Post Surgery Update

I ended up having my surgery last Friday, April 10th.  My surgeon called me yesterday with the final pathology report from surgery.  Remember when I said the type of breast cancer I had was called Paget's disease and that it usually shows up with an underlying breast cancer?  But remember how I was comforted by the fact that I'd just had a clear breast MRI and most of my breast tissue was already removed, so the odds of me having an underlying breast cancer was unlikely?  Well, once again the unlikely happened to me.  My surgeon informed me that not only did I have Paget's disease, but I also had an underlying area which measured just under a centimeter of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) underneath the skin that had Paget's disease.  Both Paget's disease and DCIS are non-invasive cancers, which means they are contained in the area they formed.  This surprise diagnosis leads me to the explanation of how I'm doing.

Today, I am feeling tired, sore, sad and extremely blessed.  I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but I will try and explain.  I am tired because anesthesia is really hard on my body.  It drains me of energy.  I haven't been taking prescription pain medication since Friday, but yet I feel a lot of the time like I'm in a mental fog.

As far as sore, that is probably the easiest thing to deal with.  I have been maintaining my pain relief with just Tylenol, and my last dose of that was Sunday night.  I feel just as good now having not taken Tylenol as I did while on Tylenol.

Sad is a little harder to deal with.  I choose to mutilate my perfectly good reconstruction to get rid of this cancer.  I choose to mutilate not one side, but both sides of my reconstruction because I knew if the extra tissue on one side had betrayed me, I'd never trust the other side.  So I'm sad because while before I could sometimes look at myself and sort of forget the horror that was breast cancer, that is not an option right now.  I am constantly reminded of the pain and fear that breast cancer has become for me.  I realize time will fade the scars, sadness and fear, but it will not take them away.  As long as the reminder of that sadness and fear leads me to remembering how blessed I have been through this ordeal, it will be alright.   Through it all, God has been, is and will continue to be big enough for my sadness and fears.

Lastly and mostly, I feel extremely blessed.  I had four years with excellent reconstruction that allowed me the freedom to forget sometimes that my body had been through horrific disfiguring surgery because of cancer.  I am blessed because had not the Paget's disease presented itself so suddenly out of nowhere, how much longer would have I had before the underlying DCIS turned invasive?  That Paget's skin presentation was the warning needed to address a cancer which was brewing underneath.  Once again, I feel protected from a situation that could have progressed into a much less optimistic prognosis.  So I am counting my blessings, and I'm still feeling incredibly blessed.

So what is the next step?  Well, hopefully treatment is done.  We go down to Mayo again the end of April to consult with a medical oncologist hopefully to confirm my surgeon's belief that since the cancer was non-invasive surgery was the only treatment needed.  After that, I will consult with my local medical oncologist and make sure both oncology professionals agree.  We will proceed from there.