Mom

[bethzylla]

Surgery went well. There's a 90% chance the cancer didn't spread. They'll know that for sure once the pathology reports come back. They had some trouble getting her pain under control at first, but now that they're ahead of it Mom's doing great. She can be up and walking around tonight, and they plan to discharge her tomorrow morning around breakfast time. I am so relieved that she most likely won't need chemo! She's already been through more than enough health issues over the course of her life.

Comments

[jenthompson.livejournal.com]

That's great news! I hope the rest of recovery goes smoothly! :)

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

Ugh, sorry. Writing this on a tablet is tricky! I hope so too. :)

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

And thank you! Apparently that first half-finished comment didn't go through like I thought. *eyeroll*

[darthcynthia.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! Thank you so much for the update -- still keeping her in my thoughts! :D

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[the-aristocat.livejournal.com]

Wonderful news!

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad! (((HUGS)))

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your mother's health issues. For some reason, a lot of your posts aren't showing up on my f-list. When I saw this one I went back and looked and there were a whole slew of them. :-/

At any rate, I'm glad to hear that the cancer is slow growing, and that her surgery went well. If she had a mastectomy, I'm guessing no radiation? Will they put her on tamoxifen or something similar? I went through this 2 years ago (stage 1a, slow-growing - unusual for my age, radiation, and now tamoxifen) so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Really glad to hear she probably won't have to do chemo. I'm guessing if her cancer is ER positive they can do an oncotype and give her a recurrance score. Hopefully it will be nice and low and she can skip chemo. I'll keep my fingers crossed her lymph nodes are clean. Sounds like they likely will be. Best wishes.

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for sharing this! You're right about the no radiation. I think they offered it as one option, but it wasn't something she wanted to do. She took the total mastectomy/chemo only if cancer had spread/Tamoxifen option instead. I'm hoping they'll have all the path reports back by her first post-op visit next week and we can find out more about it. She's in medicine herself (Labor & Delivery nurse) but I think all this is kind of overwhelming for her. Some of the details of everything are a little jumbled up (or missing, in some cases.) I'm glad I can go to her upcoming appointments with her. Between the two of us, I think we can keep it all straight. :)

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for me they said it was either lumpectomy and radiation or mastectomy. But they recommended the latter. Radiation wasn't bad at all - but in retrospect, while a mastectomy isn't a walk in the park and comes with its own set of problems, honestly it would be a relief to not worry about it coming back. So there's that.

Hopefully her lymph nodes will be clean and she won't have to deal with chemo. Tamoxifen isn't bad - the biggest side effect is hot flashes. It has a slew of other side effects, and the internet will make you think everyone has them, but it's only a very small percentage of people that get the side effects. It really varies by person and being pre or post menopausal will make it vary too.

With the hot flashes, mine have been mild and not a huge bother. (And barely noticeable the longer I've been on it - 2 years now.) I know one younger person and one older person who had bad ones, but you can try anti-depressants and that apparently helps a lot. So at least you can treat the side effect.

Other than that, it's not bad. I haven't really had any other side effects. I'm sure she'll do just fine with it.

I'm sure this is overwhelming - it was for me. And I'm glad you can go to appointments with her. It was really helpful to me to have someone else there helping to keep everything straight. But once she gets the pathology on the lymph nodes out of the way, it will be hopefully be clear sailing from here on out.

If she does have to do chemo, talk to Trystan - do you know her? She's one of the California costumers and she's doing chemo right now. (She'll be fine, her lymph nodes were clean, but she had a more aggressive nearly triple negative cancer.) She might have some advice for dealing with it. But hopefully you won't need it.

Best wishes.

[kaesha-nikovana.livejournal.com]

I'll warn her about the hot flashes. She's already gone through menopause and had some pretty epic ones for a while. 'Power surges,' she called them. LOL Maybe that'll be the only side effect she gets. I'll read up on the others just in case.

I know of Trystan and I read her blog, but I've never met her. Do you think she'd be OK with it if I contacted her with chemo questions out of the blue? The last thing I want to do is bother her when she's already going through so much. Hopefully I won't need to anyway because Mom's results will come back negative!

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

She may not get them? Again, being post menopausal is different - so check with your doctor. But definitely don't scare yourself or her by poking around too much on the internet. I did that and was terrified about taking the tamoxifen. But it hasn't been a big deal.

Trystan has been really open with everything - and I'm pretty sure she would be fine with it. If it comes to it, you can always give me your email and I can write her a note and let her contact you.

I really think there's a very good chance your mom won't need any of that info. :-)