January 2015 Surgery Sisters

Jmo06

I didn't see one started yet, so I thought I would give it a go. Mom's surgery will be in late January. She will be having a Modified Radical Mastectomy.

AnotherLifeExperience January 8th for BMX with no recon

cinvee January 14th PBMX

dmarie71 January 21st PBMX

CassieCat January 9th MX

Vanmama January 5th

revup-65 January 6th bilateral

JeniferE January 7th Lumpectomy

ElaineTherese January 12 lumpectomy

Carriek30 January 27th

Lulu22 January 9th BMX w/reconstruction (artificial implants)

shelleym1 January12th lumpectomy

Mary59G January 15th

Hygeia January 14th Lumpectomy

shaz101 January 20th

concernedhubbyalan January 21st bilateral mastectomy with TRAM flap reconstruction

OVienna January 15th uniMx with Diep flap reconstruction

Msmath January 30th Reconstruction: Tissue expander placement (Both)

fearless_huron January 15th lumpectomy and lymph node biopsy

BooInLosAngeles January 21st UMX

AnotherLifeExperience

I am scheduled for January 8th for BMX with no recon. Cancer in left pmx right. They schedule it as outpatient here

Jmo06

welcome AnotherLifeExperience look forward to reading about your experience.

AnotherLifeExperience

Hi Jmo06, I will be thinking about your mom.

Jmo06

Thanks

Jmo06

Took mom to get a recovery Cami insurance paid for two..they said mom would wear for 4 to 6 weeks then can get prosethis and bras they have some pretty ones

Jmo06

never thought about cleavage, just occured there will b none this was a good article http://mastectomysolutions.com/clothes-closet-redo.php

JeniferE

Thanks for starting this thread, Jm06. I am finishing chemo this Monday, will have some sort of surgery in January. Have not decided what type as of yet. Look forward to sharing stories and advice.

Jeni

cinvee

Hi all, I will also be joining you with surgery in January. I am scheduled for a PBMX January 14th. It has been a 2 year journey to making this decision, and I am finally at peace and ready for it. I have no family history and have not been tested for BRCA, but have extremely dense breasts that are very difficult to image. I have ALH, ADH bilateral and FEA left. I am 43 and have decided that this is the right decision for me.

I plan on having the PBMX with immediate reconstruction. I am told I have a 50/50 chance on the immediate implants, or expanders. My pre-op is Jan 2nd, so hopefully we will know more then.

I hope you all do not mind me joining. Prayers and strength to all of you in your journeys.

Jmo06

welcome cinvee wishing you a a speedy recovery

dmarie71

Hello! Cinvee...your story is my story. I was diagnosed with ALH/LCIS 3 years ago and have had 5 biopsies and 3 lumpectomies. I have extremely dense, busy breasts with tons of cysts. I have no family history and no BRCA testing. I did not do will with Tamoxifen. I had a bad MRI in August and now a bad mammogram with new things to watch in my "good" left side. In addition, I have just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and will be unable to take immune-suppression drugs with crazy atypical cells in my body...so I am opting for a PBMX. My surgery is scheduled for Jan 21st. I am scared to death but need to get out of this stressful watch and wait nightmare!

cinvee

Wow dmarie, we do have the same story!!!!!! It has been a very long road to this decision, but I am finally at peace with it. My very first mamm was Oct 2012 and it has been non stop since.

I have another mamm on Monday just to be sure nothing new has popped up, although my mamms are usually useless because it's like looking at a cotton ball in a snow bank. Apparently my last onr is over 6 months old by the time surgery happens so we need more recent images. Seems normal, I am in every 6 months for something or other.

I live in Michigan and am having surgery at the University of Michigan Cancer Center, which I feel very good about. Trying to find the positive these days.

Hi ladies, I look forward to supporting each other and having someone to bounce questions off of.

Cinvee

CassieCat

Hi all. I have a tentative date for an MX on January 9th. I finish chemo this coming Monday and then I'll have some time to recover. I'll check in again with my surgeon earlier in that week of surgery and if I'm not ready and feeling up for it, then we'll postpone it. But right now I want to be done and am glad to have a date to write on my calendar!

Jmo06

congrats on finishing chemo mom finishes the 23rd cant wait!!!

Vanmama

I am joining your club. I will be having, at the least, a left mastectomy, but I am working on getting it approved for a bilateral. Surgery will be January 5th.

My cancer only shows up in the left breast but I am so stressed about only having it removed, leaving the fear of cancer developing in my right breast. I just want them both gone.

Jmo06

welcome vanmama surgery coming right up wish you speedy r

dmarie71

Just met with my PS for my pre-op consultation. I will be having small implants placed the day of surgery and liposuction on my lovehandles. The fat will be injected that day to create a soft fatty pad over my pec muscles. I will spend 3 months healing and then I will use BRAVA in April for 3 weeks (6 hours/day) to stretch the tissue. At the end of the 3 weeks, I will have lipo done on my thighs and more fat injected to create a very soft natural breast. I am a small B cup and don't have a ton of fat but I'm hoping to be a full B or small C when we are finished. I am so happy to not go the TE route. I have an autoimmune disease and would eventually like to be implant free....all natural fat!!!! Praying all goes as planned. Surgery is Jan 21st.

Mary59G

cinvee

,I go to U of M tomorrow for my first appointment, all day. Hopefully you can tell me how great they are, cause of course as everyone very worried about decisions to make. Lumpectomy or mastectomy???? At this moment, I say just take it all off! Hopefully I will get a plan and be able to get going with this. I too live in Michigan, about 1=1/2 hours from there in Kalamazoo.

revup-65

Hello ladies, I am finally having my surgey, bilateral, Jan 6th.I joined the Oct surgeries thinking I would be having surgery at the end of the month, but it didn't happen, I got attatched to everyone so still part of that group. I thought it would be in end of Nov so followed that group, then I thought it would be in Dec so followed that group. It has been a difficult  journey. I had BC in 1995, lump, rad, chemo- DCIS, now I am back again with IDC, 1.5 cm. So now I can join all of you finally with a surgery date. 

cinvee

Oh darn Mary, I was there today too. Just a mammogram today. My pre-op isn't until Jan 2nd. I have been very very please so far with the whole cancer center. I do not have cancer, but they have "taken on my case" as they said because I have so much going on bilateral. I live in Fenton which is 45 minutes North.

Not sure about you ladies, but now that I am under a month out I am getting nervous.

AnotherLifeExperience

Hey Cinvee, I am also getting very nervous, although there are a lot of times this doesn't seem real. It is amazing the range of emotions I can go through in a single day. I just want my life back.

CassieCat

cinvee, I feelnervous too. Fear of the unknown is s big anxiety trigger for me. I've known that but this whole cancer experience has really highlighted that for me. I need to work on staying in the present.

Hygeia

Please add me to the January sisters.  I had originally planned to have a rt mastectomy for ILC & LCIS and prophylactic lft mx but the most recent MRI, US & biopsies show no evidence of BC in lft breast so now am having rt lumpectomy + excisional removal of several papillomas in both breasts, then radiation and hormone therapy.  I was diagnosed 11/06/14.  

I hope to be up to getting my garden going in March even if I have to hold the tools with my feet.  I will dream of wonderfully nutritious plants pushing up through the damp soil to soak in the sun and feed my body, mind and soul. 

May each of us heal as well as can be accomplished.

Cheers.

PS:  I forgot to mention that I am 65 years old, widowed for 25 yrs & have a 27 year old son and four cats (Sam, Grace, Sofia and Ruth) who keep me young.  I'm ready for this challenging adventure.

JeniferE

I have surgery scheduled for January 7th. Lumpectomy. Glad to have the date!

Jenifer

ElaineTherese

On December 3, I finished five months of neoadjuvant chemo, and the subsequent scans were very encouraging. Neither the MRI or PET scan could pick up any signs of cancer, and the lump has disappeared. Nevertheless, the surgeon will be taking out about a golf-ball's worth of tissue, including the surgical marker that was inserted when the lump was biopsied. When that tissue and some lymph nodes are biopsied, we will find out for sure whether I have had a complete pathological response to the chemo.

I finally have a surgery date -- January 12 -- for my lumpectomy. It's still not clear which lymph nodes the surgeon will be removing. Before chemo, the MRI and PET scans suggested that one lymph node was compromised. I got an ultra-sound guided, fine needle biopsy of the node, and it tested positive for cancer. But, there was no surgical marker implanted so we could keep track of its location. Well, now the most recent MRI and PET scans show nothing in the nodes, and the surgeon is trying to figure out which nodes/how many he should take out. My medical oncologist assumed that he'd take out the previously-compromised node and some of its neighbors. The surgeon assumed that he was going to take out the sentinel node and some of its neighbors. After I talked to him, the surgeon said he was going to survey his BC surgeon buddies about this issue. Uh, OK. I'll bring this up when I have my appointment with the radiation oncologist on Wednesday.

In any case, after surgery, it's rads for me! And after rads, I'll be doing hormonal therapy (Tamoxifen) for 10 years. So, surgery is just another step in the Long Cancer Slog, but I'm happy to be (finally) joining some Surgery Sisters!

Carriek30

Hi ladies, good luck to all of you. I'm just beginning my journey here on these boards. Every time I write I get teary eyed. I have so much to be thankful for this time of year. I feel like I'm not entitled to be here since it's stage 0. There are so many other women that are fighting a larger fight. Just know I'm not trying to make mine a bigger deal, it's not, I'm just scared. Surgery scheduled for 1/27. Planning on a lumpectomy however, we will see after MRI and Genetic Testing is complete to see if additional is needed. I'm just not sure what to do, what the right choice is at this time. {{{Hugs to you all}}}

ElaineTherese

Carriek30 -- you're more than entitled to be here! As you can see from above, I'm also getting a lumpectomy. But, I'm also getting lymph nodes removed. I met with the radiation oncologist today -- he wants to take out all my Level 1 and Level 2 lymph nodes! Ugh. Can we say lymphadema? Well, better lymphdema than cancer, so I didn't put up much of a fuss.

CassieCat

Carrie, don't worry about that belonging here or having somehow the right kind of cancer. It all sucks, and we all need each other! These boards have been immensely helpful to me, and I hope they will be for you too.

Lulu22

BMX w/reconstruction (artificial implants) January 9th. At least that's the hope. I've had a lumpectomy and radiation in one breast so I've been told there's no guarantee we'll be able to do it all in one surgery. Not looking forward to telling the kids. We've already had a turn on this merry-go-round and it wasn't fun. The first time was 3 years ago-neoadjuvant chemo for a monster lump the radiologist who did my call-back mammo misdiagnosed as benign, then the lumpectomy and rads. This time, with a new cancer in the same breast, everyone agrees I need to have both removed. I won't know about chemo until we get the pathology report back.

CassieCat

lulu, I'm sorry to hear you're going through this again. We have the same surgery date. Good luck to you

Carriek30

Hi. Lulu, I'm sorry to hear you have to do this again.

My dr emailed me saying that my ER/PR test came back positive. This is a good thing, right? Why? I'm going to research it now.

Thank you for the above responses. I appreciate it.