Surgery decision (finally) -- check!

After much inner debate and agonizing, the decision has indeed been made: lumpectomy!  Which probably surprised my plastic surgeon since as of this morning I was set on doing the mastectomy+reconstruction.  After meeting with Dr. Khan again and having some serious questions about how I would handle the night in the hospital and 2 week recovery, I feel 100% confident in my decision.

The benefits of lumpectomy are many: much less invasive surgery (2 hours versus 4+ hours), much shorter recovery (days versus weeks), local anesthesia (versus general), outpatient (versus overnight in the hospital).  The one minor drawback is that I will have to do 4-5 weeks of radiation, but the only side affect of radiation is eventual fatigue, which is very, very doable. 

They will also do what they call a sentinal node dissection, which involves Dr. Khan injecting a tracer into the surrounding tissue, and finding which lymph nodes drain the tracer first, then sending those off to the pathologist to determine whether they contain any cancer cells.  There is a 10-15% chance they will have to go back in if 3 or more of those nodes test positive.  Fingers crossed I am in that 85-90% lucky ducks group!

I did learn today that I can expect AC (adriamycin & cytoxin) for sure, and possibly T (taxane) if there is lymph node involvement.  Chemo will start approximately 4 weeks after surgery, and I have been warned that I won't feel great.  And in doing a quick search on AC alone, I need to brace myself for becoming a baldy (which is pretty unfortunate because I have a weird shaped noggin -- sorry, folks).  I don't have the heart to read about what to expect from the T quite yet and am hoping that I won't ever have to worry about it.

I feel great and am handling all of this pretty well, if I do say so myself.  That being said, I know I will have good days and bad days going forward.  Regardless, any prayers and/or positive thoughts you don't mind sending my way (and Charlie's and my family's way) will be more appreciated than you can know.

Hey cancer -- you don't scare US!