Lumpectomy

The shock that I have breast cancer is yet hitting me in waves, as there is no breast cancer in my family, nor any other cancer. I was diagnosed with IDC 19 days ago. My first appointment was a week after my diagnosis with my surgeon who told me that a lumpectomy will be done, along with removal of 3-5 nodes. There will be testing done during the surgery on the tumor, margins, and nodes, so all can be known before the surgery is over. I won't know what stage I am until the surgery is done, but the Dr. feels that it looks good with all the tests results from the biopsy and the size of the tumor to predict a hopeful outcome and future. The need for the MRI will also determine the extent of the surgery should other tumors be found hiding in my dense breast tissue, so can change my treatment plan based on that outcome. Surgery cannot be scheduled until after a MRI with contrast is done. I have been waiting for nearly two weeks for my MRI due to the fact that it has to be done in a hospital, and because of my prior allergic reaction to the contrast used. I will have to be medicated with benedryl and prednisone before the MRI. With all this waiting and worrying, my sleep is not good. I wake up two to three times a night, and usually up before 4 am, so in bed less than 6 hours. I feel sick all over. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder what I will look like after surgery. I try and focus on other things...how can I stop thinking about it....I write, but exhaustion takes over...would like to know if one ever feels normal again?

Thanks, for responding, gb2115. I appreciate your words...and understand "a new normal". It's a lot like going through changes in life...many we didn't ask for, but somehow found ourselves going through them. The MRI will happen soon, just waiting for the call to set the date.

Kati - the reason surgeons perform lumpectomy + rads in some cases is because we have evidence based clinical guidelines that show that this has the same rate of overall survival. Which cancers will recur as metastatic is something that as far as I can tell nobody quite knows yet. Some of the genomic tests like Oncotype do give us some insight into risks of recurrence for some cancers.

Hopesings - time & again I've read on this board that this is the worst time: when you know you have it but don't know exactly what you have, what the treatments will be and how you'll tackle it. Once you have more info and a plan, dates, appointments, pathology results etc, everything feels better. If you input your biopsy pathology results into your profile you will be able to access articles specific to your tentative diagnosis (final will be based on the lumpectomy pathology) and you'll start getting a sense of what your treatments might look like. Read the threads with people with similar diagnoses and treatments and all of this will start to see less scary and more doable. Now would also probably be a good time to start trying things like mindfulness based meditation to help you relax and try to calm your mind. It gets better! (oh, and the vast majority of women diagnosed have no family history; most reports indicate only 5-10% of women diagnosed have a family history.)