Some good news!

                Some good news to share today! Yesterday morning we met with my surgeon for the first time since I first got diagnosed. I was very apprehensive going into this meeting, because I’ve been having pain again in my breast, and I had assumed that it was because the tumors were growing.  That would have been very bad, considering we have been throwing everything we can at them, in terms of chemotherapy.  However, it turns out the pain was because the tumors have actually shrunk in a big way, and the pain is caused by the normal tissue shifting to accommodate itself to the new situation.  My surgeon was actually delighted with how it is going. She was visibly excited. So now plans are underway for my surgery after chemo is over and I’ve had a couple weeks to get over it.

                This is all becoming something of a numbers game, and I have to figure out how much of a gambler I am and how comfortable I am with some kinds of risk.  I have to make some decisions before my surgery, the third week in  August.  (It was supposed to have been a bit earlier, but my surgeon is going on vacation at the originally-scheduled time.)

When I was first diagnosed, I had asked about the possibility of doing a double mastectomy and getting it over with.  At that time, I was told that we were not going to be stressing my body with any unnecessary surgery, and I was only going to have a single mastectomy.  I was told this as if it were not open for discussion.

However, they are rethinking this idea now. First, we are going to do some genetic testing to see whether I have one of many possible nasty genetic mutations that could make me more susceptible to cancer.  They are thinking this is possible because I am relatively young, and my brother was also relatively young when he got colon cancer.  If I do have a nasty mutation, we will probably go with a double mastectomy, because chances of a recurrence in the other breast would be 50-90 percent.  As my doctor says, that would be a “no-brainer.”  But if there is no nasty mutation, I get to decide what we’ll do.  Apparently, without the mutation, there’s something like a 20 percent chance of getting cancer in the other breast.  The doctors consider this relatively low and they wouldn’t advise double surgery if it were up to them.  But it sounds fairly high to me, and I’d rather not ever do chemo again, if I can avoid it!  But, even with double mastectomy, there is a slim chance of recurrence;  maybe 5 percent.  So I have to decide what level of risk I’m comfortable with.

We are also going to hear from a plastic surgeon on the relative benefits of single- vs. double- surgery.  Apparently it’s easier to get your new fake boobs to match if they aren’t trying to match a fake one to a real one.  So the bottom line is: prayers for wisdom for all of us will be gratefully accepted!