Surgery

My breast cancer surgery will trake place on Thursaday the 26th of August, 2010. Three days to go.... The nurse will call me from the hospital the day before to give the last instructions. I have that minimal tumor in my right breast, quite deep in there, unable to feel by hand but visible in mammography and ultrasound scan. It has most likely not spread anywhere, the biopsed proofs did not contain any cells that would have been hinting on a spreading kind of cancer. So they will not remove the entire breast unless they find some more of those minimal tumors which is not likely but which we actually know for sure only after the surgery. They will not empty the armpit either, it would cause swelling and pain in the arm later. Instead, before the operation, they will inject blue color and radioactive matter to the tumor so that if it has sent cells to spread, they will catch them and see that it has happened, and will be able to remove those lymph nodes from the armpit that contain cancer cells. Most likely none of them contain those cells so they will not be removed. The blue color will also "paint" all the lymph nodes in the armpit so they can, during the operation, search for those contaminated lymph nodes with something that reacts with that radioactive matter that they will inject to the cell before the surgery (to make the first inspections already then). It delights me somehow that they are researching it all so closely. I did not know actually that breast cancer surgery is in fact a series of acts and not just the surgery. They can actually make breast reconstruction too at the same time if they consider it necessary but I won't be needing it - at least I think so. And anyway, lots of these reconstructions are done afterwards.



Hmmm.... what else? Oh. That minimal tumor is so small that they think the surgeon will not necessarily find it, so an x-ray specialist will actually mark it before the surgery by putting a metal thread through the breast tissue up to the tumor, so that by following that metal thread, the surgeon will actually find the tumor she is about to remove. It sounds a bit scary but I have been told it won't hurt more than a normal injection so okey - I think I can manage.The surgery will be made in Centarl Hospital of Vaasa, by a surgeon who has specialized in breast surgery.



They have estimated that all in all the surgery will take 2,5 hours. I will be let home in 1 - 2 days after the surgery, depending on how I recover from the operation and the anesthesia. I hope I will recover as soon as possible, and as well as possible, that I won't get fuzzy or aggressive like my mother did, and that I will be my old self after that and not someone else like happened to a man I know - he has never been back to himself after he had anesthesia. It's scary.



My breast - the one with the tumor - has actually been hurting ever since the biopsy.



I had eczema in the armpit, from wearing underwired bra and sweating in the hot weather. The surgeon said I have to get rid of that eczema before the surgery, it cannot be operated if that rash is still there. Now I have not been wearing bra at all, and I have been washing the area every time I sweat, and applied cream on it, and I have mainly used light-colored loose shirts and changed a clean one often... I mean I have been as careful as possible. Right now I don't have the eczema anymore and I hope to maintain that status till the surgery. I also hope to stay healthy and not get any infection before the surgery...So much to be worried of!