APPREHENSIVE

It’s been just over 2 weeks since ‘the plan’ was revealed to us by the surgical team. Monday 14th July has been confirmed and it’s all systems go. Sam’s been a little apprehensive since the date was confirmed because she’s worried about how she’ll look after the surgery. She says that 2cm is still quite a large lump and because they have to remove the surrounding tissue as well as the tumour, she’s quite worried that it’s going to leave a big hole. She had a conversation with Nia about what would happen if there was a significant change in her breast (because of the surgery) and Nia said there are prosthetics (such as chicken fillets) that are available to patients if need be, but Sam says that reconstructive surgery would be the way she would go if that was the case. I just keep telling her to try not to think about it (easy for me to say) and concentrate on the positives instead of the negatives. She’s got better as the week’s gone on and she’s come to the conclusion that, as long as it saves her life, then that’s all that matters. Everything else can be worked on afterwards.

We had the ultra sound scan last Monday with their department’s head honcho. He explained to us that he’s involved in the meetings that are held by the various oncologists and surgeons that discuss all the treatment plans for all cancer patients. He remembered Sam and their first appointment when he took the biopsy of the tumour and he said that the main plan is breast conservation surgery. He said that in all the meetings that they’ve had, the plan was always to try and avoid a mastectomy, but if Sam insisted, then more radical surgery could be carried out. He started the scan and measured the size of the lump. It measured 29mm. That’s nearly a whole centimetre bigger than the MRI scan showed. (shiiiit). He told us that the MRI scan (although brilliant) doesn’t always show the size of objects accurately and this is why there is the difference. He said that it’s still small enough for a lumpectomy, but it’s obviously quite close to the 4cm limit that would automatically require a mastectomy. Apparently, the tumour didn’t shrink that much in the 2nd half of chemo due to the fact that they reduced the dosage of docetaxel for the final 3 sessions to relieve the stress on her bone marrow.

We’ve got Sam’s pre-op tomorrow morning where they’ll take blood, etc to check everything is ok for Monday. We’ve then got an appointment with one of the cancer care nurses who will talk through the surgery with Sam to let her know what to expect. She’ll then talk about the recovery and what will happen afterwards. We’ve got a whole bunch of questions to ask, so hopefully we’ll come out armed with more information.