Dis Breast Cancer Survivors Part IV - GAGWTA

[Pea-n-Me]

There sure are a lot of choices, unlike how things used to be!
Do you mind sharing what options you're presented with? I'm always trying to help locals ladies who first get a diagnosis and I'd be curious what the doctors are currently saying.
You know I got the Goldilocks mastectomy and I'm wondering what else is out there.
Good to see you posting and full of sass.

Sure. Regardless of the breast surgery I choose, I have to have a full axillary node dissection as several of my nodes were enlarged and shrunk from the chemo, so it’s presumed they had cancer in them and they have to come out, which was the consensus of the tumor board. There’s been a lot of prep for that surgery designed to prevent lymphedema compared to last time, when there was nothing (and I fought lymphedema for a few years, now gone, thankfully). Put it this way, the PT who deals with it and I will be well acquainted for the next several years, ie there’s a lot of monitoring. I’ll also have a vein from my leg put into my axillary area during the surgery to reconnect the lymph channels that get severed when they take the nodes out. They’re not fooling around with this!

My surgical options for the breast were a lumpectomy vs single or double DIEP surgery. For a lot of different reasons, I’m choosing the former. The two areas that have cancer are both less than 0.1cm, so very tiny. There is only a 4% difference in recurrence rate between the two surgeries, I was told. (Long term survival the same, with even a slight edge for the lumpectomy with radiation today, which was surprising.) And time under anesthesia is less. The DIEP is a big surgery involving reconnecting blood vessels from the stomach fat area to the breast area and they said it could be delayed a year or even fail, etc. I’d like to move on from this. (I have to get back to work!) I had a lumpectomy on the other side 21 yrs ago with radiation and never had a recurrence. I was really hesitant to touch that side due to worries about healing since it’s been treated before and isn’t ideal tissue wise. (If I ever do have a recurrence there I can revisit that.) After the lumpectomy another doctor will come in (who’s doing the axillary node surgery) and will do a reduction so that I’m ‘even’, which is something I debated about, but I think it’s important for us to feel at our best after something like this if that’s available, and it is. It will add to my time under anesthesia and cause a longer healing time (six weeks) but I decided to go for it. I can’t start radiation until I’m completely healed so hopefully that goes well. This will happen in a few weeks. I’m a little nervous! But I have a great team of doctors and nurses and once it’s over I’ll be relieved.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Pea-n-Me - Sounds like you and your team have a good plan. Wishing you all the best with your surgery and radiation. You are always in my prayers.
I saw the orthopedic oncologist and Praise God he said my leg is slowly healing. After 17 months! So he doesn’t have to think about amputating my leg. Answered prayers for sure. Saw my sacrum tumor on the mri. It looks like a big white blob.
Then I saw the reg. Onc. He wants me to see a gastro and start the chemo pills July 1st.
Next week is pcp and eye surgeon.
Ds3 bought back a nice souvenir from his vacation in Bali. Covid!! He needs another negative test for work. Little grandson is being dedicated at church and a big party at dil parents. I will take lots of meds and hope I can make it.
GAGWTA. Hope everyone is doing well.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Happy July everyone!
Pea-n-Me - Thinking of you and update us when you can. Continued prayers for you.

I got to go to the church and see grandsons dedication. I walked up the ramp. Amazed myself. I was miserable in the church despite painkillers. Had Dh wheel me down the ramp going out. Maybe because I sat in a regular hair and not wheelchair. Nice party, Over 60 people.
Hate the chemo pills. Weird side effects. None that they mentioned. Worse is so much more bone pain. Seeing onc. Friday.
GAGWTA. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Thank you, lmp! I’m glad your leg is healing and you were able to walk. I’m sure it must be painful. Are you now taking chemo pills? My surgery is tomorrow. Will be glad when it’s over with! Thank you so much for the prayers.

 

[leebee]

Thank you, lmp! I’m glad your leg is healing and you were able to walk. I’m sure it must be painful. Are you now taking chemo pills? My surgery is tomorrow. Will be glad when it’s over with! Thank you so much for the prayers.

Hope everything went well, @Pea-n-Me. Keeping you in my thoughts.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Happy July everyone!
Pea-n-Me - Thinking of you and update us when you can. Continued prayers for you.

I got to go to the church and see grandsons dedication. I walked up the ramp. Amazed myself. I was miserable in the church despite painkillers. Had Dh wheel me down the ramp going out. Maybe because I sat in a regular hair and not wheelchair. Nice party, Over 60 people.
Hate the chemo pills. Weird side effects. None that they mentioned. Worse is so much more bone pain. Seeing onc. Friday.
GAGWTA. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer.

Thank you, lmp! I’m glad your leg is healing and you were able to walk. I’m sure it must be painful. Are you now taking chemo pills? My surgery is tomorrow. Will be glad when it’s over with! Thank you so much for the prayers.

Good wishes for you both, and everyone here. Prayers follow you all. 's

 

[Hisgirl]

Thank you, lmp! I’m glad your leg is healing and you were able to walk. I’m sure it must be painful. Are you now taking chemo pills? My surgery is tomorrow. Will be glad when it’s over with! Thank you so much for the prayers.

You're a few days past surgery, how are you feeling? Is the anesthesia out of your system yet? It took me a full week. I hope you're doing well.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Pea-N-Me - Wishing you all the best with your healing and recovery. Prayers for you.

Well the chemo pills were interesting. Some of my side effects were terrible bone pain and my scalp was red and itching like a chemical burn as well as another effect. Onc. was useless. Ds did some scalp oil treatments for me. Onc. said stop which I did. It’s 9 days and I feel like me. When I start again we will try half dose. Thursday. I am seeing this gastro that the reg onc. wants me to see.
And in the next chapter of cancer, What’s next, I feel a lump where I actually had a benign tumor removed years ago. The center will call me back in 24-48 hours. Always something. Baby grandson and my faith helps. Not saying anything yet to anyone except Dh.
GAGWTA

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

lmp - Sad to hear your treatment is causing such side effects. Hopefully the half dose will be better tolerated.

Your baby grandson sounds like a sweet diversion and I am sure he loves his grandma kisses

Sending you positive thoughts and prayers.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

You're a few days past surgery, how are you feeling? Is the anesthesia out of your system yet? It took me a full week. I hope you're doing well.

Thank you all for the ongoing good thoughts and prayers, I really appreciate them!

I did ok with the anesthesia, didn’t have any long lasting effects from it, seemingly. The only thing that’s been annoying since I got home the day of surgery was a tickle in my throat from the intubation tube. I still have it and it feels like something’s in my throat. Hopefully that goes away soon.

Surgery went well, though it was ten hours long! I had two lumpectomies and an oncologic reduction on the affected breast, which was pretty involved, and a full axillary node dissection with about ten nodes removed (some of which we knew were positive, given this is how this whole thing started for me, ie a swollen node) and a vein taken from my leg and put into my arm to improve lymphatic drainage, which was a big production. They were trying to find a lymph channel where they could put the bypass that would be out of the field of radiation, which was part of a new technique they are trying, but, even after a long time with an Interventional Radiologist sticking wires down my arm, they were unable to find a good channel that didn’t have super tight valves, and they didn’t want to force anything, so they wound up just doing it the traditional way, which I think should be fine. For my previous surgery I didn’t even have anything done to my arm after the node removal and long term it’s been ok though I did initially have a small amount of lymphedema. Now I have to see a Physical Therapist and go in for regular measurements and all that, so the whole lymphatic piece with the full axillary node dissection complicates things quite a bit today, but it seems it’s worth it since my arm doesn’t have any lymphedema in it at this time.

Otherwise recovery has been a little slow. Still have a lot of pain, swelling and numbness, sort of par for the course I guess. There a lot of incisions. Had the drain out this week and that was a relief. Hair is starting to grow back in though I was able to preserve some of it anyway. Actually had it cut yesterday so it can grow in evenly. I noticed that despite surgery I have plenty of energy to walk around, it’s more the pain issues that I’m dealing with now. During chemo there were days I couldn’t walk much at all, was too fatigued, so I’m glad that I’ve moved on from that phase.

I now have to start on an aromatase inhibitor, working my way up to that. If anyone here has experiences with that I’d love to hear them.

Again, thank you for your prayers and good thoughts. I really feel like they’ve carried me through this.

And hope everyone here is doing well. Always keep you in my prayers, too. GAGWTA!

 

[BayouQueen]

Thanks for sharing your update, @Pea-n-Me. Long surgery! I'm so glad you did well and that part is over for you!

I took aromatase inhibitor (Anastrozole/Arimidex) for five years with no problems at all. DD's mother-n-law also took it and had no problems. I'd historically had very high estrogen levels, so was afraid it would be hard for me to take, but no problems! You'll do great. Onward and upward!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I took aromatase inhibitor (Anastrozole/Arimidex) for five years with no problems at all. DD's mother-n-law also took it and had no problems. I'd historically had very high estrogen levels, so was afraid it would be hard for me to take, but no problems! You'll do great. Onward and upward!

You don’t know how good that is to hear! Thanks so much!

My oncologist said the most common side effects is bone and joint discomfort. Also hoping it doesn’t thin my hair.

My previous BC was triple negative so I didn’t go on these new meds. (Still have two more to come later.)

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

Pea-n-Me Glad to hear your surgery went well and you are on the mend. It's amazing what our bodies can go through being sliced and diced, radiated and pumped full of chemicals and it still bounces back! Hopefully your pain and swelling will subside soon.

Thinking of you all and praying for healthy bodies and minds.

 

[#1hoosierfan]

Pea:

I had an ALND and cycled thru all of the AI’s before landing on Anastrozole. As always, if you have any questions, let me know.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Pea:

I had an ALND and cycled thru all of the AI’s before landing on Anastrozole. As always, if you have any questions, let me know.

So that one worked well for you? So glad to hear it, thanks!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Got the pathology results back this weekend. They actually took out 21 lymph nodes. All the tissue from the breast and most from the nodes had no residual cancer left because the chemo had eliminated it. (Several nodes showed changes called “chemo effect” meaning cancer was there but gone after chemo.) There was one node, the largest one and thought to be the sentinel node, ie the one that started all this on mammogram, that had a very tiny amount of cancer in it, just 0.1mm. At any rate, everything’s out now and that feels good. Very glad the chemo worked for me, even though it was rough to go through. Will start radiation when all of my incisions are healed.

Thank you for your prayers and healing thoughts.

 

[Everettldez]

Just wanted to say hey and that I’m really glad threads like this exist. I’m here supporting my aunt through chemo right now—reading your stories gives me hope on the tough days.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Just wanted to say hey and that I’m really glad threads like this exist. I’m here supporting my aunt through chemo right now—reading your stories gives me hope on the tough days.

This one originated way back in 2005! Twenty years now! We’ve had a lot of visitors and regulars here since.

Thank you for being there for your aunt. I hope she’s doing ok, sending prayers.

 

[#1hoosierfan]

So that one worked well for you? So glad to hear it, thanks!

Yes, I am doing well on Anastrozole.

 

[snappy]

Just wanted to say hey and that I’m really glad threads like this exist. I’m here supporting my aunt through chemo right now—reading your stories gives me hope on the tough days.

Glad you found this thread. It has helped me beyond measure since the beginning. Best wishes to you and your aunt. Kudos to you for supporting your aunt. Hope is a beautiful thing!