Easier said than done! I have had some friends that have gone through this same surgery tell me how difficult it was to recover, but I still thought how hard could it be? It was hard! I had just had a c-section so I figured it couldn't be too much more difficult than that, but I was very wrong. The worst part of my recovery was having drains in both sides of me for over 2 weeks, it was gross and painful. I was very proud though that I weaned myself off of the pain medication within one week. I needed help doing everything...showering, dressing, driving! I could barely hold my own plate of food! I had a lifting restriction of 10 pounds for 6 weeks so the very worst part of the entire recovery process was that I couldn't carry my baby! So far I feel like I have missed my little baby grow up so much because I have had so many doctors appointments, procedures and restrictions after surgery...it was depressing!
A week after surgery we got the pathology report back. Remember that my doctors were very sure this will likely come back invasive but the pathology report showed DCIS (non-invasive) with microinvasion. Well what did that mean? I hated that this was the gray zone, I either wanted it to be one or the other not a little of both. This meant that there were a few very small areas less than 1 mm in size that had broken out of the duct and therefore had the potential to get into my blood stream or lymph system, but apparently the chances are very small and therefore I would not need chemotherapy according to my doctors. Of course I have two oncologists so I always had a second opinion and I couldn't imagine it any other way because my case has been so confusing thus far.
Now you would think that I would be thrilled that I didn't need chemotherapy, but I was not! I was told this was invasive, I had prepared myself for chemo and the worst case scenario and now they were changing their minds! A part of me didn't trust it and another part of me wanted chemotherapy because I wanted that reassurance. I wanted a guarantee but of all people I should known there was no guarantee in life but especially in medicine.
My oncologist sent the pathology specimen for second opinion to the University of Washington just in case. I guess I was suppose to move on now, how do I do that? This was all so anticlimactic!! Now what?
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