Day 14

Mom went home yesterday.  It was good having her here.  Since I didn't feel too bad we had a good time eating and drinking and shopping.

Her mother died of breast  cancer so it was very healing for her to see me doing as well as I did.  We were both surprised by how easy the surgery was.

I did have a reaction to the pre-op.  Something put on my neck caused dermatitis.  That would be a sunburn without the sun.  Went to the dermatologist today for some cream.  We talked about my cancer and proposed radiation treatment.  He is sure I will have skin sensitivities again.  He also said I might have trouble breathing since the pleura may become inflamed.  Good point.  I'll have to point that out to the radiology oncologist once that process starts.

Now, I've made you wait long enough.  While I was at the radiology oncologist today my pathology report came in.

1. Lymph nodes are clean!  Yay!  No metastasis
2. Tumor margins are negative! Yay!  Surgeon got all of the tumor
3. No HER2! Yay!  Cancer is not extremely aggressive kind
4. Estrogen receptive! Yay!  Estrogen blocker very effective in killing this cancer.
5. With radiation and estrogen blocker I have a 95% chance of surviving 10 years.  Yay!  I can get a lot done in 10 years.

 The radiation guy (Dr. Patel - very nice guy) said I still need to talk to the "regular" oncologist to see about chemo.  The chemo is something I need to make a choice about once I understand how it affects the 95% chance versus the badness of chemo.  That's a conversation I will have Thursday.

So I am making good progress, but this is a process that will take several months to get through.

Good news today.  I'll go have some tangerine juice.

Love to you.

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