…and NEVER come back!

Success! It’s finally gone! I finally reached the point where I was able to have the drain removed. This happened yesterday, so today I was able to resume a more “normal” life, as in I was able to have a full shower! And oh yeah…return to work too!

In other exciting news, I had my follow-up appointment today with the Surgical Oncologist, where we discussed the results of the pathology report from my surgery. The results indicated that of the 12 lymph nodes removed from my underarm, four of them were cancerous. This wasn’t really big news, as the Oncology team was pretty sure beforehand that there were at least three of these nodes that were “bad guys”.

The results also included the pathology on the primary tumour that was located in my breast. The report indicated that only 5% of the cells in the tumour itself were still cancerous. As many of you know, I like to get grades closer to 100%, but in this case, I’ll take that 5% and smile from ear to ear! When the surgeon removed this tumour he also removed some of the tissue surrounding it, called a margin. More importantly, the report indicated that the whole margin was deemed to be “clean”, that is, there were no signs of cancer in the surrounding tissue. What does all of this mean? Well, from all indications of the pathology report, not only did we make the right call in opting for the less invasive surgery of the lumpectomy, but even better, the surgeon got it all.