Pre-surgery Day

Well just about one day until I may be cancer-free!  Today's appointment was a lot different than I expected.  I somehow imagined that I would be able to see giant vats of blue dye, radiation hazard signs, people walking around in white protective gear breathing through gas masks.  Nope.  Nothing like that at all.

I climbed on a table and exposed the yucky boob minus my nipple as I didn't think he needed to see that.  The doctor walked in wearing a regular shirt.  He introduced himself, shook my hand and then jabbed four needles in my breast - one in my nip.  Guess hiding it didn't help.  He knew just where to find it.

It was painless though!  Hurrah

Unfortunately, the mammogram machine broke down so I had the pleasure of seeing my tumor on the ultrasound machine.  The dirty little bastard. Just hanging around having a time in my mammary!  I wanted to ask for a picture but forgot.  I would have let you all see the little shit before he is chopped out tomorrow. 

So, here's tomorrows schedule:

8:00 - Go to admitting dept.

8ish - Go to day surgery dept.

9ish:  Take the ride of shame (healthy woman taken by stretcher through hospital) to Ultrasound

9ish - Ultrasound for needle localization

Between 10ish and 12ish:  Reverse ride of shame back to surgery.  This time with inverted styrofoam cup over metal sticking out of breast. Must remember to wear a Burka tomorrow.

12:30 - surgery; where both the quadrant of breast tissue and the sentinel node will be removed. My personal body parts will be sent away for testing...results in two weeks.

I have an overnighter and go home FIRST THING IN THE MORNING...

Hear me MacMullin...First thing :)

So that's everything for today.  I'm going to do some more work and then go out this evening per my Tuesday evening ritual.  Enjoy your evening everyone!

Cheers...and lots of hugs too
Jeannie





In the beginning...

Take it from me, be careful what you wish for!  For the last year or so I have been wishing away my breasts.  I was constantly muttering, 'God, I wish I could get these reduced', 'God, I wish I was flat chested', 'God, why didn't you spread the family mammaries out evenly between my sister and I' (her:  'A' cup me:  'F' cup)...Anyway, see what I'm saying.

So, I make a visit to Dr. Crosby because I have a sore spot on my left breast.  It turns out that it is the muscle buried under the breast that was sore.  Hurrah...however, I'm 40 so a mammagram it is.  Long story short, after a few phone calls and a core biopsy I was diagnosed with Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma, nuclear grade 2 (right breast).  Basically, it is cancer that started in the milk duct and continued to grow and spread into other breast tissue.  To save everyone the pain of looking up every term I added a short list of the terms I already had exposure to (look down).

So, September 14th I see Dr. MacMullin.  He is the surgeon who will chop out the tumor and the surrounding tissue.  If memory serves me correctly, I believe I will be losing about 25% of the breast. 

So, I will update after my doctor appointment on Wednesday and give all the nasty details.  Wish me luck!