Monday, June 12th, 2017 was our 18th wedding anniversary. I can't remember if we actually celebrated. I don't think we did. I do remember Chris brought me 4 dozen roses the day before. They were beautiful. It was the first time I have ever had roses completely fill my favorite vase.
We spent 4 hours of that day at the breast surgeon's office where we met with both the breast surgeon and the plastic surgeon.
We dropped the boys off at school and off we went to meet with Dr. Lisa, the woman who would do my bilateral mastectomy in a matter of weeks.
When she walked into the room, we immediately noticed how young she looked. I think Chris and I might have looked like deer in the headlights but Chris very calmly asked, "How long have you been with this practice?"
As in "how old are you!?!?!" "Can you drink alcohol?!?" "How long have you had your drivers license?"
She very professionally replied that she had been there for 9 months and explained about her fellowship and residency prior to being with this group.
We continued to stare.
She continued by telling us that if we would rather see a more experienced surgeon, she was sure her partner would be happy to see us.
There was something about her. I liked her right away. I thought to myself, if we weren't in this situation, I am positive we'd be good friends outside of this.
We right away assured her that no, we were absolutely comfortable, and we were. 100%. It turned out that the more we got to know her, not only were we comfortable but we were thanking God for bringing us to Lisa. She went above and beyond for us and we will be forever grateful. I don't think a woman could ever forget the surgeon who did such a delicate surgery, such an emotional surgery. The woman who not only removes the cancer but removes your breasts. A piece of you. Part of your femininity. The breasts that nursed your babies. Lisa had that compassion that was so comforting.
Lisa also had some newer techniques that we appreciated. She makes the incision under the breasts, in the natural fold, therefore the scarring is much less noticeable than the traditional across the center of the breast incisions. Also, she said I was a candidate for "nipple sparing" meaning I could retain my own nipples. I learned that nipples are considered to be skin and so as long as the cancer is not too close to the nipples, we could save them.
Lisa went over all of our options. We listened and so did she.
I could have a lumpectomy with mandatory radiation.
Something remarkable about Lisa was that she understood that radiation would be especially difficult for me because I have a gene mutation called MTHFR gene and it causes my body not to methylate properly and therefore it would be difficult for me to process the radiation. The remarkable part was that she knew that. Most doctors don't understand the MTHFR gene mutation as it is a relatively new concept to the medical world.
Having said that, we focused on discussing a mastectomy or a double mastectomy.
I was very clear in wanting a double mastectomy. I never once hesitated in that decision.
My reasoning:
1 - I had a high chance of recurrence given my age, my personal history, and my family history.
2 - I didn't want to go have scans every 4 months anymore. No more MRI contrast dye affecting my delicate kidneys, no more mammograms, and especially no more biopsies. Those things are awful.
3 - I knew of two women right in my own town that had lumpectomies only to have the cancer return and then they both had mastectomies. I wanted to avoid that route.
4 - Because my kidney function had been very poor for months, I did not have my routine breast MRI because my kidneys were not able to tolerate the contrast dye. After my biopsy showed cancer, my kidney function had started to rebound back into the normal range but we still decided the MRI was not a good idea because it might put my kidneys right back to a very poor level and that would not be wise just prior to a huge surgery with 5 hours of anesthesia for my kidneys to process. Having said all of that, we were not 100% sure that the cancer was completely contained. We couldn't be totally sure that it wasn't outside of the ducts or even in the other breast. They would stage the cancer after the pathology came back. We would not know if I needed chemo until then.
I didn't want to mess around. It was all or none for me.
With Dr. Lisa's full support, we scheduled my bilateral mastectomy with right lymph node removal with reconstruction for June 28, 2017. Life would never again be exactly the same but life would go on.
This was when the anxiety really set in.
We spent 4 hours of that day at the breast surgeon's office where we met with both the breast surgeon and the plastic surgeon.
We dropped the boys off at school and off we went to meet with Dr. Lisa, the woman who would do my bilateral mastectomy in a matter of weeks.
When she walked into the room, we immediately noticed how young she looked. I think Chris and I might have looked like deer in the headlights but Chris very calmly asked, "How long have you been with this practice?"
As in "how old are you!?!?!" "Can you drink alcohol?!?" "How long have you had your drivers license?"
She very professionally replied that she had been there for 9 months and explained about her fellowship and residency prior to being with this group.
We continued to stare.
She continued by telling us that if we would rather see a more experienced surgeon, she was sure her partner would be happy to see us.
There was something about her. I liked her right away. I thought to myself, if we weren't in this situation, I am positive we'd be good friends outside of this.
We right away assured her that no, we were absolutely comfortable, and we were. 100%. It turned out that the more we got to know her, not only were we comfortable but we were thanking God for bringing us to Lisa. She went above and beyond for us and we will be forever grateful. I don't think a woman could ever forget the surgeon who did such a delicate surgery, such an emotional surgery. The woman who not only removes the cancer but removes your breasts. A piece of you. Part of your femininity. The breasts that nursed your babies. Lisa had that compassion that was so comforting.
Lisa also had some newer techniques that we appreciated. She makes the incision under the breasts, in the natural fold, therefore the scarring is much less noticeable than the traditional across the center of the breast incisions. Also, she said I was a candidate for "nipple sparing" meaning I could retain my own nipples. I learned that nipples are considered to be skin and so as long as the cancer is not too close to the nipples, we could save them.
Lisa went over all of our options. We listened and so did she.
I could have a lumpectomy with mandatory radiation.
Something remarkable about Lisa was that she understood that radiation would be especially difficult for me because I have a gene mutation called MTHFR gene and it causes my body not to methylate properly and therefore it would be difficult for me to process the radiation. The remarkable part was that she knew that. Most doctors don't understand the MTHFR gene mutation as it is a relatively new concept to the medical world.
Having said that, we focused on discussing a mastectomy or a double mastectomy.
I was very clear in wanting a double mastectomy. I never once hesitated in that decision.
My reasoning:
1 - I had a high chance of recurrence given my age, my personal history, and my family history.
2 - I didn't want to go have scans every 4 months anymore. No more MRI contrast dye affecting my delicate kidneys, no more mammograms, and especially no more biopsies. Those things are awful.
3 - I knew of two women right in my own town that had lumpectomies only to have the cancer return and then they both had mastectomies. I wanted to avoid that route.
4 - Because my kidney function had been very poor for months, I did not have my routine breast MRI because my kidneys were not able to tolerate the contrast dye. After my biopsy showed cancer, my kidney function had started to rebound back into the normal range but we still decided the MRI was not a good idea because it might put my kidneys right back to a very poor level and that would not be wise just prior to a huge surgery with 5 hours of anesthesia for my kidneys to process. Having said all of that, we were not 100% sure that the cancer was completely contained. We couldn't be totally sure that it wasn't outside of the ducts or even in the other breast. They would stage the cancer after the pathology came back. We would not know if I needed chemo until then.
I didn't want to mess around. It was all or none for me.
With Dr. Lisa's full support, we scheduled my bilateral mastectomy with right lymph node removal with reconstruction for June 28, 2017. Life would never again be exactly the same but life would go on.
This was when the anxiety really set in.
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