Quote:
Originally Posted by DapperButch
Hi, Kelt. My understanding is the difference is that they take the lymph nodes out with a standard mastectomy. I don't understand why it would be easy?
On the other hand, in the scheme of things, top surgery isn't really bad. Depends on what you are comparing it to, of course.
You and your mom are in my thoughts (like you are every day, I am just too shitty of a friend to reach out to you.  ). I love ya, brother. |
Since we're not going to do anything reconstructive there won't be any binding post surgically, and apparently she's going to have pretty much full range of motion in her arm within a few days. Of course this all depends on how far they have to go with the lymph nodes, but it's expected to be a pretty smooth recovery. We are going to do some radioactive tags for lymph node mapping during the surgery to try and get all of the bad ones while sparing as many of the good ones as possible.
Then of course is when the fun begins. Three or four days after surgery we should get the pathology and then it's onward to oncology. Mom and I have been having some pretty good talks, (which she remembers for about an hour), about how far she wants to go with treatment. If the treatment can be handled with something like hormone blockers, a possibility, then that would be fine. If they recommend extensive or harsh chemo, she doesn't want to do it. She would want me to switch her to hospice comfort and care.
My main job at this point is to get her out of the hospital as soon as possible, it shouldn't be more than one night, and then to make sure she doesn't end up in a nursing home. After watching my father die in one of those last year, there is no way I'm going to let that happen to her.
To say I'm having a hard time with all of this would be an understatement. The "hurry up and wait" is the hardest part, there's just no way to know how this is going to go until we have the pathology report post surgically.
Surgery tomorrow morning.
<<<< Would like to crawl into a hole and pull it in over myself.