Just returned from Dr. Miercort's office (radiation dr.). Seems he was at the cancer board's meeting this morning (damn, I love that all my doctors are actively involved with each other). He explained my pathology report in more detail (from the questions I had after getting home yesterday and reading it), seems the margins in one area were not clear. What that means is, when a doctor removes a tumor, they also remove what they think is a clean area around it to ensure that they have removed all of the tumor and any stray cells. Well, since one of my tumors was lying right on top of the muscle, she removed everything right up to the muscle layer. Well the pathology on that site indicated the clean area still had cancer cells in them. So this means I will need 6 weeks of radiation (5 days per week) in order to eliminate any stray cells. He also feels that the reconstruction surgery should be put off until the radiation treatments are finished. The reason for this is that it is harder to hit the site with radiation if the implant is in its way. Will do more research on this as Julie's doctor told her she can have the reconstruction done before radiation. Definitely bummed as we had hoped the mastectomy would have removed all of the cancer :(
When I also told Dr. Miercort that I was going in today to have a drain put back in, he didn't look too happy. I am learning that if something needs to be done, that all of my doctors should have a say in it and not schedule something until all approve (he said something about too may cooks in the kitchen). Seems the input of a new drain could have an impact on the radiation treatment. So he took out his trusty sharpe and drew on me the areas that the drain could be placed (the 2 areas where the drains were and then 1 additional area). So now I am wondering if I should just deal with all of this swelling and not get the drain put in. We will go to Dr. Bundshuh at 1:30 (the woman who did one of the biopsies as well as the torture test in the hospital the day of surgery ... if anyone ever tells you to have a sentinal node dye test ... RUN!) and discuss all of this with her. Maybe she can just aspirate it. Will see. Stay tuned.
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Oh Kathie! :/ Let's definitely talk tomorrow (Thursday) and brainstorm...some things that come to mind from reading your post include asking them if you should have another surgery for more tissue removal to ensure all the cancer is out and clean margins achieved and THEN do radiation. And, as for radiation and implants - what they told me is that the radiation will go through anything/everything in the area being radiated...that the implants don't block it, but that they could be damaged by it and require being replaced afterward because of the known effects of radiation on skin/tissue that surrounds the implants.
ReplyDeleteBut let's chat and come up with a good list of questions and comments you can go back in with. All docs are somewhat different in their approach and it doesn't mean they're wrong, just different...so their plan could be totally perfect for your situation but it doesn't hurt to ask a ton of questions based on others' experiences.
If you don't hear from me tomorrow please call me OK. Love you!!!!