Wahoo!
Phil and I had an excellent visit with Dr Iglehart at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston yesterday!
Here is the executive summary: Simple mastectomy surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday March 15th at Brigham and Women's.
Details: 9:30 sentinel node dye and marker injection; 11:30 surgery (<2 hours); quick recovery and then home the same day
Dr I was everything we could have hoped for - intelligent, personable, and straight forward. And bonus - he has a sense of humor! [Many thanks to Lisa for talking to Stan who talked to Barry who gave me Dr I's name.] Dr I is the the Director of Women's Cancers Program at Dana-Farber and Chief of Surgical Oncology at B&W.
And the support staff was incredible too. They gave us a ton of literature about pre-surgery, surgery, and post-surgery as well as a backpack of info for each kid. Kate's backpack had two beanie babies in it. She was generous and gave Steven the kangaroo, and kept the puppy for herself. I thought the teenage booklet was appropriately titled "What about me?"
They also have a Friends Boutique right at D-F where you can order special bras and prosthetics. They gave me a free gift bag with all kinds of info and products.
Just an overall wonderful experience.
OK - so here's some more details on the actual surgery from my point of view. So going with Dr I's suggestion of simple mastectomy (removal of all breast tissue and nipple) since he also believes that the other calcifications seen throughout my right breast are candidates for DCIS. [yeah - this was what Phil and I thought too]
He also said he'd do a sentinel node biopsy. This is where they inject a dye with radioactive markers near the DCIS site and allow the dye to travel for a couple of hours. It will aggregate at the first lymph node it hits which they will pick up with a geiger counter (I think). During the mastectomy, they will remove just that dyed lymph node vs a whole bunch of them. Then they do a pathology work up to determine if any cancer cells had made it out of my breast into the lymph node. If not, then I'm done. If they find cancer cells, then I will have to have surgery to remove more lymph nodes.
So for anesthesia, I'll be doing a paravertebral block instead of general. This sounds way cool. They only have to numb the nerves that branch out from my back to numb my chest. This means less recovery time and no general anesthesia side effects. And the bonus is that the block sometimes lasts 18-24 hrs so less need for pain meds.
And I get to come home the same day. I could stay in the hospital overnight but my experience has been that I'd get more rest at home.
So no reconstruction for me. I have to throw in "at this point" so people will know that it is an option at any later time if I choose. I really have no desire to lift my chest muscles up and push in an implant. Kinda freaky that the implant has to go UNDER the muscle but this is to protect the implant since your skin is so thin. Well, of course, Phil would say I'm thick skinned but whatever....
So this weekend will be spent organizing all of my information and making a gazillion checklists (pre surgery TODOs, day of surgery TODOs, and post-surgery stuff). Everyone knows how much I love to make lists and be organized.
Wish me luck!
Here is the executive summary: Simple mastectomy surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday March 15th at Brigham and Women's.
Details: 9:30 sentinel node dye and marker injection; 11:30 surgery (<2 hours); quick recovery and then home the same day
Dr I was everything we could have hoped for - intelligent, personable, and straight forward. And bonus - he has a sense of humor! [Many thanks to Lisa for talking to Stan who talked to Barry who gave me Dr I's name.] Dr I is the the Director of Women's Cancers Program at Dana-Farber and Chief of Surgical Oncology at B&W.
And the support staff was incredible too. They gave us a ton of literature about pre-surgery, surgery, and post-surgery as well as a backpack of info for each kid. Kate's backpack had two beanie babies in it. She was generous and gave Steven the kangaroo, and kept the puppy for herself. I thought the teenage booklet was appropriately titled "What about me?"
They also have a Friends Boutique right at D-F where you can order special bras and prosthetics. They gave me a free gift bag with all kinds of info and products.
Just an overall wonderful experience.
OK - so here's some more details on the actual surgery from my point of view. So going with Dr I's suggestion of simple mastectomy (removal of all breast tissue and nipple) since he also believes that the other calcifications seen throughout my right breast are candidates for DCIS. [yeah - this was what Phil and I thought too]
He also said he'd do a sentinel node biopsy. This is where they inject a dye with radioactive markers near the DCIS site and allow the dye to travel for a couple of hours. It will aggregate at the first lymph node it hits which they will pick up with a geiger counter (I think). During the mastectomy, they will remove just that dyed lymph node vs a whole bunch of them. Then they do a pathology work up to determine if any cancer cells had made it out of my breast into the lymph node. If not, then I'm done. If they find cancer cells, then I will have to have surgery to remove more lymph nodes.
So for anesthesia, I'll be doing a paravertebral block instead of general. This sounds way cool. They only have to numb the nerves that branch out from my back to numb my chest. This means less recovery time and no general anesthesia side effects. And the bonus is that the block sometimes lasts 18-24 hrs so less need for pain meds.
And I get to come home the same day. I could stay in the hospital overnight but my experience has been that I'd get more rest at home.
So no reconstruction for me. I have to throw in "at this point" so people will know that it is an option at any later time if I choose. I really have no desire to lift my chest muscles up and push in an implant. Kinda freaky that the implant has to go UNDER the muscle but this is to protect the implant since your skin is so thin. Well, of course, Phil would say I'm thick skinned but whatever....
So this weekend will be spent organizing all of my information and making a gazillion checklists (pre surgery TODOs, day of surgery TODOs, and post-surgery stuff). Everyone knows how much I love to make lists and be organized.
Wish me luck!
posted by Jennifer at 4:45 AM
2 Comments:
That tracer thing sounds great, almost like putting in trace statements to track a problem down (it didn't reach this spot so no sense in looking here) :-). Is the recovery still 4 weeks?
Hope things go well on your surgery tomorrow!! We'll be thinking of you.
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