wow, surgery tomarrow!!!

about those 5 nodes...

They take out whatever is "blue" or "hot" (from the radioactive stuff). The logic is that the cancer cells will travel from the tumor through the lymph system to the nodes. The purpose of the dyes are to be able to trace the path and identify the most likely nodes to be infected. If they are negative, most likely the others are too.

In my case, he took out about 15 nodes. Each time he submitted a sample that he thought had 1, it had about 4 or 5, they were just small. Some were described as "hot blue" nodes, others were warm blue"

I had to wait about 10 days for my results. He told me he would not do a frozen section of the sentinel node, so as not to damage the sample and save it for specialized testing. Plus, even if it had been +, he said I would have had to do the axillary node surgery at a later time, he said they cannot just hold onto OR time just in case. Each place is different though, some will do a frozen section and proceed while the patient is still in the OR.

Good chance there are no stitches, just steri-strips that hold the skin together.

Remember to ask about stretches...no one told me, since I just had a SNB, and it took quite some time before I could reach fully up in the air.

Lori

Good morning Jule,

I thought you would know right away too! It sounds like you are feeling pretty good - that is awesome!!!

I am going to go off for a couple of days with my husband and play some golf and forget about cancer as much as possible until Tuesday. We are checking into the Bellagio Hotel so it will seem like we are on vacation! :) Figured better get it in now, as once I have my surgery it will be a month or two before I can play again.

As of Tuesday I am taking a leave of absence from work so I can majorly bug the insurance company and doctors to see if I can get set up with the New York hospital. I am 95% sure that would be the best course of action for me if I can just get everyone else to work with me! :) In between bugging I am going to clean out drawers and closets and put some photo albums together - things I have wanted to do for the past year and  just not had time for. I cannot wait to get this surgery stuff behind me! I feel like a timebomb is ticking in my chest!!!

Hi Jule,

How are you feeling? I had a wonderful two days with my husband and friends, but today was awful from a progress standpoint and I almost had another meltdown! :(

Only plastic surgeons in town that will accept my insurance plan are totally booked up thru end of January. I was told my only option was to have delayed reconstruction which for me is just not an option. I do not think I could handle it at all.

So now I guess I am forced to go to New York and pay out of pocket for the alloderm one step surgery and reconstruction with Dr. Ashikari and Dr. Salzberg who thankfully I feel completely comfortable with and who have time to fit me in. I am just worried that later my insurance will say that since I had the surgery off plan they won't cover anything else. But I don't have time to fight with them about it now and am going to make all the arrangements I can tomorrow.

I am so happy things worked out so well for you Jule. Not even a depression is awesome! And of course no lymph node involvement is the best.

If I was doing a lumpectomy I would probably be fine, but there seems to be absolutely no way to do a mastectomy with any kind of immediate reconstruction locally as all the plastic surgeons who do immediate reconstruction are busy for at least a month or more! :( So I am going to make reservations this morning and hope that some sort of miracle occurs where they either approve my insurance for the out of state docs (doubtful) or that somehow they find one locally that can do the procedure I want who gets a cancellation! Have a great day at work.