First and foremost, thank you all for the kind words and thoughts about my dad’s passing. For those who may have missed it, here is a link to the obituary.
And for the many of you acknowledging that this is just A LOT for anyone one person to deal with, you are right! And that includes logistics: memorial service planning is more complicated when you are trying to guess at surgery dates. And after momentary panic at the surgeon’s office today, we did manage to plan around both of them. In fact, surgeries will be after both services have occurred, which I think is best for both my mental and physical well-being.
So, what is involved in surgery? The first surgery is November 12th. It will be a lumpectomy (now technically referred to as breast-conserving surgery) and the goal is that the surgeon is able to get all of the remaining tumor, the calcifications, the area around the tumor, etc. during that surgery. This surgery is scheduled for November 12th.
Following that by about 10-14 days (but I don’t have the exact date yet), the plastic surgeon will do his stuff. He takes some fat from my back to fill in the tissue that was lost in the surgery. These procedures had a variety of long names, but the only part we remember is “preventative.” That is, he attempts to rebuild the breast before radiation. This surgery also requires a few weeks of recovery.
Since radiation will damage the breast and the skin more, they strongly recommend doing some plastic surgery before radiation. There are people in smaller hospitals that don’t have oncoplastic surgeons and in that case, they do plastic surgery later and they can make it work! But since I have the option, I am happy to take the one that has the best medical outcomes.
These surgeries do require time off of work for recovery, so I am preparing for transitions on that front. In addition to all the other stuff going on at the moment! Oh and following surgery? Radiation! I’ll get more details on that after surgery.
So, that’s the quick and fast update on what’s next for surgery! Thanks again all for the continuing support.
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