Ta Ta to the TaTas

Hi friends,

I spent the past few weeks following my last round of chemo spending time with friends & family, and doing as many fun things as I could handle! I am especially thankful that some friends from college were able to come in town and that Taylor made it home in time for this week!

Why is this week a big deal?

I have surgery this week! AHH!

Tomorrow (June 5th) I have 5 doctors appointments to get ready for surgery. Then I report to the hospital at 5 A.M. on Tuesday morning to bid farewell to what my little sister has dubbed my “killer boobs.”

Surgery will begin at 7 A.M. and last until the afternoon. Pending a good reaction to everything, I should be able to head home around dinner time the same day.

The good news is that my tumor is not longer visible on any imaging!! This means that all preliminary signs point to a “complete response.”

Another piece of news is that I have changed to a new breast surgeon, Dr. Chow. This was due to a number of “God whispers” that me and my family kept hearing over the past few weeks.

The whispers included another surgeon, medical staff, friends, and a stranger knocking on our front door all telling us to switch to Dr. Chow. I listened. Thankfully, I was able to keep my surgery date and Dr. Chow was able to take me on as a patient. After meeting with her last Thursday, it was apparent that I made the right choice.

My family and I had already completed the final appointment before surgery with the previous surgeon before I switched to Dr. Chow. In that appointment nothing new was noted, a lot of my questions were punted to the plastic surgeon’s office, and the doctor did not order imaging until my mom advocated for it.

This was pretty different from when we met with Dr. Chow. In the final appointment with Chow, she presented the imaging to us, a full plan regarding my lymph nodes, and added a step for pre-op that had previously not been a part of my plan.

Dr. Chow explained that since my tumor was not visible in imaging, she was going to order the radiologist to place a wire (?) to act as a giant arrow during surgery. This wire will allow Dr. Chow to know exactly where the tumor is during surgery and help her to be meticulous in her actions. Basically, if this extra step was not taken, it would be incredibly hard to know where the cancer had been during surgery.

On top of this new information, Dr. Chow also spent some time explaining that she is going to remove the two questionable lymph nodes (even though they have so far shown up as benign). She is also planning to use the lymph node tracking dye (?) (that is injected the day before surgery) to determine which lymph node is the first in line to the blood exiting the breast tissue. This is known as a sentinel node biopsy and is done to ensure that the cancer did not cross into the lymph nodes.

Dr. Chow explained that there is a chance that one of my two questionable nodes may also be the sentinel/first in line node, but there is also a chance that is not the case. This would mean that we would now be up to 3 lymph nodes being removed.

Next, she will test those lymph nodes in real time and determine if they are cancerous. Hopefully, they are clean, but if not she will continue to remove more nodes and examine them until I am “clean”. If the nodes are positive for cancer, this would be grounds for me to require radiation treatment after surgery.

It was a bit alarming to feel like I was learning new information so close to surgery. So… I feel like I definitely made the right decision switching to Chow.

After Chow completes the double mastectomy, which is about 6 hours long, Dr. LeBlanc will come in and attempt to preform reconstruction with implants.

The plan is to fit reconstruction into this surgery, but this is dependent upon how well my body is holding up and how well Dr. Chow was able to do.

If reconstruction is not achievable during surgery, I will get spacers and eventually go back in for another surgery later down the line.

I am obviously not looking forward to surgery on Tuesday, but I am excited that this will hopefully be the last big step in this road to recovery. I am excited that I will no longer have to wait for * insert big treatment step here * to happen in order to start making plans for the future.

I am nervous because there are a lot of decisions that will be made during surgery that I won’t know about until I wake up. Thankfully, I have worked with my doctors to basically game out every possible decision and what response will be taken. It’s just a bit unnerving to not know until it is over.

Any way you slice it, (lol bad joke) I will spend the next 6 weeks off of work and recovering. I will also find out about a week after surgery what the final pathology report is and what my margins are. This report will ultimately determine if radiation & “diet” chemo are needed and when immunotherapy & hormone therapy begin.

While I am not completely “done” following surgery, I am a hell of a lot closer to the finish line.

Please keep my family and I in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days.

It is finally time to say Ta Ta to the TaTas.

Tata for now,

Mags ;)