Mastectomy Pathology

Post Op Visit.

When my margins came back bad on my lumpectomy I had to choose chancing a second lumpectomy or opt for a mastectomy. There is so much info to go through and you need knowledgeable people to help you understand.

A second lumpectomy could still leave margins necessitating a third surgery. Also, the plastic surgeon said there would not be enough tissue to redo the reconstruction like the first time so my breasts would not be the same size and he knew I was not onboard for messing with my healthy left breast.

Mastectomy would definitely remove any and all cancer. The downside could be regret if there wasn’t anything more there than the small bit at the superior margin that would be removed.

I opted for mastectomy to avoid a possible third surgery and the peace of mind knowing it was all removed.

The outcome is only the small superior margin remained and there was no cancer anywhere else in the breast including two wayward lymph nodes that never made their way to my clavicle area as I developed.  

So … the lumpectomy would have been enough. I would be mismatched and have no definitive (to me) guarantee that there was nothing lingering. But to know there was no other cancer and those two wayward lymph nodes had no cancer was great.

I have a 3/3 appointment with the oncologist to plan for the medical part of beating cancer.  She outlined the protocol then and I guess I will learn if anything has changed in light of all that we have learned.  That 1.3 mm tumor (size of a grain of rice) was the very worst indicator of my type of cancer.  It was actually aspirated in the original biopsy and everything else has been much less toxic.  But whatever she says I need to do, I will do!