Exhale.
Seems like I've been holding my breath since the surgery to find out my final pathology report. Thankfully, I can breathe. No more surgery needed! Dr. Manders was happy to tell me that the breast tumor had shrunk down to 9mm after chemo, which she successfully and skillfully removed ALL OF IT! There were clean margins, so no I have completed this phase of treatment. Additionally, the axillary lymph nodes that she removed were actually more involved than she originally tested during the actual surgery. At first, she tested the 5 sentinel lymph nodes and found that 3 were positive for cancer still. That is when she decided, with my prior consent, to do the full node dissection. Thank goodness she did because of the 10 nodes she removed, there were actually 6 that were positive.
Now on to healing more, then in a couple days my drain will be removed. Tomorrow I will schedule a CT scan of my abdomen, chest, and pelvis and some kind of a bone scan to check for further metastasis. Dr. Manders wanted those completed before I see the medical oncologist (the one who did my chemo) on December 19th so we know where things stand.
I was also referred to a Certified Lymphedema Specialist to do different therapies in order to prevent it. I guess there are 12 weeks sessions I will need to complete, then we will reassess. I will be seeing someone named Mary Oberle through The Christ Hospital for that.
And the final specialist I will see for the final phase of treatment is Dr. Brad Huth through UC. He is a radiology oncologist and comes highly recommended by my surgeon. Supposedly I won't start that until the new year, though.
Mom heads back to Rockford, IL tomorrow morning and life goes on here. My house is nicely decorated for Christmas now and all my Christmas shopping is done, thanks to her!
So a huge part of me is so thankful that things continue to look promising, yet, I realize that there is still more testing and more treatment to endure until it is done done.
For now, I am simply thankful. Thankful to Jesus. Thankful to my caring husband, children, friends and family. Thankful to my doctors.
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