Yesterday's mastectomy

Yesterday, I had a mastectomy and sentinel node dissection on my right breast.  I was diagnosed the invasive lobular carcinoma in late May and it has been a whirlwind of activity since.  I am so grateful to all of the Kaiser staff... each and every one of them have been outstanding.  It started with a routime mammogram, called that same day to come back in for magnifications, two days later I had an ultrasound guided biopsy, and then the diagnosis.  My tumor was small, but ILC is 'sneaky' and sends out projections.  Often, I'm told, it is not detected until it is quite large because there are no real symptoms until it reaches 4-5 cm.  I had no symptoms at all and so I feel blessed that they caught it so early.  I do go in for regular mammograms and encourage everyone to keep up on that! 

I had already had a lumpectomy that turned out to be benign in 2011 on that same breast.  If we did another lumpectomy, the Dr. said he would need to be very aggressive with the excision in order to get clear margins.  For cancers in-situ, I would definitely have gone with the lumpectomy, but with it being invasive I agreed with the mastectomy. 

I was of course anxious about the surgery, but I was even more concerned about the nuclear medicine part of it.  According to some of the posts on CSN, the injection for the radioactive agent is very painful, one person even said they cried for 15 minutes.  I realize that every body is different and we all have different pain threshholds, but I was so nervous for this procedure.  It turned out totally painless.   Someone mentioned they had multiple injections.  I asked about that and was told 'no way, one is all'.  Maybe they used to do it differently, or maybe there are other solutions/agents that some facilities use, but it was simply not the case here.  Also, someone mentioned they were given the shot directly in the nipple and with no analgesic.  Again, not my experience.  They gave me a small dose of lidacaine near the nipple and the radioactive agent was then injected in the same place.  They warned that the lidacaine could be a bit of a sting, but it was not a big deal at all.   I had to stay there about 30 or so minutes, gently massaging my breast to help move the agent toward the arm lymph nodes.  They let you go as soon as they see it heading toward the nodes.

My surgery lasted a little less than 2 hours and I was in recovery about 3 hours.  I came home the same afternoon about 5 pm, my doctor saying it is not medically necessary to spend the night, but if I preferred that, he would write up the order to do so. I prefer coming home!  I had a nice light meal, took half a pain pill, and went to bed at about 8:00pm. 

I woke up this morning at 5 am feeling pretty good!  We went for a walk around the block a couple of times and had our usual breakfast.  Gentle arm stretches throughout the day, and of course measuring the drained fluids from my 'bulb' have been the tasks for today.  I did take the half of my pain medication when I woke up, but I've now switched to Ibuprofen.  There has been no pain where the incisions are, surprisingly.  I did have a headache, a little shoulder pain, and some back pain.  The Ibuprofen worked better than the pain meds for those!  It may be that I still have some of the nerve block in me and maybe tomorrow will be a different story, but for today... no problem and no pain that can't be easily managed.

Just wanted to share that it doesn't have to be a painful experience.  We're already stressed enough because of the cancer diagnosis!  I am now waiting for the pathology on the nodes.  I'm hoping and praying the lab results come back negative, but if do have cancer cells in the nodes, I know I can deal with whatever comes next.  The biggest hurdle was getting over yesterday's surgery and now the invasive cancer tumor is gone!