Scared about upcoming Surgery don't know what to Expect

Lilt, I think they need to give you more information before you let them do surgery on you. Typically a lump would be biopsied to determine what it is before any surgery would occur. Maybe yours is too deep to be biopsied, if that's even possible. I'd write down all of the questions you want to ask ahead of time, and make an appointment to talk to the surgeon/your doctor before surgery. You may want to bring someone who is close to you and detail-oriented to take notes/advocate for you, because it can be very surreal to receive a bunch of medical information while in your mind you are imagining the effect the information will have on your life. Of course you were in shock at your appointment and didn't ask many questions! As professionals, they should have realized that and slowed things down.

As far as questions about time off and pain-I personally would plan to take more than a day off, and I did not have pain with my mastectomy, but many do. Maybe they are planning to do a lumpectomy, which I do not have experience with. It is different for everyone.

Good luck, and don't let them steamroll you!

L.

Hi lilt,

I'm guessing they're planning a surgical biopsy (which is often just like a lumpectomy), but since you haven't been diagnosed with cancer, the purpose of the procedure is to find out what your lump is, not to remove it with an appropriate margin. Call your surgeon's office and speak with their scheduler, assistant, nurse, or whomever. Tell the person who answers the phone that you have questions about your scheduled surgery and need to speak with someone about your questions.

Talk to your primary care doc (who sent you for imaging) and ask if the surgeon the imaging people sent you to is a specialist in breast surgery. And if that is who he/she would recommend. It's possible that the surgeon is an excellent surgeon who focuses on breast cancer surgery (what you want) but is a lousy communicator. Docs who have that problem frequently have someone in their office to help with those things.

But in any case, you're entitled to understand what they recommend and why they recommend it. And your primary care doc should be in your corner in figuring this out!

Also ask your primary care doc for a referral for a second opinion to a large university-affiliated breast cancer program, or an NCIC designated breast cancer center. It's possible that a breast specialist in a specialist facility will be able to do a less invasive biopsy procedure. And if so, it would be nice to avoid an open surgical biopsy intended to just figure out "what's what."

Finally, have you signed any consent docs yet? If so, take a look at it and see exactly what it says you've agreed they can do. If not, ask the surgeon's office for a copy of the consent doc, so that you can review it at your leisure.

Take a deep breath and make some phone calls.

HTH,

LisaAlissa

Hi Lilt, I was in the same boat and had a lumpectomy - biopsy. My lump was in a position that they couldn't biopsy it. I agree with the others to get more details on what the surgery is, what exactly are they doing so you can prepare for the post surgery. There are many options they can do... you need to know which one. - "Surgery" isn't enough answer.

Things like - are they going to just biopsy - or lumpectomy - or check lymph nodes - Just because cancer runs on your side of the family, doesn't mean you have it. Believe me, it is the luck of the draw - so to speak.

Hugs to you and remember to breathe.... You will get through it and it will be ok. As far as clothing - button in the front shirts - you won't want to pull things over your head for a bit. Just cotton front close bras no underwires - but be aware, depending on what they are doing you will be a bit swollen so don't overstock on stuff - use what you have until you know how thing go. Hope this helps.

bellasMom is right. MRI can "see" areas that mammo and us can't. It isn't a biopsy, but it could give lots more information about the finding. Going in "blind" doesn't feel very comforting in this situation.

I always opt for general if given the chance, but I've never had a problem with general anaesthetics. If you tend to vomit or have other bad reactions to a general, you need to weigh the pros and cons. If you have no experience with it an don't know how you'd react, it seems that in the past 10 year or so that the drugs they use now tend to have fewer side effects. Hope this helps.

With very dense breasts an MRI should be approved by insurance. I had mine done and had surgery two days later so they can get results back fast. I did not have a biopsy but my mammo and ultrasound said even if a biopsy came back negative they would still want to do a lumpectomy, so there wasn't any reason to go through the biopsy process, for me. Not sure what the wording was on your mammo and ultrasound. Did they give it a bi-rads rating?

I had my lumpectomy on a Friday and went back to work on Monday, but everybody is different. You may need to take Thursday and Friday off.

The best thing the doctor gave me was an ace bandage with a Velcro closure that I could use to bind around my breasts, that thing was great.

Hugs, hoping for the best.

Her insurance denied it???

Congrats, lilt! It's great to hear that they were benign, especially since you are so young.

Thank you for updating us.

Trish