might have a discussion with your doctor about a mastectomy. Since it is DCIS you would get to keep your skin and nipples. Do you know if you are hormone positive?
Currently, I have a matched set of boobs. After radiation treatment, they will probably not match. I will have a reduction surgery on the other side. In the long run, I might have wished for a mastectomy. You need to know what the tradeoffs are between another lumpectomy trying to locate unclean margins and a mastectomy on that side. If you would have invasive cancer down the road, I don't know that you will have a choice for a lumpectomy.
-
Welcome Dizzybee, I had mastectomy after lumpectomy due to dirty margins. I would seriously consider mastectomy and reconstruction. Get a consult with a plastic surgeon first. There's no reason to rush back into surgery just to clean up the margins. You need to make an informed decision.
-
Sorry, I wasn't explaining very well. Before the lumpectomy my surgeon warned me that though it looked like only DCIS on the scans it was possible they'd find microinvasions in the path report. But the report came back clean, no microinvasions anywhere.
I did discuss whether to go straight to mastectomy but my surgeon said he still advised another try for clean margins, and that there was no difference in outcome between lumpectomy + radiotherapy and mastectomy provided the margins were clear. My surgeon is the head consultant and I have confidence in him, I had a bad experience with the surgeon I saw before him who really didn't care what I did and asked me to stop asking questions. So I'm going to take his advice as he's worked a miracle for me so far. And I want to hang on to what I've got if I can.
I saw the latest research a couple of weeks ago said a two millimeter margin is sufficient, I just hope he can find the margins now it's all been rearranged.
The incision was around my areola, it looks like it was removed and put back in a new place at a later stage, so the scarring should be barely visible. The re excision will reopen the top half. So I'm wondering if I do have to have a nipple sparing mastectomy whether my poor nipple will stand up to the strain!
I don't know what my hormone status is at the moment, but at one point pre surgery we discussed taking Tamoxifen after rads if the test came back positive.
I know that I'm likely to have a significant size difference after rads and the plan is to do a lift and reduction to the other side once everything has settled down. I guess if I have a mastectomy that would still have to happen.
-
Oh, dear. I just got a call from my mother. My cousin, her oldest sister's son, just called her to report bad news about his wife. She was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2014. Last summer we saw her at the family reunion and she was finishing up a year of Herceptin. Her hair was about 2" long and curly then. Lately she has been having some dizziness. Unfortunately, scans show that she has mets to her brain. They have called in hospice.
I am just sick for them. She is about 60, he's 63, and they live in NC. They have two adult kids, ages 28 & 25; the youngest lives in CA. They are a close knit family and they have the support of my mom's whole side of the family (we are all pretty tight.) I'm going to call them later. I know there is nothing I can do or say to make it better, other than to tell them we love them and will pray for them. In fact, I think I'll also call my cousins brother and sister while I'm at it. They have all been to hell and back with his wife and I'm sure they are also struggling.
Thanks for letting me get it out. I'm on home visits today, so there's no one to talk this over with.
-
Poodles, how devastating. Your heart must be so heavy. Sending out comforting prayers to your cousin and his wife. Nothing we can say will help but at least they know you are there for them. Please keep us updated on them. We are here for you, as you know.
HUGS!
-
Poodles, so sorry for your cousin’s wife. Sending hugs and prayers to both of them and to your whole extended family.
Dizzybee, I would take your surgeon’s advice--if he didn’t think he could get clean margins on the second try, he would have recommended going straight to mastectomy. My friend with DCIS had a BMX only because the DCIS was multifocal, high grade and larger than yours, and she had atypical ductal hyperplasia (a high risk factor for invasive disease) in the other breast. Oncoplasty was not recommended because of her small breasts and the amount of tissue that would have to have been removed scattered over a wide area. And she nixed reconstruction because she’s 70, widowed with no desire to date again, and hasn’t worn a bra in 30 years.
-
Dizzybee,
It sounds like you have a very competent and confident doctor and that is very important. I initially was considering doing a double mastectomy, it is so in style right now. Ugg, and then I brushed off my pharm school training and began to dig. People that have a lumpectomy, followed by radiation actually have a better long term outcome than other removal methods. That may factor in hormone positive individuals taking a serm like tamoxifen. Trust your doctor, trust that he or she can find the margins due to movement of tissue and that you can get on the hormone bandwagon if needed. As far as your nipple, as long as you have a good blood supply and it stays in the pink, you would have no trouble. If things would progress and you would have any nipple or skin involvement, that could change. Finally, if you are stressed be kind to yourself and get an anti anxiety medication. I know that this is such a worrisome time, but have faith in your doctor and yourself. You will get through this and be grateful that it was found early. Did you know 1,000,000 women go undiagnosed in the USA and that 50% of all insured females do not get mammograms? I just find that statistic staggering. Keep us posted!!!
-
Poodles -- So sorry to hear about your cousin's wife.
Welcome Dizzybee...
Today I had my port inserted. It went really well, but I'm not moving too swiftly today. Tomorrow, I go to the clinic to get my bandages changed.
-
Elizabeth, give yourself a bit of time to feel better after having that port put in. You'll do fine, especially once you figure out how to keep it all comfy.
HUGS!
-
My BS put me on doxycyline yesterday for some redness in my skin. Not incision site, but over site where alot of work was done. It is a little bit more spread out today and I am getting worried. This is unchartered territory for me, so I need help.
-
I just got my RO appt... didn't even think about what the dates were... 16 years ago on the 19th my DH went home and on the 22 we had his memorial... another sideswipe from life... and i will have Dr. Lamoreaux instead of Laing..
Categories
- All Categories
- 679 Advocacy and Fund-Raising
- 289 Advocacy
- 68 I've Donated to Breastcancer.org in honor of....
- Test
- 322 Walks, Runs and Fundraising Events for Breastcancer.org
- 5.6K Community Connections
- 282 Middle Age 40-60(ish) Years Old With Breast Cancer
- 53 Australians and New Zealanders Affected by Breast Cancer
- 208 Black Women or Men With Breast Cancer
- 684 Canadians Affected by Breast Cancer
- 1.5K Caring for Someone with Breast cancer
- 455 Caring for Someone with Stage IV or Mets
- 260 High Risk of Recurrence or Second Breast Cancer
- 22 International, Non-English Speakers With Breast Cancer
- 16 Latinas/Hispanics With Breast Cancer
- 189 LGBTQA+ With Breast Cancer
- 152 May Their Memory Live On
- 85 Member Matchup & Virtual Support Meetups
- 375 Members by Location
- 291 Older Than 60 Years Old With Breast Cancer
- 177 Singles With Breast Cancer
- 869 Young With Breast Cancer
- 50.4K Connecting With Others Who Have a Similar Diagnosis
- 204 Breast Cancer with Another Diagnosis or Comorbidity
- 4K DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ)
- 79 DCIS plus HER2-positive Microinvasion
- 529 Genetic Testing
- 2.2K HER2+ (Positive) Breast Cancer
- 1.5K IBC (Inflammatory Breast Cancer)
- 3.4K IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma)
- 1.5K ILC (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma)
- 999 Just Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastasis
- 652 LCIS (Lobular Carcinoma In Situ)
- 193 Less Common Types of Breast Cancer
- 252 Male Breast Cancer
- 86 Mixed Type Breast Cancer
- 3.1K Not Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastases but Concerned
- 189 Palliative Therapy/Hospice Care
- 488 Second or Third Breast Cancer
- 1.2K Stage I Breast Cancer
- 313 Stage II Breast Cancer
- 3.8K Stage III Breast Cancer
- 2.5K Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
- 13.1K Day-to-Day Matters
- 132 All things COVID-19 or coronavirus
- 87 BCO Free-Cycle: Give or Trade Items Related to Breast Cancer
- 5.9K Clinical Trials, Research News, Podcasts, and Study Results
- 86 Coping with Holidays, Special Days and Anniversaries
- 828 Employment, Insurance, and Other Financial Issues
- 101 Family and Family Planning Matters
- Family Issues for Those Who Have Breast Cancer
- 26 Furry friends
- 1.8K Humor and Games
- 1.6K Mental Health: Because Cancer Doesn't Just Affect Your Breasts
- 706 Recipe Swap for Healthy Living
- 704 Recommend Your Resources
- 171 Sex & Relationship Matters
- 9 The Political Corner
- 874 Working on Your Fitness
- 4.5K Moving On & Finding Inspiration After Breast Cancer
- 394 Bonded by Breast Cancer
- 3.1K Life After Breast Cancer
- 806 Prayers and Spiritual Support
- 285 Who or What Inspires You?
- 28.7K Not Diagnosed But Concerned
- 1K Benign Breast Conditions
- 2.3K High Risk for Breast Cancer
- 18K Not Diagnosed But Worried
- 7.4K Waiting for Test Results
- 603 Site News and Announcements
- 560 Comments, Suggestions, Feature Requests
- 39 Mod Announcements, Breastcancer.org News, Blog Entries, Podcasts
- 4 Survey, Interview and Participant Requests: Need your Help!
- 61.9K Tests, Treatments & Side Effects
- 586 Alternative Medicine
- 255 Bone Health and Bone Loss
- 11.4K Breast Reconstruction
- 7.9K Chemotherapy - Before, During, and After
- 2.7K Complementary and Holistic Medicine and Treatment
- 775 Diagnosed and Waiting for Test Results
- 7.8K Hormonal Therapy - Before, During, and After
- 50 Immunotherapy - Before, During, and After
- 7.4K Just Diagnosed
- 1.4K Living Without Reconstruction After a Mastectomy
- 5.2K Lymphedema
- 3.6K Managing Side Effects of Breast Cancer and Its Treatment
- 591 Pain
- 3.9K Radiation Therapy - Before, During, and After
- 8.4K Surgery - Before, During, and After
- 109 Welcome to Breastcancer.org
- 98 Acknowledging and honoring our Community
- 11 Info & Resources for New Patients & Members From the Team