Hematoma

Hi RC,  I had the same DX as you and had a hematoma too. But, I've never considered the idea that it might have been an issue. I hope not and would be shocked to find out there's one more thing to worry about with this crapola.

My understanding is that since DCIS has not yet developed the ability to metastasize, this is not something you should need to worry about.  This is the same reason that pure DCIS cannot invade lymph nodes so in many cases (including mine), sentinal node biopsies aren't done with lumpectomies.  (They are with mastectomies because if some invasive cancer is found along with the DCIS, after the surgery they are not able to go back and figure out which node is the "sentinal" one.)  From your signature it looks like you had pure DCIS.  So I really don't think this is something you need to worry about.  Hopefully others will weigh in to give you more comfort.  In the meantime, hang in there.  This is all so much to deal with (I'm nearly 3 years out -- is that possible? -- and mostly don't fret about it anymore but get nervous when it comes to annual mammograms and MRIs).  It does get easier.

Interesting, cycle-path.  My surgeon indicated that if it turned out there was an invasive component he would go back and do a SNB, but my sense was that his view was that (at least in my case, it may vary from person to person) the risk of lymphedema from an SNB outweighed the very small risk that no invasive component would be found in my pathology yet there would be one that had spread to the node.  Actually, now that you mention it, I think there was a long discussion on this topic at one point, which I found a little scary (because of the very small chance of undetected invasive component).  I'll see if I can find and bump that thread.  In any event, hopefully others with more knowledge will weigh in but I would think the risk of mets from pure DCIS (no invasive component) would not be an issue, the only possible question is whether there could be a small undetected invasive component.  

Unfortunately, we can't, RC.  And I think once we've had the shock of diagnosis we start to feel like if there is even a small chance of something happening, it will happen to us (at least that is how I felt, and still feel to some degree though much better now, a few years out).  Hang in there!