The biopsy on my right breast hurts - it’s closer to my chest wall and requires extra lidocaine, so I’m feeling kind of beat up when I go for my appointment with the oncologist. My breasts are wrapped tight, so the nurse doesn’t have me gown up to see the doctor - they don’t want to release the compression on my fresh wound.
One of the very first things the oncologist says is that the lumpectomy scheduled for the next week is going to be cancelled. We need to wait for the results of the second biopsy, which should take 3 -5 days, and for the results of the genetic testing, which should take 7 - 10 days. If the results of the genetic tests are positive, he’d recommend a bilateral mastectomy to greatly reduce my cancer risk.
Having triple-negative breast cancer, he tells me, means that I’ll almost certainly need to have chemotherapy. We talk a bit about the schedule - whether I’ll be able to go on our big planned vacations for the year, to Panama City Beach in April and with the whole family to Summeriest in July.
I’m kind of pissed, frankly, that they’ve taken away my surgery date. That surgery will tell me if the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes and give me more information and a slightly firmer timeline. But it’s cancelled - twice, actually - the nurse who draws my blood tells me she has already called the surgeon’s office, and while she’s drawing the blood, another nurse pops in to tell me that she’s called the surgeon’s office to cancel the surgery.
So, no answers for me, for the foreseeable future.
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