wickedwords

I saw the surgeon this morning, and we quickly went over the pathology report plus she checked out how everything was healing up. She'd take 2 lymph nodes plus an odd formation when she'd taken the tumor, and the 'odd formation' turned out to just be an odd bit of fatty tissue; nothing to get excited about. The biopsy of the two sentinel nodes came back clean by two different methods of detecting malignancy, so I have an official N0 (zero node involvement) attached to my cancer description.

The tumor turned out to be smaller, too, than the later MRI estimate; the biopsy showed about 7mm of non-invasive DCIS to go with the 1 cm invasive tumor they took out. I don't know if the 7mm is part of the 1 cm or in addition to the 1cm; either way, the 1cm invasive tumor is what everyone cares about. Based on the size of the thing, I'm now an official T1b for tumor size. The margins were all good, so the surgeon doesn't have to go back in again and cut out any more. My range of motion was good, and there's still swelling, but everything looks awesome.

Which makes me a Stage I breast cancer patient: T1b N0 Mx

And stage 1 is an fantastic place to be, with really great survivor statistics. If it weren't for the fact that the cancer is triple negative, I would be headed straight to radiation with no chemo required. But since it is a triple negative (ugh), I will be starting chemo later this month, using the TC variant as no nodes were involved and it's easier on the heart. I'll learn more about it on Thursday.

I also wanted to apologize in advance for not answering comments on this post. I seem to be really bad about answering anything that has to do with my cancer, even though the support really makes me glad. I'm really happy you're here. {{Hugs}} to you all.