As I mentioned in my last post, during the mastectomy, the surgeon was unable to find the lymph node with the clip in it. That clip was placed during a biopsy that showed a positive lymph node back in January (before chemo). So, in the spirit of making sure I truly have kicked cancer's butt, my oncologist recommended a CT to see whether that clip was still there. Unfortunately, it and the lymph node it was located in were still there. Therefore, surgery was scheduled to remove that lymph node. As disappointing as the prospect of another surgery was, the good news was that we now knew I would not need any more chemo. Which means, I had no more need for the port I'd had since January. So, that could be removed during the surgery to remove the lymph node! I had this surgery last Wednesday, August 20. It was outpatient and has resulted in only a slight setback in my recovery from the first surgery. The good news came two days later when I received the biopsy results. The surgeon removed four more lymph nodes during surgery, one of which did have the clip. All four lymph nodes were NEGATIVE!!!! With that news, I can finally believe that I truly have kicked cancer's butt! The chemo did its job and literally wiped out almost all of the cancer cells that were seven months ago! Those few that were remaining were removed during the first surgery.
Just for a little extra assurance that there are no more little cancer cells hiding anywhere, I am going to go ahead with radiation. I've seen the radiation oncologist once already and will probably start treatments around the second week of September. (She wanted to give me plenty of time to recover from the additional surgery and complete the "fill-up" process of reconstruction.) I will receive somewhere between 30 and 35 radiation treatments, which translates into daily (Monday-Friday) treatments for about 6 or 7 weeks. Of course, this new round of treatments will come with its own set of side effects and difficulties (including having to go every single day!), but I'm confident it will all be worth it in the end. All other parts of this journey have been!
No comments:
Post a Comment