realidad

Just when I thought we were making progress I get even more news. My breast surgeon called me on my way home today. Today’s been one of those long days where I’ve been at work for 10+ hours and siri is predicting my commute home to be 3 times as long as normal (she was right btw); so getting more complicated news just falls in line with the day I’m already having.

Today was the day they were presenting my case to the tumor board for second opinions prior to my surgery. Now, my surgery is next week and just having that part planned has been a real boon to my mental health this last week – something concrete finally in my new uncertain reality. My surgeon is now calling me to share that on their review, they are not 100% in agreement with the first radiologist and feel that the mass detected on my right breast should have a closer look (the first radiologist marked it benign and said to redo my mammogram in a year to monitor).

She is presenting me with 3 options:
1 – I can cancel my surgery, re-do the needle biopsy on the right side, wait for the results and subsequently reschedule surgery based on what they find. This does not appeal to me at all! We already did a needle biopsy – if they feel they may not have gotten the correct spot or whatever the problem was I am not confident in doing the same thing again. What’s the definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? No. Plus this would involve even more waiting for any kind of intervention. No.
2 – I can proceed with surgery as planned but add in an incisional(?) biopsy of the right in addition to the partial mastectomy/lymph node biopsy of the left. When I go in the day prior for my seed placement they can do another 3D mammogram of the right and place a seed there as well. Now, I was a little overwhelmed when I was talking to her and don’t remember if she said incisional or excisional . . . at this point does it matter? I’m leaning toward this because if we are already planning surgery let’s go all in – let’s do a different type of biopsy on the right and see what results we get. If it’s benign like the needle biopsy great! Confirmation. If not, well then I’ll be glad we opted for option #2 and caught it so we can intervene.
3 – I can proceed with surgery as planned and do nothing with the right. Trust the first radiologist’s opinion and monitor the right breast for changes. Hard pass on this one.

She wants me to sleep on it and let her know tomorrow how I want to proceed. My surgery is planned for next week so we have time to make adjustments. At this point I’ve shown my breasts to everyone and their mother so what’s yet another mammogram? Oh side note – nothing weirder than lying facedown on an MRI table with your naked boobs hanging through holes so they can image them. It’s like a massage table, but instead of just one hole for your face, there are 2 more for each breast. I have no words.