Is there a July 2011 group?

Hello and Happy New Year! Glad to hear everyone coming through their surgeries so well. Sounds like we're about to start the new year cancer-free. Had a mammo a couple of weeks ago and everything looks good. Surgeon doesn't want to see me for six months. I'll take that as a good sign.See the onc and radiologist next week and then am off to Florida for two months. Will be nice to leave this all behind for a little while. My husband, who  had throat cancer this past year, and I were so glad to leave 2011 behind. Talk about memory lags---the other day the surgeon asked me when I started and finished chemo and I honestly couldn't remember. Totally blanked it out. Just glad to be here for 2012.

hello again....getting nervous/excited to have my surgery Thursday. I have a question for those that had a lumpectomy and snb. I remember my surgeon saying something about a catheter or something being put into my breast AND dye injections...anyone that knows more please let me know what to expect. It's all kind of hitting me now and I'm confused on what's going to happen and if it's real painful before surgery.

Nite all, need to get some sleep!

xoxoxoxo 

I had an SNB and the doctor will insert needles around the areola. I have seen a lot of people say that it was very painful, but I did not think it was bad at all compared to all we have been through already.

I also had to have a catheter for a day. Yours would likely be shorter with lumpectomy I would guess. Are you able to do this as an outpatient? If not, then maybe you would have catheter the same time as a bmx. That was not bad either. I didn't realize that I had it at first because there was so much going on trying to wake up from anesthesia.

I wish you the best! Keep us posted when you are up to it. 

Rabbit: I did not have a SNB. From what I recall the dye is only to track how many lymph nodes to remove and it is used once they make the cut for the lumpectomy. For me the biopsy and port placement hurt more than the lumoectomy. I did not take any of the pain meds I was given.

hi everyone

Yes, it's outpatient, and I found out earlier today they are doing a wire localization  procedure, where they use a needle to pinpoint the tumor/area to be removed during surgery, it helps the surgeon see exactly where to make the incision. They use a needle to get into the area then shoot a tiny wire/catheter with a hook on the end, this stays in the breast until surgery. Then I get the injections of the radioactive tracer around the areola. 

I called the surgeon's office today asking for the Emla cream and was told they will numb me before the procedures so not to worry. 

I will update everyone once I feel like getting back online

Hugs and kisses to you all! I think of everyone here daily!

Rabbit, love, good luck! I hope all went well.

Missing you all very much. Healing slowly but surely and am SUPER pleased with my revision

So glad to hear the good news, Rabbit! Fingers crossed for clean margins :-)

yay Rabbit!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I am a bit sore today....the tenderness seems to get a little worse each day but that's probably because I'm not taking as many pain pills. 

My BS called late yesterday to say she got clean margins!! YEAH ME she wasn't thrilled with one of the nodes testing positive and is going to talk to my RO and MO to see if they are all on the same page and think that rads will kill whatever else may be floating around in my nodes. She said there was a 2.2mm tumor in the positive node which puts me at macro instead of micro metastasis...not sure how that affects my staging or survival rate, recurrance rate etc. If anyone can help me out with that one, I would appreciate it.

I see the surgeon on Thursday for a follow up, and the MO on the 18th, so if I could get more answers now and not have to wait so long, that would help

My BS said they used to go back in and remove more lymph nodes if one was positive....

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I will be relaxing and doing very little

rabbit: Glad to hear you are up and giving the world some kick!

I was told several times that because we did neoadjuvant and no SNB before treatment, we would never know accurate staging at the time of diagnosis. After you start treating, that all changes due to treatment. They told me that you don't really try to figure out staging again at the time of surgery because they like to base it all on what they know before any treatment was done. It's frustrating, and I don't think that it changes the relevance or importance of what they found in your nodes. But, perhaps there would have been more nodes involved if they had done a SNB at diagnosis. They told me that mine were clear, but I would never know if chemo had gotten in there and cleaned out something that may have been there. I don't know that I am repeating everything correctly, but I believe that is the jist of it.

This is why I don't have a stage listed. They only knew my tumor size and that there was no metastisis. So of TMN for staging, I have T: which is a T3, and M: which is none. N, number of nodes was not known at diagnosis, which is when the MO said this was the relevant time to know it for staging purposes. I hope that helps!

My surgeon told me that he was going to do an axillary node dissection if he found any positive nodes. Fortunately, he didn't find any. I would ask if that would be beneficial or do they think radiation will get at it just as well. I would think that it might and it sounds like that is what your BS is double checking when she says she is making sure that they are all on the same page.

Rabbit - So glad your surgery went well!

Hi to everyone else! I am still working on getting that energy back up! Taking so much longer than I thought it would. My hair is definitely coming in now. It's long enough for me to pull on it lol. I am thinking in the next 2 months, I will try to go scarfless. Right now it's still too cold! Of course, I'm in California where it's never really all that cold, so I don't really have a reason to complain.

hope you feel better soon jbug. 

kk - isn't it great to have hair!  Mine is about an inch now.  Still trying to decide whether or not to color. 

rabbit - glad you're feeling okay.  I definitely remember the darn drain and the itchy tape!  Getting them out was huge!  (I had 5).  I had surgery on both breasts, both sides of my back and both underarms.  Sleeping was quite a challenge!  Still my node area was the most painful.  Lots of sympathy pains for you....keep resting/healing!

misswim: My mom has her masters in social work and work at a hospital for most of her career. She had always wanted to do counseling so she took her retirement and did that for awhile. Now she works part-time in the hospital's cancer care unit filling in for other's vacations and such. But, that is just some background. She has always been involved in women's groups and yoga and meditation. She got some training in hypnosis as well. It sounds like the two of you could have a ton to talk about. If you ever want me to give you her number PM me and let me know.

I have been dosing up on the vitamin C and echinacea because I start radiation tomorrow and they told me no extra dosing of antioxidants. So I tried getting lots of rest and my usual rememdies this weekend, because there will be none of that this week.

bcisnofun: Which kind of surgery did you have to get 5 drains? That sounds horrible! I am thinking I will get more than the 2 that I had with bmx when I do my DIEP surgery. 

bcisnofun: Wow! You are a super hero after that one! You will always be able to look back on that one later and say, "If I can get through that, I can get through this..." I know that I dread doing so much surgery again for the DIEP, but with time, I am sure I will be ready to face it again.

Weird what you all are saying about getting sick after chemo. I had a slight fever a few times and was put on antibiotics but was never "sick". My last chemo was Dec. 7th and on Dec. 17th I came down with a sore throat and then full blown head cold, thank God it didn't get into my chest! I am still blowing tons of stuff, and my ears are congested, it's been well over 3 weeks, how crazy is that?

J-Bug, my MO gave me some literature on VitC and how it can actually cause cancer to grow if taken in large doses. It blew my mind and I quit taking VitC the minute I read it. Just a heads up...

Misswim, that is pretty cool, I used to be addicted to yoga about 20 years ago...would go at 7am before work almost daily for years. I had not done yoga for a few years before my dx and when I went to the breast cancer retreat a few months ago, they had a free yoga class, it made me crave it more so I am going to start taking yoga again, at least try to go once a week minimum. I know with the end of chemo and surgery I would not be able to commit for a bit, but I think I'll try to get started before rads. I think yoga is a fantastic way to help circulation, toning, and mental strength. 

bcisnofun, I don't have any drains...I had a needle localization where they left a wire catheter in until surgery, and snb dye injection in the nipple. I have 3 incisions with gauze and tape over them but no drains. 5 drains sounds insanely uncomfortable!!  

kk11, I can actually put my fingers through my hair now, but just enough to feel the hair between my fingers, the second I pull away from my scalp, I lose grip of my hair, for me it's still really thin and sparse, and GRAY!

xoxoxoxo to all