Wednesday I went in for the bilateral mastectomy with lymph node dissection. I was pretty okay for the most part. After surgery they said I woke up in recovery but I don’t remember any of it.  I was taken into my room.  I don’t remember much of the first night…just bits and parts. Strange because I have never had that reaction before. I always wake up coherent in recovery.  Spent one night in the hospital and went home Thursday about noonish.

I have pretty much been in the recliner surrounded by pillows since Thursday. I have 4 drain tubes, 2 on each side. I kinda feel like Dr. Octavius with these tubes sticking out of my body. I still have the bandages over the scar but from what I can tell it doesn’t look too bad.  I do have some track marks on my right forearm from the IV…so that’s kinda nice.

I talked to the surgeon Friday evening and the pathology report had come back.  Since it was a lobular tumor it was several small tumors over a 10 cm area. The margins came back negative (clear) for the tumors and 5 out of 17 lymph nodes that were removed were positive.  In short what this means is that it’s highly unlikely that I have any cancer left in my body.  We will do another MRI to determine that it is all gone before I can start getting all excited.

I go get the drain tubes removed on the 12th. I then start physical therapy right after that. I’ll then do radiation to make sure nothing has been left behind. Then do immunotherapy and more (anti) hormone therapy to make sure it never comes back.

Pain wise the section they took the nodes out has been the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt in my life. The actual mastectomy doesn’t hurt that bad. Everything is sore and numb.  What sucks is the itching and not being able to feel the scratching.

I’d like to say it’s all over but I’m about half way through treatment now.