Where I am now...

I started radiation treatments in Jan. and had a total of 35 treatments. My skin did fairly well except for my right armpit. It felt like a really bad sunburn and the skin peeled in that area. I saw my radiation oncologist on April 22. He called me "one tough cookie" and said I don't need to see him again. Whew!

I had surgery on Apr. 10 and spent one night in the hospital. They had planned to do a latissimus dorsi flap (involves tunneling the muscle from the back around to cover on the front after the mastectomy) but that wasn't necessary because they were able to close with my skin. So the mastectomy on the left plus axillary lymph node removal on both sides. The surgeon said the lymph nodes in the left armpit were "a mess". I'm healing well but still sore in the armpit areas and still have some swelling in those areas. The worst part of having surgery was the nausea after from the anesthesia. I was sick until about 3am then I felt fine. I had 3 drains placed, 2 on the left side and 1 on the right. They include tubing attached to grenade-looking bulbs. The bulbs have to be emptied a couple of times a day. I had to shower with them safety pinned to a lanyard so I wouldn't accidentally pull them out. I also safety pinned them to my clothing at all times. The first 2 were removed a week after surgery and the second was removed 2 weeks after.

The pathology report showed that the surgeon didn't get clean margins in a couple of areas. That means there was still cancer at the edges of the tissue that was removed. In my case there is probably cancer still deep in my left armpit area and in/near the muscle of my chest wall. Of the 18 lymph nodes removed from my right armpit only one was positive for cancer. Because of that one positive lymph node technically it is metastatic.

I am currently waiting to get an appointment at the University of Michigan cancer center for a second opinion on how to proceed. They said I will be there all day so I'm not sure if they will repeat all my scans/tests. They will also review my pathology slides. I may have to have further chemo and possibly be enrolled in a clinical trial.