(AKA: Was supposed to be a day of celebration)
(AKA: I had so many party activities planned)
(AKA: There were so many awesome boob-related #hashtagideas planned)
Morning post-op with my mastectomy surgeon, who would give me my pathology results. My mom and dad drove me to the office and I checked in. Not many minutes later, I was called back, leaving my mom to read her book in the waiting room.
Vitals taken. Surgeon walks in. I can immediately sense that she is not pleased, but we go through how recover is feeling and where my numbers are in the second drain. Its not quite ready to come out yet, which I knew.
She examined my breasts and remarked on how well they were healing and that the bruising found around both is subsiding and looks good.
Then she grabbed the pathology report. She first went through the right breast, which was the full mastectomy side with the implant. It came back clear. There was no remaining DCIS in the tissue and there was no invasive cancer found. She then said that the pathology found a very small amount of 1.8mm DCIS. Fuck. Wait.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I must have said it out loud because my surgeon said, "yeah, that is what I said, too. Then I repeated it ten more times." She was not pleased, and I am guessing a bit surprised. She explained that it was too small of an amount to show up on either a mammogram or an MRI, so all the testing that had been done on the left breast never would have shown that. The issue with this is that its precise location is not known. Its not accurate like a biopsy. They sampled tissue from the reconstruction, but cant pinpoint where the 1.8mm of DCIS is. It could be close to the breast tissue left on my body or it could be from and edge completely removed. So we don't know if there are clear margins.
We discussed options: they are mostly what has been offered before. (1) We could wait to see if any more DCIS shows up in a mammogram or MRI. That would be done every 6 months. Then I would have to wait to hear. Again, wait. That could potentially go on for 50 more years, or whenever you get to stop monitoring for breast cancer.
(2) We could do radiation. This would limit my options for later, as after radiation, skin does not heal as well and many reconstruction surgeons hesitate to offer implants using your own breast skin envelope as an option post radiation. This means I could never have "matching" boobs.
(3) Some sort of pill. I have a meeting with an oncologist who can offer some medicines (that are often taken for years) that inhibit hormones or something like that to stop DCIS from spreading. I think this sounds less like what I would want to do, but I don't have the information to make an informed decision yet.
(4) Mastectomy with implant. Matching boobs. Matching implants. More surgery. Well, honestly, this is the direction I am leaning. I just went through this and it was not terrible. It was not fun, but I could do it again. Plus, it looks great. But what if i get this done and they don't find any more DCIS. Then I have implants for like, no reason.
I honestly asked my surgeon what she would do in my position. We all know doctors do not like to answer this question. But I think we have similar ideas on how to proceed and she seemed to answer honestly. She said that she would opt for the surgery route. I asked if she would suggest radiation for this particular situation and she answered: "I send a lot of people to radiation and believe in radiation as a treatment. I would have radiation myself. But not for this." That speaks volumes for me. I believe her. She told me that she called my reconstruction surgeon already (after she got the results the evening before) and they have already discussed options for me specifically. When I heard this - I felt - the most taken care of I think I ever have felt ever in my life when vulnerable. And I truly suck at being vulnerable. But I felt safe. I felt like truly this team of wonder women have my back (er, my breasts). We have already talked about getting on the calendar when its safe for me to have surgery again (when my skin and body recover - 3 months).
The more I think about it, the more it all bothers me. Here it where all the sticky problems lie for me; what the real mind-fuck is: If no one had touched my left breast, we would never have known there was DCIS in there. No mammogram would have shown it. No MRI would've shown it. So can I pretend it was never there? My surgeon agreed that this is the hardest part of this diagnosis. And that everyone has a different response to it. That is their journey, I guess.
We drove from the appointment to buy some new bras. It was exactly what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to move forward. Not. One. Bit. But I did it. My mom was there. This is what moms do. They are there. Even though you dont want them to be. Because they are.
I just want to scream and punch things. Unfortunately, I can't do that due to recovery restrictions. #FuckYouUniverse
My friends have put this into perspective for me. I got this. Its hard. Even strong people can have weak moments. And here they come.
Comments