Got out to Abbotsford fine today. There were a couple of places that were icky but was a relatively easy drive-for my sister. The physical was only a look at my chest (I’d say breasts but I don’t have any anymore) and to tap my stomach. Why I had to get totally undressed for that is beyond me.
Then we got to the nitty gritty. The margin that they were able to leave that I’ve always been told was ‘less than 5 mm’ was actually less than 1 mm. Not nearly enough. So she never really gave me an opt out of having radiation. Between the margin and that they only got a total of 4 lymph nodes that weren’t cancerous and the sentinel node that was cancerous, (they really like to get 10 + nodes) she went right in to the side effects of radiation. Then went on to tell me that she didn’t want to wait for me to get the expander (which is about a 6 month wait) because that’s waiting too long and that the implant wasn’t possible after radiation because radiation messes with the skin, makes it hard and not pliable. At that point I was tearing up thinking my only option was to get the implant that I already have removed and have prosthetic breasts. I wasn’t going to walk around with one side with a breast implant and one side flatter n’ a board.
My sister, gotta love her, would pipe in when I couldn’t talk and ask the questions I wanted to. It always surprises me how close her and I really are.
Anyhow, the radiation oncologist ended up calling my plastic surgeon who assured her he could do the expander/implant after the radiation. So. I’m having 25 sessions of radiation-5 weeks-normally 18 sessions, but she wants to do more with less intensity to help with the expander. Then I’ll have the expander put in. After that I just gotta wait for it to be pumped up for the implant surgery. I go for a CT scan next week then the radiation starts after that.
On a high note, I can get my tattoo whenever I want, radiation won’t interfere with it but she doesn’t want me to get it on the same side as I had the cancer and lymph nodes removed to avoid getting lymphedema . I can live with that!